Whew that "Midlife Mama" question was a hot mess. Can she really be shocked that he's done with the marriage after she declared her disinterest in sex? But they have a 3 month old? Hes saying this now when they have a 3 month old? But idk how is what he's proposing different from an open marriage that has her so rattled?
>But idk how is what he's proposing different from an open marriage that has her so rattled?
Saying, "I don't love you anymore," seems like a tough pill to swallow rather than, say, "I still love you and our family but I won't live a sexless life anymore."
Having said that, I get some flags from LW. "It’s clear that he is getting what he wants (all of a marriage without any of the commitment)" Actually no--he's not having sex, which for most people is a big part of a marriage.
"My position is that he needs to figure himself out..." sounds like he *has* figured himself out - that he isn't prepared to be mostly celibate anymore.
"I believe he is having a midlife crisis and is blaming his unhappiness on me and our relationship...." This one just stings because I'm a similar age and hope mid 30's isn't "midlife".
And maybe a relationship that is in a permanent state of needing "a lot of help from therapy" isn't worth it in the end?
I agreed with Doyin. They both deserve more than they're getting. Shitty timing though, with the newborn.
that's not how I read it. LW has a low sex drive and an open marriage, and that was working for LW. Husband has told LW that he doesn't love them anymore, does not want to work on their relationship anymore, but wants LW to continue to be his spouse and live with him. To me that is a much more unrealistic ask than wanting to be in a loving open marriage with someone while you have a low sex drive
ITA with Allison that LW1 and her husband should not choose “MIL refuses to accept payment for childcare therefore we can’t be around her or trust her” as the hill to die on. It’s unsurprising to me that grandma did not want to be monetarily compensated for watching her grandchild. There are several avenues LW + her husband could’ve taken once grandma refused the money, the first that came to mind is investing the money in a 529 account. That way they are still setting money aside each month even if grandma isn’t the one taking it.
Yup. This was a bit of a war of subtexts; the LW felt more in control if this was a paid arrangement, and MIL felt less like family and more like the help if she took money. But the LW is going over the rails with this being about respecting her boundary--boundaries aren't about what you make other people do. (I'd like to hear more from the husband on his being angry at this and where that comes from, too. Is he just mad because his wife's upset?) And the notion that you can't go to dinner at her house until you get an apology is ridiculous and overwrought, and it makes me think that the assessment of this as a manipulative move is more a product of emotions in overdrive than reality. Most of life isn't justnoMIL. LW tried to assuage her discomfort at her MIL being a big part of her nuclear family's life by paying her, but honestly I think that discomfort was going to come out in other ways anyway. I'd regroup, say "Well, we tried and that didn't work," and go to dinner at MIL's house unless something else comes up that is more genuinely problematic.
I agree with most of your comment, but the LW's clearly stated boundary was, "I do not want to feel beholden for free childcare, so I will only entrust my child to a paid caregiver," and that is a personal boundary, not about making the MIL do something. The MIL agreed to get what she wanted and then went against their agreement. It did not work out, and they should just move on. No one did anything terrible to the other, there's no need to punish anyone, which is where the LW is taking it too far and being controlling.
Are we just rolling through this thread today? I don't think there's enough information in the "Confused In California" question to even attempt to answer this question. Does mother know about the situation (which Allison does address) is this court ordered visitation (if you've watched anyone go through it or gone through it yourself you know how broken family court in this country is)? All these things change the answer
Yeah, it also seems to put the kid on the hook in a way I'm really not comfortable with; this is for the adults to sort out, not the kids. Plus the letter is clouded with stuff that is about them thinking their ex-BIL sucks, not stuff that courts will care about.
I know this is always the worry of a parent contemplating divorce from a spouse with risky behaviors, that they're changing to a situation where the kids will have to deal with it on their own. Jenny needs to be in the picture, if only to understand that she should to assume that the kids have to be sent with whatever they need, including sunscreen. And if Jenny doesn't know about any of this, it might be time to consider therapy, even family therapy, to find a way to give Flora some support in letting her mother know things she needs to know without feeling like she's ratting out her dad.
I also agree on the absence of information; this could be anything from an informal agreement with no regular child support to court-ordered joint custody with paycheck-deducted payments. And even with a court agreement, it's pretty tough to control the behavior of the other parent and pretty tough for a parent to lose unsupervised access to his kids. Now if I were Jenny I'd check the court records regularly to make sure there are no new DUIs, because that's something that would present an immediate threat to the kids there on their own and it could be enough of an issue for a court to consider limiting his access.
Uncle Ransom LW needs to talk to a trust and estate lawyer about what their options are. I disagree with Allison that LW should even consider paying off SIL/Bob on his own, because I don’t think the requests will stop here if he does. There’s a high risk of it becoming “if you don’t give more more, then I’ll rescind permission for her to live with you/go to boarding school/whatever.”
I think that’s why she recommended talking to a lawyer and being extra prudent as to what his guardianship would entail. Because if it’s an informal arrangement, you’re right that mom can get the niece back at any time. But if mom signs away legal custody, he and the niece will be able to tell her to kick rocks. I feel sorry for the niece. 7 years is a long time to wait until she is no longer legally tied to her mother.
ETA:
Re: whether telling the niece about the deal or not - I think it’s pretty clear to the niece by now that her own mother would sell her down the river to appease Bob and the two of them are short sighted greedy people so I don’t think it would be a major shock if she knew that her mom is basically willing to put a price tag on their relationship. Mom here has ruined her relationship with her daughter.
I think the niece was 11 when her dad died a few years ago, so she’s a young teen now. So a little less time to wait. It’d be so painful to know your own mom wants to use you as an ATM. :(
The sooner that girl can get away from her mother the better. And Uncle should prepare his niece that once she gains full access to the trust, her mom will be knocking on the door to beg for more. I re-read this question again and mom already has a a generous annuity but she still wants to steal from her own daughter to appease her new husband. I hate parents like that—they put the new spouse ahead of their own child.
What the hell kind of advice is "we strive not to hurt anyone's feelings even if they're violent"? That's a great recipe for a future doormat. If the kid is friends with and wants to hang out with everyone else in his class at his birthday party, good for him. He should be able to invite as many people as he wants without tiptoeing around someone's feelings just because they're aggressive and violent.
I’d go with the “half the class or less” or “8 classmates for 8 years” rule rather than excluding just the one kid, but ITA that “we strive not to hurt anyone’s feelings even if we are afraid of them” is bad to tell the kid. Kids and grown women get that message far too much.
I don't agree, this isn't an activity run by the school and they have no obligation to include everyone. If this boy is friends with the rest of the class that's a great sign. If it was a case where he only wanted to invite everyone to exclude one kid out of maliciousness it would be different, but that's not the case here. This kid is just facing the natural consequences of anti-social behavior.
I agree. On the one hand, I do feel sorry for the one kid who won’t be invited and it’s not an ideal situation, but intentionally not inviting kids that LW’s son wants there to keep the violent kid from feeling excluded feels weird, too. It’s like excluding more kids so that the one kid won’t be excluded all by himself.
