Help! My Mother-in-Law Constantly Criticizes One Thing About How I Look. - Slate
Read what Prudie had to say in Part 1 of this week’s live chat.
Dear Prudence is online weekly to chat live with readers.Here’s an edited transcript of this week’s chat.
Jenée Desmond-Harris: It’s the day after Halloween, and I hope your sugar hangover isn’t too bad. If it is, this is the place to complain about that and anything else you may have going on. Let’s get started.
Q. Tired, obviously: Every time I see my mother-in-law, she tells me I look tired. Every. Time. We’ve known each other for a decade, so I would think she’d understand by now that this is just, you know, how I look. I’ve tried everything: laughing it off, ignoring it, attempting elaborate under-eye concealer hacks gleaned from YouTube beauty influencers, talking to my husband about how it makes me feel—that is, terrible. (His response is always that she didn’t mean anything by it and I shouldn’t take it personally.)
I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law about it because she and I are not particularly close, she can be sensitive to even the gentlest pushback, and because I realize that ultimately this is not a big deal. I am not a vain person and have never been a beauty, but I do put an effort into my appearance. How should I respond the next time she says it?
A: “You know, I’m not a vain person but I do put an effort into my appearance so it really makes me feel terrible to hear that, especially because I’m not actually tired.”
If she continues, it’s time for your husband to step up and ask her to stop. Sure, she’s sensitive to pushback, but you’re sensitive to being told you look like hell every time you see her, and your feelings matter too! Asking her to keep this observation as a private thought is not a big ask at all, and neither is asking your husband to have one slightly uncomfortable conversation to protect his wife’s feelings.
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Q. Desires to be a dad: My husband and I had been planning on becoming parents for years. We wanted to use the same donated eggs, each of our sperm, and a surrogate to have our children. A biological connection was important to my husband because he lost most of his family hideously young in a fire. We got far enough along that we had his batch of embryos ready and a surrogate lined up, and then he died in a car crash.
My entire world came crashing down. For months and months and months, it was like I was sleepwalking through life. Somehow I came out the other side, but I have no desire to date again.
I still want to be a dad. Legally, the embryos are mine. I am more than comfortably wealthy and I have spoken to several of my lady colleagues who have done the purposefully single-mother route. I understand the hardships and the high hopes. I still want to hold my child in my arms and see my husband’s smile again.
What is holding me back is the disapproval of my family. They have always been loving and supportive to me, so I was taken aback by their venom. They say a child deserves two parents and I am “selfish” to bring one into the world alone. A baby isn’t a “Band-Aid” for my grief. I can’t bring my husband back by having his baby and not my own.
My sister bluntly told me I have no idea what I am in for and she has enough on her plate, so I should not expect she will be babysitting. She is going through her second divorce after her remarriage failed and her kids are acting out. Both their father and stepfather weren’t the greatest. I have been the most consistent male presence in their lives since our father died. I told my sister I wouldn’t ask her to lift a finger, but she was a “sorry, selfish mess” and probably has “screwed over” her kids for life. I couldn’t do any worse by myself.
So we aren’t speaking. Our mother and other siblings are in a tizzy. I still regularly see my sister’s kids but they have picked up on the family tension. I want to continue with having a child but it is like stones in the shoes. My family has been supportive of me my entire life: being gay, choosing a risky profession, and moving across country to be with my then boyfriend (future husband) of six months. It scares me to think of them not being there if I have my child. It scares me to think of not having one at all. Help, please.
A: Do it! Have a child! You really want this, and your family’s disapproval shouldn’t stop you. I can imagine you having a lot of regret if you decide to hold off to avoid your mother and siblings’ judgment (while they’ve all had the opportunity to have their own kids!). But it’s hard for me to imagine that you’ll regret having a child once he or she is actually here in the flesh.
That doesn’t mean it will be easy or that you should do it without a lot of serious planning. Your family is right to be worried that this is a lot for one person to take on. But you said you’re pretty wealthy, which is great. Having enough resources to pay for help will make this a lot easier. Talk some more to those single mom friends about what they needed in terms of nannies and other child care and how much it cost. Make a budget for that. And then work on setting up the support you might not be getting from your own family, in the form of a community for you and your baby made up of people who get it and support you. I say “might not” because I’m 95 percent sure they’ll come around the minute the baby actually exists and want to be in its life. But even if they do, you should make sure you have contact with a group of single parents by choice, who will know exactly what you’re going through and won’t judge you.
With these things in place, I suspect your biggest challenge will be not saying “I told you so” when your mom and siblings ask to babysit.
Q. Compassion and estrangement: I realized in the last year that the relationship with my parents is no longer bearable, and have made the difficult decision to cut off all contact. They are obsessive people with stalkerlike tendencies, such as showing up unexpectedly at my workplace and my friends’ homes when they can’t get in touch with me for as much as two days in a row (my dad texts daily and calls multiple times a week). As a result, I’ve needed to take some drastic measures such as moving homes and cities without telling them, changing my number, and vanishing from social media as much as possible. The last channel of contact we have between us is the email address I am preparing to delete in the next few days.
My question is: Do I send a final email to my dad explaining my decision and why? I have tried to talk to him multiple times about how unhappy I am with our relationship. He stood by and did nothing while my mom violently abused me for years, and in fact used to put me in scenarios as an adult where he would claim it was just me and him meeting up, then bring my mom along as a surprise. He only stopped doing this after an occasion when the police got involved because I tried to walk away and she responded by assaulting me, causing several passersby to phone the police. I did not press charges because my dad begged me not to ruin my mom’s life and to “have some compassion” for her precarious mental health. I asked when he would have compassion for me, citing the PTSD diagnosis I have been given as a direct result of my mom’s abuse, but he acted as though I was exaggerating my pain for attention.
In spite of this, I do love him. I wish I could save him from my abusive mom but cannot persuade him to leave. I will miss him badly once going no-contact, even if I’m looking forward to the relief and sense of peace I think is possible when I’m no longer hearing regular updates about my mom’s abuse (he uses me like a therapist). I already have a dozen emails from him asking why he can’t get through to my number, which so far I’ve ignored. I wonder if sending a really long, detailed email will make me feel better in some way, especially if I delete my account after so I cannot see a doubtless maddening reply. On the other hand, sending an email like this seems wildly cruel and I can just picture how devastated he would be reading some of the things I want to say to him.
Then again … is it more cruel to have this man feel as though his only daughter has vanished without a word to him? Please can you advise me on how to manage this as compassionately as possible, while still saving myself from this agonizing relationship?
A: Nothing you’ve said here is “cruel.” It sounds like your dad spent many years prioritizing your abusive mother over you. That’s cruel, even if he’s a victim too. You shouldn’t let the fear of hurting his feelings stop you from letting him know that you no longer want to be in contact and why. So send that final email—which, by the way, can include the fact that you love him and wish he would have agreed to have a relationship with you without setting you up to be around your mother. The letter you’ve written here is actually a great first draft. You’ll feel better getting everything off your chest and knowing that he knows exactly how you feel and why, and you’ll save yourself from this harassment. I guarantee you’ll be relieved.
Q. Not your babysitter: My family (husband, 14-year-old-son, and myself) are hosting a Halloween party next weekend. We don’t know many people in our area, but thought it would be nice to get to know the parents of some of the other kids our son hangs out with. So we invited the whole family—teens and their parents. This was made very clear on the invitations and in conversation.
However, several parents have RSVP’d that they’ll be dropping their teen off and picking them up later! I guess I should have known better. Any suggestions? To make matters more complicated, we were planning on serving alcohol for the adults (and have nonalcoholic beverages for the teens) in addition to snacks, etc. What should I do?
A: Halloween was yesterday, so this response is late, but my general advice in this case would be to just pivot to hosting a mostly teen party. I think the fact that parents were actually invited probably didn’t click because, although your idea was nice, it’s somewhat unusual to attend a gathering at the home of someone you haven’t met before.
You did say several—not all—parents RSVP’d no. Hopefully this meant you still had a small group of adults hang out. This kind of setting actually lends itself to getting to know one another much better than a larger party would. And if the kids were allowed to do whatever 14-year-olds do (I can’t imagine it requires all that much supervision) while you enjoyed the grown-ups who were there, I hope you accomplished your goal of making these new connections.
Q. Re: Tired, obviously: I think you are looking at this all wrong—MIL is volunteering to help you out! Tell her, “Oh, thanks for noticing, I have been doing a lot lately,” and schedule her for babysitting/bringing dinner/cleaning your house while you take a spa day, stat.
A: Ha! Very clever. I support this.
Q. Re: Desires to be a dad: The letter writer is also going to need to apologize to his sister for the pretty cruel things he said to her about her family. Even though he was provoked, his words were a low blow.
A: Yes, hopefully they can both offer apologies.
I recently learned that my husband gambled himself into $20,000 of debt. I’ve known him to dabble in betting on sports here and there, but otherwise this came as a complete shock to me—it feels very out of character. After much discussion, we decided to work on our marriage while he repays his debt. He promised me he would not gamble again, even if he felt like he was in control, and to never lie to me again (he lied in an attempt to cover up the debt when I first discovered it). Last night I stumbled upon information—I really wasn’t snooping, it found me—that he made a bet last week. I asked him about it, and at first he tried to cover it up, but ultimately he confessed. I asked him to leave our home while I try to figure out what to do next. He is begging for forgiveness and claims he doesn’t have a “gambling problem.” I’m not sure what to think.
source: https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/11/mother-in-law-says-i-look-tired-all-the-time-dear-prudence-advice.html
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