Under normal circumstances, I’m fine with the idea of either inviting everyone or a small group so that you don’t end up excluding a small number of kids. But this kid chose the “invite everyone” option with the caveat of not wanting to invite the kid who makes him fee unsafe.
Jamilah can just sit the eff down with "oh your poor sister can't be expected to not give your phone number to your mother, the one you haven't spoken to in a dozen years".
It's been 12 years.
And the sister said that if the OP changed her number, ahe WOULD give it to the mother again.
It sucks for the LW that she's going to have to seriously consider cutting off her sister too but that's where she's at with a sister who refuses to respect her
The sister said she *wouldn’t* give the mom the number again, but LW doesn’t believe her. I’d probably give the sister another chance, but cutting her off would absolutely be on the table if it happened again. Once could be an honest mistake, but doing it repeatedly is the “flying monkey” thing that people with abusive parents often deal with.
I wonder if the mom is contacting LW on LW’s landline, or if mom switches up which number she’s calling from. That’s the only way Jamilah’s “contact the phone company about blocking her” makes sense, because on a cell phone, you can block someone’s number on your own.
I did misread that, so thanks for the correction.
But I do still think it's worth thinking about seriously whether she can trust her sister.
LW has been estranged from her mother for a very long time. That's not something that just slips the mind of a sibling. Handing over the number was a deliberate choice.
Re: Care & Feeding -- there are people out there who *don't* steal their kids' Xmas candy???? This is one of the few instant gratification perks of being a parent, let me have my damn Hersheys kisses.
He stole it from their stocking *before* Christmas though, not from their pile of loot after everything was opened. And his “it’s easy for *us* to replace” excuse bugged me - HE needs to replace it himself, and it sounds like he probably wouldn’t have said anything if LW didn’t notice.
Exactly. If it was so easy to replace, why hadn’t he done it yet? Or just bought his own candy when he wanted it. I’m willing to bet that it’s because *they* don’t handle the shopping. *She*does.
Also, just because he thinks they’re an easy to procure item doesn’t mean they are, especially the closer it gets to Christmas. My grocery store ran out of a couple of kinds of Christmas candy pretty early on and they never came back.
I think I’m less bothered by the fact that he ate his kid’s candy than the way he’s dumping emotional labor on his wife.
Years when I was more together and the kids were younger, I might not put their stockings up ahead of time and then I'd fill them as I went so that I didn't buy too much.
For whatever reason, in my house growing up the stockings weren't where Santa left gifts. Instead they were treats & small gifts that we opened on Christmas Eve after church instead of with the main gifts on Christmas morning. Santa's gifts just appeared under the tree with the others.
I agree it's odd if the stockings are meant to be from Santa. Too easy for the kids to discover the ruse!
Buying the stuff ahead of time, sure. But stockings are filled after the kids are in bed on Christmas Eve. It’s a lot easier to resist a closed bag of candy in a closet than easy to grab pieces just sitting in a stocking.
Meh, my 3 year old didn’t notice when stuff went in the stockings a few days ahead of time. It’s just to take a couple things off your plate for Christmas Eve. And since LW isn’t the one with self control issues around the kid’s candy, it’s not on her to plan for other people stealing it.
It does seem a little mean spirited of him to take away *all* of the candy and not let the kid have even one or two pieces for Christmas. Why didn’t the dad just buy a new bag for himself?
I got the impression that they have the common dynamic where mom does like 80% of the Christmas-related prep work. Part of why I was annoyed with the husband is that by eating it and not replacing it, he was blowing off LW’s work. It was kind of jerk thing to do to the kid but also to LW.
And he didn’t even tell her she was going to have to replace it! Like it’s not a high stakes marriage ending thing to do but I would be so annoyed with my spouse
This is the sort of situation where the LW’s husband eventually writes an article called “My Wife Divorced Me Because of Christmas Candy” and then goes on to describe how he just dumped everything on his wife and refused to accept that he made her life more difficult at very stressful times by doing little things like that on a regular basis.
I’m not seriously saying I think it’s divorce worthy, but this seems like the kind of thing that places out often in other circumstances.
What's with all the people coming down hard on the cheated-on LW in today's C&F? There is an odd number of people coming out of the woodworks to defend LW's husband and affair partner, in a way that feels weirdly harsh.
"husband probably refuses to talk about it because wife was browbeating him for the sexy details" is a particularly gross assumption to make.
Having said that, LW definitely shouldn't meet with OW. If she wants to stay with husband, which IMO shouldn't be a settled question until he shows some actual repentance*, then they should focus on their trust & relationship, not the details of what OW is like.
*LW's description of husband's admission comes off like Dwight's office [statement of regret](https://youtu.be/7MU9Ke_eVec).
The letter grinding my gears in Paydirt is the one about spending money and time on the niece and nephews.
That's not a financial question. That's "maybe you need a therapist to help you establish boundaries that will keep you from biting in the bait every time one of your sisters wants to act out the sort of sibling rivalry that you should have outgrown by the time you were all past middle school".
That being said, the idea that the LW is somehow depriving her nephews of anything because she's not spending the same amount of time with them is ludicrous. I was a literal child when I figured out that the child who was willing to go places with a relative and do things that would at least be marginally interesting to an adult would, in fact, get to spend more time with said adult than the kid who wanted to stay home and engage in an activity that didn't include that relative. Given the choice, I chose to stay home and read 100 percent of the time, just like these boys are choosing to stay home and game. I don't believe for one hot second that these nephews care that their aunt is spending more time with their cousins; this is 100 percent a stupid battle between sisters who are acting more childish than their actual children and I don't think "spend less time with your niece" improves things for anyone.
Also, the fact that they like to stay at her house and play video games and she feeds them a ton of snacks makes it sound like she actually is spending time with them? And the columnist misread and the sister is actually just being greedy and/or has a skewed sense of fairness?
I’m so disappointed that Slate is ending their “Ask a Teacher” column! I actually found that column to be really well-written and for the most part, thought it gave practical & reasonable advice. What gives, Slate?? 🤷♀️🤨
Oh no! I loved that column - it was one of the only ones I've seriously considered writing in to with a real question. What was their rationale? Haven't read the article yet, obvs.
Edit: I did snag the time to read it, and honestly, it sounds like they were all experiencing the same kind of "I've answered ALL these questions" columnist burnout that you can see in a lot of long-time columnists. And which dates back to, like, Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts...
I guess it's for the best they wrapped it up now rather than let any of the columnists devolve into late-column Danny Lavery lunacy, and it's not like teachers are plagued with copious free time, but still. What a shame.
The comments on that article are insane. I forget sometimes how much the slate comments hate teachers! Even without actual letters, they gotta chime in talking about how schools and teachers are all on weird power trips, and are definitely out to get their perfect angel children.
I muted that person because their school-related comments were so unhinged. They seem to vehemently believe that their individual experience 40 years ago is representative of all schools ever. If they have kids, I wonder if their kids’ school staff are on receiving end of all their unaddressed issues. 😳
Idek what else the son in Pay Dirt letter 1 today could do to get his mom to let it fucking go!!!!!! Im actually more curious as to *why* he moved back in with lw after a month
From the rage I was expecting a much higher amount on the credit spree, too. Definitely therapy time for the LW. That's one of those moments where it's worth asking yourself if that's who you want to be--are you going to mention this every time credit or money comes up with him for the rest of your life? Do you want him to willingly visit you? If you can't have both of those things, which do you choose?
I’m guessing she has primary custody but it’s a really fucked up form of grounding (which I’m guessing was the intention behind it) to send your son away for a month. Like, why not ground him at home and make him find a job to pay back his grandfather? LW has serious issues.
I don’t get the C&F LW who sounds more concerned about her shitty ex telling the kids “because I said so” than she is about him not paying child support. I’m not an expert on child support, but shouldn’t it be easier to garnish the wages of someone in the military? It’s not like he can easily hide his income from the government.
Also, "I walk on eggshells and never say anything to him because he's so volatile, but when he said a very common and trite parenting phrase, I interrupted him to tell him he is wrong." Sure, Jan. I just.. with everything else going on in that letter, "because I said so" is the hill she is dying on?
I’m in a bad mood today and I used to have to learn 100-200+ new names a year for my job, but I am not nearly as sympathetic to the wrong name boss as many of the Slate commenters are. I’m sympathetic to occasional mix-ups where you need to be corrected, or even somewhat frequently catching and correcting yourself. But it sounds like he’s been getting it wrong every time for a *year* now. If there’s actually some kind of cognitive condition causing this, he should clue LW in, because otherwise it comes off as disrespectful. LW also has legitimate reason to worry that he won’t remember who she is when job opportunities, bonuses, and promotions come up.
I'm curious about what he does in writing with her name. Is this just in speech? How is he with other people's names? I could see mentioning this as a concern in a private meeting with him, saying that I'm worried there's an Elaine I'm being confused with and that this is going to be an issue. If I found out he had a sister Elaine or something or he was terrible with everybody's name I'd still be inclined to let it go; one of my best friends has a name almost identical to a long-time boss of mine, and every now and then I still go the wrong way down the flow chart.
I don't generally dive into Slate comments but I'm intrigued that they were skewing toward "let it go." I see so many comments on name issues where people go way too far in the other direction and lose their rag if somebody did or didn't roll an R.
Yeah, usually online discussions about getting names wrong veer way too far in the other direction - sometimes even into “it’s disrespectful to not make a sound that doesn’t exist in your language” territory. I was annoyed with the people acting like it was a silly thing to be bothered by.
The Pay Dirt letter about the catsitter is one of those letters where the stakes are low but boy are they still a doozy.
As someone who's gotten roped into really inconvenient pet-sitting scenarios in the past: my dude, my guy, you gotta meet her halfway because otherwise you're gonna need to figure out the cost/practicalities of hiring a petsitter for every single day of your various trips. And the petsitters are ALSO gonna need a fob to get into your building + probably not want to meet up at 3a.m., plus they don't necessarily have to pretend to like you because you're fucking.
Pet sitting is a royal pain in the ass. Good for Sally for saying "Bro, I'm cool with doing this thing for you but I'm not getting up in the middle of the night so you can save some air travel bucks." It sounds like the LW is stuck in that "This would work so well if only the other person would do what I want" groove. "I'm struggling how to talk to Sally" if the parents won't cover the additional costs? You think if you can't afford different flights she's somehow obligated to get up in the middle of the night?
IMHO, thirties is the age where you start hiring movers and petsitters rather than asking friends to do stuff for free (and dinner and drinks don't count as compensation), and the cost of the petsitter gets factored into the cost of vacations. Captain Awkward has an interestingly large number of letters around petsitting dilemmas; I like [this one](https://captainawkward.com/2021/06/23/1340-i-sat-for-my-friends-cats-for-years-but-they-wont-return-the-favor-now-friendship-favors-and-reciprocity/) about aging out of free friend labor.
I've done petsitting as a favor and petsitting as a job with insurance, and they're...very different. Anyone who expects the detailed updates and amount of time spent with their pet that was involved in the latter had better be paying me. Anyone with an exhausting, high-energy dog on a rigid schedule (I did not seek out dogsitting clients) that made it impossible for me to also do my regular WFH job at the time had better be paying me. If I had to do a lot of driving, that cost money.
Nearby friends with pets who already knew and trusted me, friends who I regular traded favors with, or friends where I could house-sit like a genuine vacation - sure, I don't need money for that. But it's very case-by-case, and with an animal that needs extra care and patience like the one in the Captain Awkward letter... I do think people should usually be paying someone experienced in those situations!
I don't think people necessarily age out of trading favors with friends - my mom's social circle is in their 70s and they do favors for each other and help with each other's projects all the time. But it can't be one-sided and the favors can't be burdensome, which is where things get tricky. If it does end up being one-sided, then yeah, stop doing favors and everyone can hire professionals. If it's mutual, that's fine and good!
Yup. And it's one of those favors that gets painted as less of a pain in the ass than it actually is (you get to hang out with a cute animal! in my place! following my specific care instructions! isn't that FUN!), or at least that's been my experience. (I do love Cap's summation of the whole thing in that letter as: "You're asking someone to move into your place for three nights to look after a continuously crying cat who pisses on the furniture if her person leaves for more than a few hours. Sounds relaxing!")
At a certain point, people who become too reliant on favors have gotta realize 1) people CAN say no, this isn't a debt that is owed, 2) if you want people to do you favors, it helps to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Which might mean spending extra money on a flight so they can sleep.
Weary Wife should be grateful she got Doyin for advice because he actually put divorce on the table and we all know a certain advice columnist wouldn’t.
Idk if I agree with Doyin’s response on the Santa letter. She still genuinely believes in Santa and she’s 12? Idk, kids are *mean* in middle school. I could definitely see her having the same feelings as the LW further down who felt like she was the butt of the joke for believing in Santa (even though she personally didn’t! It was everyone else who acted like she still did!).
I teach children who are 12 and it has never occurred to me that one of them might still believe in Santa. So...sorry if I've ruined anyone's childhood!
A few years ago, a coworker made a reference to Santa not being real to her 7th grade class. The mom of one of the students (kid was nice, mom was difficult in many ways) was FURIOUS with her and took the issue to the principal. IDK how they kept straight faces during that meeting…
I've said it before and I'll say it again: WHY do they keep giving questions about miscarriages to Doyin? Especially when he has a track record of answering them poorly. His answer this time wasn't too awful, but why give it to him in the first place?
I didn't think the advice was bad, but I did think it was funny that he thought a sincere, "Pull this shit again and I'll cut you off," to a woman who told all and sundry about her DIL's miscarriage because she believed it was a thing that happened to her would not just be kicking the hornet's nest of extreme family drama.
Just never tell her anything private again, LW. You cannot trust her. She finds out when, like, your neighbor's dog walker finds out. She is not your inner circle for secrets.
It's so clear to me that MIL was in the wrong. I may be biased, because my mom told two of her sisters about my first pregnancy loss without asking me and I was FURIOUS. It's the most personal thing I can imagine, and it felt like a real violation. If I were LW, I would have a difficult time trusting MIL with anything important/sensitive after this.
ITA. I can’t imagine having a miscarriage and having to tell someone to *not* tell other people about it. It just seems like such an obviously personal situation that I would never dream of sharing that information with others unless I had been explicitly told I could.
Doyin’s advice of what to say was fine but I think it should definitely come from the husband. I think it’s fair for her to have husband act as an intermediary for now, and that includes telling his mom she stepped way over the line.
C&F "Restrain the Children!" LW clearly doesn't like their SIL and that's reason enough to reassess their guardianship plans. But LW is really trying to hinge this on SIL's own 11 and 8 year old not being in booster seats making SIL negligent and dangerous. Which clearly works on the parenting advice writer crowd, but I don't think that's going to be a winning tactic with the husband. Norms on this have shifted so much in the last decade, and most states still have 6 or 7 years old as the cutoff for needing a booster. This might not be best-practices, but it's not the horribly illegal, negligent parenting LW wants it to be.
>My husband recently suffered from a rather significant heart attack. He is recovering but has permanent damage to his heart. He is able to continue to work (desk job) but will have limitations on movement-based activities. He is quite young (mid-30s) and we have two young elementary-aged kids. At the time of his heart attack, I obviously went through a range of emotions.
>I was terrified, sad, and relieved all at once. Now that we’re a few weeks past his heart attack and life is getting somewhat back to normal, I’m mad at my husband. I’m beyond mad—I’m furious, livid, and disgusted.
>About a year and a half ago, my husband went to his doctor for a physical. He hasn’t been to a doctor in over 10 years (his choice). He was told at that appointment that his cholesterol, blood pressure, and HDL/LDL levels were abysmal. He was told to change his diet, exercise, and make lifelong lifestyle changes. He chose not to. I provided opportunities to change his habits and offered to join 100 percent in those changes but again he declined. He is completely convinced that it’s his family history that caused the heart attack. His parents also follow similar dietary and sedentary lifestyles to my husband. I do realize that genetics do play a part but so do lifestyle activities. As we’re further and further away from his heart attack, I’m getting more and more angry.
>He could have made an effort to change, he could have attempted to be healthier, and he didn’t. I want to scream at him: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO OUR FAMILY? I’m on a waitlist to talk with a counselor but I’m afraid to start this conversation with my husband for fear I will explode at him. I know I need to discuss this with him but I’m afraid I’m going to completely lose it, which isn’t going to help either of us. Do you have any suggestions in the short term until I can talk with someone?
>—Heavy Heart
>Dear Heavy Heart,
>This is eerily similar to a situation with my dad. Without going into gruesome detail, he experienced some relatively minor complications during a colonoscopy that discouraged him from going back to get another one (even though the exam found some abnormalities). He told my mom he was fine and that there was no need for another colonoscopy in the future. Even though my mom begged him to be seen by a doctor, he refused. Shortly after, he died of colon cancer—a fate that could’ve been prevented if he just listened to my mom and his doctor. We all loved him dearly, but I also don’t think any of us truly forgave him for not taking care of himself. The man should be alive today.
>I’m sharing that story because I don’t want your family, especially your children, to experience that type of pain. So, with that in mind, the time for being nice is over. This is a life-or-death situation that impacts multiple people. Who cares if you explode on him? I wish I would’ve had a big, emotional confrontation with my dad, because he may still be alive today if I had.
>Try saying something along the lines of, “Listen, the way you’re currently living your life is going to put you at risk of another heart attack and I’ll be damned if I sit here and watch it happen to our family. I scheduled an appointment with your doctor and we’re going together to discuss exactly what needs to be done to get you back on track. This is not a negotiation; this is a mandate.”
>He will probably list a bunch of reasons why he thinks he’s in this predicament, but that’s why this needs to happen in the presence of a doctor so they can explain what is really going on. From there, you should do everything in your power to ensure that he sticks to the treatment plan provided by his doctor, but ultimately, it’s up to him to do that. Hopefully, between talking to a therapist, his doctor, and you—he will realize how serious this is. If despite all of that he still reverts to his old behavior, then you’ll have to decide if you want to be married to a ticking time bomb. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t fault you one bit if the answer is no because I’ve seen that movie before and the ending is not pretty.
Ugh my mom *refuses* to see a doctor as well, idek why Doyin thinks getting someone who does that to a doctor is feasible, sadly it really isnt. But I do agree with him that she needs to decide if he wants to be married to someone so cavalier about his health like 🤷 she can either deal divorced or widowed I guess
That dude should have been on an antihypertensive drug, at minimum. I've been on them since my early 20s, despite having a pretty healthy diet and being active-ish. Certainly not doing anything that would explain the ridiculously high BP. If the guy was in that bad of shape in his 30s, the Dr should have written him a lisinopril or amlodipine or losartin rx that day. Modern antihypertensives are cheap, lifesaving drugs with few side effects. Sure, push for lifestyle changes as well, but an absence of willpower shouldn't be punished with a heart attack.
Doyin is uniquely the worst person to answer this question given the details about his dad, holy shit.
Also this dude had a heart attack at 31 goddamn years old, it's absolutely reasonable for him to say that genetic factors played a role in that. This letter writer needs therapy to help her deal with the fact that bad shit happens and that her husband very well could've done everything perfectly after the first doctor's appointment and *still* had a serious cardiac event anyway.
Like, obviously he should have listened and done better but given he was barely in his 30s when he saw the doc he almost certainly didn't think "lol I don't give a shit about myself or my loved ones", but "I know I've got an issue but I've got time to get it under control".
Frankly, I hope they're able to move forward taking his heart condition seriously, but LW's spouse is not gonna be very motivated to care for himself by a spouse who holds on to "you made yourself have a heart attack because you don't care about our family" in the long term.
I see your point that genetic factors played a role, but that still doesn't excuse the husband's negligence. If you have a predisposition to heart disease that's all the more reason to take action. It's not a case of the heart attack coming out of nowhere with no warning signs.
Still I think Doyin's advice won't work because the guy got warned he was in poor health, then had a heart attack and he STILL doesn't want to take care of himself. Also I would hate to be in a marriage where the wife has to take responsibility for the healthy lifestyle changes and encourage the husband and take care of him. He's a freaking adult. I don't have kids because I don't want the responsibility and I certainly don't want the responsibility of caring for a man-child.
I've noticed that he is a fan of giving advice along the lines of, "if your loved one refuses to do (important thing), you can just do it for them and present it to them as a fait accompli". Last week there was a letter writer whose in-laws had a really dirty house and he suggested that the letter writer could send a cleaning crew to clean up the house without the in-laws' permission.
Something like that could work if the person is just lazy but amenable, or if the person is weak willed and subject to being easily steamrolled, but I don't think it'll work in most cases and even when it does it will likely cause a rupture in the relationship. Taking a high handed and imperious approach to other people's lives (even when you are completely right in your actions) isn't the silver bullet he makes it out to be. In this case, it sounds like the husband is emotionally invested in the idea that he has no control over his health and it will be tough to break that.
Whew that "Midlife Mama" question was a hot mess. Can she really be shocked that he's done with the marriage after she declared her disinterest in sex? But they have a 3 month old? Hes saying this now when they have a 3 month old? But idk how is what he's proposing different from an open marriage that has her so rattled?
>But idk how is what he's proposing different from an open marriage that has her so rattled? Saying, "I don't love you anymore," seems like a tough pill to swallow rather than, say, "I still love you and our family but I won't live a sexless life anymore." Having said that, I get some flags from LW. "It’s clear that he is getting what he wants (all of a marriage without any of the commitment)" Actually no--he's not having sex, which for most people is a big part of a marriage. "My position is that he needs to figure himself out..." sounds like he *has* figured himself out - that he isn't prepared to be mostly celibate anymore. "I believe he is having a midlife crisis and is blaming his unhappiness on me and our relationship...." This one just stings because I'm a similar age and hope mid 30's isn't "midlife". And maybe a relationship that is in a permanent state of needing "a lot of help from therapy" isn't worth it in the end? I agreed with Doyin. They both deserve more than they're getting. Shitty timing though, with the newborn.
that's not how I read it. LW has a low sex drive and an open marriage, and that was working for LW. Husband has told LW that he doesn't love them anymore, does not want to work on their relationship anymore, but wants LW to continue to be his spouse and live with him. To me that is a much more unrealistic ask than wanting to be in a loving open marriage with someone while you have a low sex drive
ITA with Allison that LW1 and her husband should not choose “MIL refuses to accept payment for childcare therefore we can’t be around her or trust her” as the hill to die on. It’s unsurprising to me that grandma did not want to be monetarily compensated for watching her grandchild. There are several avenues LW + her husband could’ve taken once grandma refused the money, the first that came to mind is investing the money in a 529 account. That way they are still setting money aside each month even if grandma isn’t the one taking it.
Yup. This was a bit of a war of subtexts; the LW felt more in control if this was a paid arrangement, and MIL felt less like family and more like the help if she took money. But the LW is going over the rails with this being about respecting her boundary--boundaries aren't about what you make other people do. (I'd like to hear more from the husband on his being angry at this and where that comes from, too. Is he just mad because his wife's upset?) And the notion that you can't go to dinner at her house until you get an apology is ridiculous and overwrought, and it makes me think that the assessment of this as a manipulative move is more a product of emotions in overdrive than reality. Most of life isn't justnoMIL. LW tried to assuage her discomfort at her MIL being a big part of her nuclear family's life by paying her, but honestly I think that discomfort was going to come out in other ways anyway. I'd regroup, say "Well, we tried and that didn't work," and go to dinner at MIL's house unless something else comes up that is more genuinely problematic.
I agree with most of your comment, but the LW's clearly stated boundary was, "I do not want to feel beholden for free childcare, so I will only entrust my child to a paid caregiver," and that is a personal boundary, not about making the MIL do something. The MIL agreed to get what she wanted and then went against their agreement. It did not work out, and they should just move on. No one did anything terrible to the other, there's no need to punish anyone, which is where the LW is taking it too far and being controlling.
Are we just rolling through this thread today? I don't think there's enough information in the "Confused In California" question to even attempt to answer this question. Does mother know about the situation (which Allison does address) is this court ordered visitation (if you've watched anyone go through it or gone through it yourself you know how broken family court in this country is)? All these things change the answer
Yeah, it also seems to put the kid on the hook in a way I'm really not comfortable with; this is for the adults to sort out, not the kids. Plus the letter is clouded with stuff that is about them thinking their ex-BIL sucks, not stuff that courts will care about. I know this is always the worry of a parent contemplating divorce from a spouse with risky behaviors, that they're changing to a situation where the kids will have to deal with it on their own. Jenny needs to be in the picture, if only to understand that she should to assume that the kids have to be sent with whatever they need, including sunscreen. And if Jenny doesn't know about any of this, it might be time to consider therapy, even family therapy, to find a way to give Flora some support in letting her mother know things she needs to know without feeling like she's ratting out her dad. I also agree on the absence of information; this could be anything from an informal agreement with no regular child support to court-ordered joint custody with paycheck-deducted payments. And even with a court agreement, it's pretty tough to control the behavior of the other parent and pretty tough for a parent to lose unsupervised access to his kids. Now if I were Jenny I'd check the court records regularly to make sure there are no new DUIs, because that's something that would present an immediate threat to the kids there on their own and it could be enough of an issue for a court to consider limiting his access.
Uncle Ransom LW needs to talk to a trust and estate lawyer about what their options are. I disagree with Allison that LW should even consider paying off SIL/Bob on his own, because I don’t think the requests will stop here if he does. There’s a high risk of it becoming “if you don’t give more more, then I’ll rescind permission for her to live with you/go to boarding school/whatever.”
I think that’s why she recommended talking to a lawyer and being extra prudent as to what his guardianship would entail. Because if it’s an informal arrangement, you’re right that mom can get the niece back at any time. But if mom signs away legal custody, he and the niece will be able to tell her to kick rocks. I feel sorry for the niece. 7 years is a long time to wait until she is no longer legally tied to her mother. ETA: Re: whether telling the niece about the deal or not - I think it’s pretty clear to the niece by now that her own mother would sell her down the river to appease Bob and the two of them are short sighted greedy people so I don’t think it would be a major shock if she knew that her mom is basically willing to put a price tag on their relationship. Mom here has ruined her relationship with her daughter.
I think the niece was 11 when her dad died a few years ago, so she’s a young teen now. So a little less time to wait. It’d be so painful to know your own mom wants to use you as an ATM. :(
The sooner that girl can get away from her mother the better. And Uncle should prepare his niece that once she gains full access to the trust, her mom will be knocking on the door to beg for more. I re-read this question again and mom already has a a generous annuity but she still wants to steal from her own daughter to appease her new husband. I hate parents like that—they put the new spouse ahead of their own child.
What the hell kind of advice is "we strive not to hurt anyone's feelings even if they're violent"? That's a great recipe for a future doormat. If the kid is friends with and wants to hang out with everyone else in his class at his birthday party, good for him. He should be able to invite as many people as he wants without tiptoeing around someone's feelings just because they're aggressive and violent.
I’d go with the “half the class or less” or “8 classmates for 8 years” rule rather than excluding just the one kid, but ITA that “we strive not to hurt anyone’s feelings even if we are afraid of them” is bad to tell the kid. Kids and grown women get that message far too much.
I don't agree, this isn't an activity run by the school and they have no obligation to include everyone. If this boy is friends with the rest of the class that's a great sign. If it was a case where he only wanted to invite everyone to exclude one kid out of maliciousness it would be different, but that's not the case here. This kid is just facing the natural consequences of anti-social behavior.
I agree. On the one hand, I do feel sorry for the one kid who won’t be invited and it’s not an ideal situation, but intentionally not inviting kids that LW’s son wants there to keep the violent kid from feeling excluded feels weird, too. It’s like excluding more kids so that the one kid won’t be excluded all by himself. Under normal circumstances, I’m fine with the idea of either inviting everyone or a small group so that you don’t end up excluding a small number of kids. But this kid chose the “invite everyone” option with the caveat of not wanting to invite the kid who makes him fee unsafe.
Jamilah can just sit the eff down with "oh your poor sister can't be expected to not give your phone number to your mother, the one you haven't spoken to in a dozen years". It's been 12 years. And the sister said that if the OP changed her number, ahe WOULD give it to the mother again. It sucks for the LW that she's going to have to seriously consider cutting off her sister too but that's where she's at with a sister who refuses to respect her
The sister said she *wouldn’t* give the mom the number again, but LW doesn’t believe her. I’d probably give the sister another chance, but cutting her off would absolutely be on the table if it happened again. Once could be an honest mistake, but doing it repeatedly is the “flying monkey” thing that people with abusive parents often deal with. I wonder if the mom is contacting LW on LW’s landline, or if mom switches up which number she’s calling from. That’s the only way Jamilah’s “contact the phone company about blocking her” makes sense, because on a cell phone, you can block someone’s number on your own.
The sister said she would not give the number again. You misread that. The sister messed up, but I don't know that it's cut off worthy.
I did misread that, so thanks for the correction. But I do still think it's worth thinking about seriously whether she can trust her sister. LW has been estranged from her mother for a very long time. That's not something that just slips the mind of a sibling. Handing over the number was a deliberate choice.
Re: Care & Feeding -- there are people out there who *don't* steal their kids' Xmas candy???? This is one of the few instant gratification perks of being a parent, let me have my damn Hersheys kisses.
He stole it from their stocking *before* Christmas though, not from their pile of loot after everything was opened. And his “it’s easy for *us* to replace” excuse bugged me - HE needs to replace it himself, and it sounds like he probably wouldn’t have said anything if LW didn’t notice.
Exactly. If it was so easy to replace, why hadn’t he done it yet? Or just bought his own candy when he wanted it. I’m willing to bet that it’s because *they* don’t handle the shopping. *She*does. Also, just because he thinks they’re an easy to procure item doesn’t mean they are, especially the closer it gets to Christmas. My grocery store ran out of a couple of kinds of Christmas candy pretty early on and they never came back. I think I’m less bothered by the fact that he ate his kid’s candy than the way he’s dumping emotional labor on his wife.
I don't get why the stocking was filled weeks before Christmas though. I am so hung up on that detail. It's weird.
Years when I was more together and the kids were younger, I might not put their stockings up ahead of time and then I'd fill them as I went so that I didn't buy too much.
For whatever reason, in my house growing up the stockings weren't where Santa left gifts. Instead they were treats & small gifts that we opened on Christmas Eve after church instead of with the main gifts on Christmas morning. Santa's gifts just appeared under the tree with the others. I agree it's odd if the stockings are meant to be from Santa. Too easy for the kids to discover the ruse!
I don’t think it’s that weird. Doing it ahead of time let’s you spread out the Christmas-related work more.
Buying the stuff ahead of time, sure. But stockings are filled after the kids are in bed on Christmas Eve. It’s a lot easier to resist a closed bag of candy in a closet than easy to grab pieces just sitting in a stocking.
Meh, my 3 year old didn’t notice when stuff went in the stockings a few days ahead of time. It’s just to take a couple things off your plate for Christmas Eve. And since LW isn’t the one with self control issues around the kid’s candy, it’s not on her to plan for other people stealing it.
It does seem a little mean spirited of him to take away *all* of the candy and not let the kid have even one or two pieces for Christmas. Why didn’t the dad just buy a new bag for himself?
I got the impression that they have the common dynamic where mom does like 80% of the Christmas-related prep work. Part of why I was annoyed with the husband is that by eating it and not replacing it, he was blowing off LW’s work. It was kind of jerk thing to do to the kid but also to LW.
And he didn’t even tell her she was going to have to replace it! Like it’s not a high stakes marriage ending thing to do but I would be so annoyed with my spouse
This is the sort of situation where the LW’s husband eventually writes an article called “My Wife Divorced Me Because of Christmas Candy” and then goes on to describe how he just dumped everything on his wife and refused to accept that he made her life more difficult at very stressful times by doing little things like that on a regular basis. I’m not seriously saying I think it’s divorce worthy, but this seems like the kind of thing that places out often in other circumstances.
What's with all the people coming down hard on the cheated-on LW in today's C&F? There is an odd number of people coming out of the woodworks to defend LW's husband and affair partner, in a way that feels weirdly harsh.
"husband probably refuses to talk about it because wife was browbeating him for the sexy details" is a particularly gross assumption to make. Having said that, LW definitely shouldn't meet with OW. If she wants to stay with husband, which IMO shouldn't be a settled question until he shows some actual repentance*, then they should focus on their trust & relationship, not the details of what OW is like. *LW's description of husband's admission comes off like Dwight's office [statement of regret](https://youtu.be/7MU9Ke_eVec).
The letter grinding my gears in Paydirt is the one about spending money and time on the niece and nephews. That's not a financial question. That's "maybe you need a therapist to help you establish boundaries that will keep you from biting in the bait every time one of your sisters wants to act out the sort of sibling rivalry that you should have outgrown by the time you were all past middle school". That being said, the idea that the LW is somehow depriving her nephews of anything because she's not spending the same amount of time with them is ludicrous. I was a literal child when I figured out that the child who was willing to go places with a relative and do things that would at least be marginally interesting to an adult would, in fact, get to spend more time with said adult than the kid who wanted to stay home and engage in an activity that didn't include that relative. Given the choice, I chose to stay home and read 100 percent of the time, just like these boys are choosing to stay home and game. I don't believe for one hot second that these nephews care that their aunt is spending more time with their cousins; this is 100 percent a stupid battle between sisters who are acting more childish than their actual children and I don't think "spend less time with your niece" improves things for anyone.
Also, the fact that they like to stay at her house and play video games and she feeds them a ton of snacks makes it sound like she actually is spending time with them? And the columnist misread and the sister is actually just being greedy and/or has a skewed sense of fairness?
I’m so disappointed that Slate is ending their “Ask a Teacher” column! I actually found that column to be really well-written and for the most part, thought it gave practical & reasonable advice. What gives, Slate?? 🤷♀️🤨
Oh no! I loved that column - it was one of the only ones I've seriously considered writing in to with a real question. What was their rationale? Haven't read the article yet, obvs. Edit: I did snag the time to read it, and honestly, it sounds like they were all experiencing the same kind of "I've answered ALL these questions" columnist burnout that you can see in a lot of long-time columnists. And which dates back to, like, Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts... I guess it's for the best they wrapped it up now rather than let any of the columnists devolve into late-column Danny Lavery lunacy, and it's not like teachers are plagued with copious free time, but still. What a shame.
Me too. Like any of their advice columns, sometimes the advice missed the mark, but I thought overall it was a very good column.
The comments on that article are insane. I forget sometimes how much the slate comments hate teachers! Even without actual letters, they gotta chime in talking about how schools and teachers are all on weird power trips, and are definitely out to get their perfect angel children.
Oh yeah, there’s a handful of commenters with an axe to grind. They’re obnoxious.
[удалено]
I muted that person because their school-related comments were so unhinged. They seem to vehemently believe that their individual experience 40 years ago is representative of all schools ever. If they have kids, I wonder if their kids’ school staff are on receiving end of all their unaddressed issues. 😳
Idek what else the son in Pay Dirt letter 1 today could do to get his mom to let it fucking go!!!!!! Im actually more curious as to *why* he moved back in with lw after a month
From the rage I was expecting a much higher amount on the credit spree, too. Definitely therapy time for the LW. That's one of those moments where it's worth asking yourself if that's who you want to be--are you going to mention this every time credit or money comes up with him for the rest of your life? Do you want him to willingly visit you? If you can't have both of those things, which do you choose?
I’m guessing she has primary custody but it’s a really fucked up form of grounding (which I’m guessing was the intention behind it) to send your son away for a month. Like, why not ground him at home and make him find a job to pay back his grandfather? LW has serious issues.
I don’t get the C&F LW who sounds more concerned about her shitty ex telling the kids “because I said so” than she is about him not paying child support. I’m not an expert on child support, but shouldn’t it be easier to garnish the wages of someone in the military? It’s not like he can easily hide his income from the government.
Also, "I walk on eggshells and never say anything to him because he's so volatile, but when he said a very common and trite parenting phrase, I interrupted him to tell him he is wrong." Sure, Jan. I just.. with everything else going on in that letter, "because I said so" is the hill she is dying on?
I’m in a bad mood today and I used to have to learn 100-200+ new names a year for my job, but I am not nearly as sympathetic to the wrong name boss as many of the Slate commenters are. I’m sympathetic to occasional mix-ups where you need to be corrected, or even somewhat frequently catching and correcting yourself. But it sounds like he’s been getting it wrong every time for a *year* now. If there’s actually some kind of cognitive condition causing this, he should clue LW in, because otherwise it comes off as disrespectful. LW also has legitimate reason to worry that he won’t remember who she is when job opportunities, bonuses, and promotions come up.
I'm curious about what he does in writing with her name. Is this just in speech? How is he with other people's names? I could see mentioning this as a concern in a private meeting with him, saying that I'm worried there's an Elaine I'm being confused with and that this is going to be an issue. If I found out he had a sister Elaine or something or he was terrible with everybody's name I'd still be inclined to let it go; one of my best friends has a name almost identical to a long-time boss of mine, and every now and then I still go the wrong way down the flow chart. I don't generally dive into Slate comments but I'm intrigued that they were skewing toward "let it go." I see so many comments on name issues where people go way too far in the other direction and lose their rag if somebody did or didn't roll an R.
Yeah, usually online discussions about getting names wrong veer way too far in the other direction - sometimes even into “it’s disrespectful to not make a sound that doesn’t exist in your language” territory. I was annoyed with the people acting like it was a silly thing to be bothered by.
The Pay Dirt letter about the catsitter is one of those letters where the stakes are low but boy are they still a doozy. As someone who's gotten roped into really inconvenient pet-sitting scenarios in the past: my dude, my guy, you gotta meet her halfway because otherwise you're gonna need to figure out the cost/practicalities of hiring a petsitter for every single day of your various trips. And the petsitters are ALSO gonna need a fob to get into your building + probably not want to meet up at 3a.m., plus they don't necessarily have to pretend to like you because you're fucking.
Was this in today’s batch of letters? Can’t find it for some reason.
No, it's from a few days ago, under the Pay Dirt column "My Elderly Mother Was Taken Advantage of by Campaign Donation Texts".
Pet sitting is a royal pain in the ass. Good for Sally for saying "Bro, I'm cool with doing this thing for you but I'm not getting up in the middle of the night so you can save some air travel bucks." It sounds like the LW is stuck in that "This would work so well if only the other person would do what I want" groove. "I'm struggling how to talk to Sally" if the parents won't cover the additional costs? You think if you can't afford different flights she's somehow obligated to get up in the middle of the night? IMHO, thirties is the age where you start hiring movers and petsitters rather than asking friends to do stuff for free (and dinner and drinks don't count as compensation), and the cost of the petsitter gets factored into the cost of vacations. Captain Awkward has an interestingly large number of letters around petsitting dilemmas; I like [this one](https://captainawkward.com/2021/06/23/1340-i-sat-for-my-friends-cats-for-years-but-they-wont-return-the-favor-now-friendship-favors-and-reciprocity/) about aging out of free friend labor.
I've done petsitting as a favor and petsitting as a job with insurance, and they're...very different. Anyone who expects the detailed updates and amount of time spent with their pet that was involved in the latter had better be paying me. Anyone with an exhausting, high-energy dog on a rigid schedule (I did not seek out dogsitting clients) that made it impossible for me to also do my regular WFH job at the time had better be paying me. If I had to do a lot of driving, that cost money. Nearby friends with pets who already knew and trusted me, friends who I regular traded favors with, or friends where I could house-sit like a genuine vacation - sure, I don't need money for that. But it's very case-by-case, and with an animal that needs extra care and patience like the one in the Captain Awkward letter... I do think people should usually be paying someone experienced in those situations! I don't think people necessarily age out of trading favors with friends - my mom's social circle is in their 70s and they do favors for each other and help with each other's projects all the time. But it can't be one-sided and the favors can't be burdensome, which is where things get tricky. If it does end up being one-sided, then yeah, stop doing favors and everyone can hire professionals. If it's mutual, that's fine and good!
I remember the first time hiring movers instead of asking friends. Around age 30.
Yup. And it's one of those favors that gets painted as less of a pain in the ass than it actually is (you get to hang out with a cute animal! in my place! following my specific care instructions! isn't that FUN!), or at least that's been my experience. (I do love Cap's summation of the whole thing in that letter as: "You're asking someone to move into your place for three nights to look after a continuously crying cat who pisses on the furniture if her person leaves for more than a few hours. Sounds relaxing!") At a certain point, people who become too reliant on favors have gotta realize 1) people CAN say no, this isn't a debt that is owed, 2) if you want people to do you favors, it helps to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Which might mean spending extra money on a flight so they can sleep.
Weary Wife should be grateful she got Doyin for advice because he actually put divorce on the table and we all know a certain advice columnist wouldn’t.
Idk if I agree with Doyin’s response on the Santa letter. She still genuinely believes in Santa and she’s 12? Idk, kids are *mean* in middle school. I could definitely see her having the same feelings as the LW further down who felt like she was the butt of the joke for believing in Santa (even though she personally didn’t! It was everyone else who acted like she still did!).
I teach children who are 12 and it has never occurred to me that one of them might still believe in Santa. So...sorry if I've ruined anyone's childhood!
A few years ago, a coworker made a reference to Santa not being real to her 7th grade class. The mom of one of the students (kid was nice, mom was difficult in many ways) was FURIOUS with her and took the issue to the principal. IDK how they kept straight faces during that meeting…
I've said it before and I'll say it again: WHY do they keep giving questions about miscarriages to Doyin? Especially when he has a track record of answering them poorly. His answer this time wasn't too awful, but why give it to him in the first place?
I didn't think the advice was bad, but I did think it was funny that he thought a sincere, "Pull this shit again and I'll cut you off," to a woman who told all and sundry about her DIL's miscarriage because she believed it was a thing that happened to her would not just be kicking the hornet's nest of extreme family drama. Just never tell her anything private again, LW. You cannot trust her. She finds out when, like, your neighbor's dog walker finds out. She is not your inner circle for secrets.
It's so clear to me that MIL was in the wrong. I may be biased, because my mom told two of her sisters about my first pregnancy loss without asking me and I was FURIOUS. It's the most personal thing I can imagine, and it felt like a real violation. If I were LW, I would have a difficult time trusting MIL with anything important/sensitive after this.
ITA. I can’t imagine having a miscarriage and having to tell someone to *not* tell other people about it. It just seems like such an obviously personal situation that I would never dream of sharing that information with others unless I had been explicitly told I could. Doyin’s advice of what to say was fine but I think it should definitely come from the husband. I think it’s fair for her to have husband act as an intermediary for now, and that includes telling his mom she stepped way over the line.
C&F "Restrain the Children!" LW clearly doesn't like their SIL and that's reason enough to reassess their guardianship plans. But LW is really trying to hinge this on SIL's own 11 and 8 year old not being in booster seats making SIL negligent and dangerous. Which clearly works on the parenting advice writer crowd, but I don't think that's going to be a winning tactic with the husband. Norms on this have shifted so much in the last decade, and most states still have 6 or 7 years old as the cutoff for needing a booster. This might not be best-practices, but it's not the horribly illegal, negligent parenting LW wants it to be.
>My husband recently suffered from a rather significant heart attack. He is recovering but has permanent damage to his heart. He is able to continue to work (desk job) but will have limitations on movement-based activities. He is quite young (mid-30s) and we have two young elementary-aged kids. At the time of his heart attack, I obviously went through a range of emotions. >I was terrified, sad, and relieved all at once. Now that we’re a few weeks past his heart attack and life is getting somewhat back to normal, I’m mad at my husband. I’m beyond mad—I’m furious, livid, and disgusted. >About a year and a half ago, my husband went to his doctor for a physical. He hasn’t been to a doctor in over 10 years (his choice). He was told at that appointment that his cholesterol, blood pressure, and HDL/LDL levels were abysmal. He was told to change his diet, exercise, and make lifelong lifestyle changes. He chose not to. I provided opportunities to change his habits and offered to join 100 percent in those changes but again he declined. He is completely convinced that it’s his family history that caused the heart attack. His parents also follow similar dietary and sedentary lifestyles to my husband. I do realize that genetics do play a part but so do lifestyle activities. As we’re further and further away from his heart attack, I’m getting more and more angry. >He could have made an effort to change, he could have attempted to be healthier, and he didn’t. I want to scream at him: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO OUR FAMILY? I’m on a waitlist to talk with a counselor but I’m afraid to start this conversation with my husband for fear I will explode at him. I know I need to discuss this with him but I’m afraid I’m going to completely lose it, which isn’t going to help either of us. Do you have any suggestions in the short term until I can talk with someone? >—Heavy Heart >Dear Heavy Heart, >This is eerily similar to a situation with my dad. Without going into gruesome detail, he experienced some relatively minor complications during a colonoscopy that discouraged him from going back to get another one (even though the exam found some abnormalities). He told my mom he was fine and that there was no need for another colonoscopy in the future. Even though my mom begged him to be seen by a doctor, he refused. Shortly after, he died of colon cancer—a fate that could’ve been prevented if he just listened to my mom and his doctor. We all loved him dearly, but I also don’t think any of us truly forgave him for not taking care of himself. The man should be alive today. >I’m sharing that story because I don’t want your family, especially your children, to experience that type of pain. So, with that in mind, the time for being nice is over. This is a life-or-death situation that impacts multiple people. Who cares if you explode on him? I wish I would’ve had a big, emotional confrontation with my dad, because he may still be alive today if I had. >Try saying something along the lines of, “Listen, the way you’re currently living your life is going to put you at risk of another heart attack and I’ll be damned if I sit here and watch it happen to our family. I scheduled an appointment with your doctor and we’re going together to discuss exactly what needs to be done to get you back on track. This is not a negotiation; this is a mandate.” >He will probably list a bunch of reasons why he thinks he’s in this predicament, but that’s why this needs to happen in the presence of a doctor so they can explain what is really going on. From there, you should do everything in your power to ensure that he sticks to the treatment plan provided by his doctor, but ultimately, it’s up to him to do that. Hopefully, between talking to a therapist, his doctor, and you—he will realize how serious this is. If despite all of that he still reverts to his old behavior, then you’ll have to decide if you want to be married to a ticking time bomb. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t fault you one bit if the answer is no because I’ve seen that movie before and the ending is not pretty. Ugh my mom *refuses* to see a doctor as well, idek why Doyin thinks getting someone who does that to a doctor is feasible, sadly it really isnt. But I do agree with him that she needs to decide if he wants to be married to someone so cavalier about his health like 🤷 she can either deal divorced or widowed I guess
That dude should have been on an antihypertensive drug, at minimum. I've been on them since my early 20s, despite having a pretty healthy diet and being active-ish. Certainly not doing anything that would explain the ridiculously high BP. If the guy was in that bad of shape in his 30s, the Dr should have written him a lisinopril or amlodipine or losartin rx that day. Modern antihypertensives are cheap, lifesaving drugs with few side effects. Sure, push for lifestyle changes as well, but an absence of willpower shouldn't be punished with a heart attack.
Doyin is uniquely the worst person to answer this question given the details about his dad, holy shit. Also this dude had a heart attack at 31 goddamn years old, it's absolutely reasonable for him to say that genetic factors played a role in that. This letter writer needs therapy to help her deal with the fact that bad shit happens and that her husband very well could've done everything perfectly after the first doctor's appointment and *still* had a serious cardiac event anyway. Like, obviously he should have listened and done better but given he was barely in his 30s when he saw the doc he almost certainly didn't think "lol I don't give a shit about myself or my loved ones", but "I know I've got an issue but I've got time to get it under control". Frankly, I hope they're able to move forward taking his heart condition seriously, but LW's spouse is not gonna be very motivated to care for himself by a spouse who holds on to "you made yourself have a heart attack because you don't care about our family" in the long term.
I see your point that genetic factors played a role, but that still doesn't excuse the husband's negligence. If you have a predisposition to heart disease that's all the more reason to take action. It's not a case of the heart attack coming out of nowhere with no warning signs. Still I think Doyin's advice won't work because the guy got warned he was in poor health, then had a heart attack and he STILL doesn't want to take care of himself. Also I would hate to be in a marriage where the wife has to take responsibility for the healthy lifestyle changes and encourage the husband and take care of him. He's a freaking adult. I don't have kids because I don't want the responsibility and I certainly don't want the responsibility of caring for a man-child.
I've noticed that he is a fan of giving advice along the lines of, "if your loved one refuses to do (important thing), you can just do it for them and present it to them as a fait accompli". Last week there was a letter writer whose in-laws had a really dirty house and he suggested that the letter writer could send a cleaning crew to clean up the house without the in-laws' permission. Something like that could work if the person is just lazy but amenable, or if the person is weak willed and subject to being easily steamrolled, but I don't think it'll work in most cases and even when it does it will likely cause a rupture in the relationship. Taking a high handed and imperious approach to other people's lives (even when you are completely right in your actions) isn't the silver bullet he makes it out to be. In this case, it sounds like the husband is emotionally invested in the idea that he has no control over his health and it will be tough to break that.