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How Can I Get My Sister To Stop Taking It Personally When Our Family Deliberately Excludes Her From Our Annual Trip, And Other Advice Column Questions
There are too many excellent advice columns to keep up with, so we're committed to bringing you links to the best advice column questions and answers every week. Here's a roundup of the most interesting, thought-provoking and surprising questions that our favorite columnists addressed in recent days.
How Can I Get My Sister To Stop Taking It Personally When Our Family Deliberately Excludes Her From Our Annual Trip?
Every fall, my sister, cousins and a cousin's sister-in-law have a weekend shopping excursion in our home city. We stay in a hotel, treat ourselves, shop for our children and go out for lunches and dinners. It is a great time to reconnect.
I have a sister "Wendy," who we do not invite. She is offended to the point of tears when she finds we have not invited her. My two sisters and I are very close in age, but Wendy hasn't been as close to this set of cousins as my sister and I have been through the years.
We are all married stay-at-home moms. Wendy is a divorced, working mom with one young child.
There are several reasons we do not include her. We know she doesn't have very much money for such an outing. She also does not have many of the same interests as we do. Her life is quite different from ours. We're not interested in what she has to talk about. She claims to have some kind of neurological disease that some of us feel is more psychosomatic than real and which she uses to avoid getting up for church on Sundays.
She also complains about her ex-husband who left her for another woman, but everyone knows it takes "two to tango" and she is not without fault.
We're all very active churchgoers, while she only sporadically attends services. Plain and simple, she does not really fit in with us.
She takes it very personally, and last year even came over to my home unannounced crying about it, which upset my children and caused my husband to threaten to call the police if she did not leave.
Now she barely speaks to me and has told our relatives that I am a horrible person (even though I've helped her).
How can we get her to understand that she should perhaps find another set of friends whose lives and interests align more closely with hers?
Amy Dickinson observes that the letter writer doesn't appear to have learned much in church. "The only way your sister would ever fit in would be for you to make room for her," she writes. "[H]er being upset is completely justified, and you'll just have to live with that." Read the rest of her answer.
Am I A Terrible Friend For Not Calling My Ex On The Day He Finalized His Divorce From His Previous Ex?
I'm living with my ex at the moment as roommates and friends while he looks for a place to live.
When I was away recently, he had the court date for finalizing his divorce. It had been an important event for us as a couple when we were dating, but not for me anymore after we broke up. I also knew he was hanging out with his buddies that day for support. I did, however, reach out to him the day before and after to wish him luck and see how things had gone.
When I returned home, I was confronted by a very upset "friend." He told me that knowing how important this date was to him, I should have called him on the day or at least texted him.
I hadn't realized contacting him both the day before and after was not enough. He said I clearly have a completely different definition of friend than he does.
Am I being a terrible friend?
Carolyn Hax commends the letter writer for managing a tricky situation as well as possible. "Not to kick your roommate while he's down, but if he's really blaming his live-in recent ex for his bad feelings about his divorce from his previous ex, then he's got some work to do," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.
Should I Tell My Boss That Her Terrible Manners In Restaurants Appear To Be Alienating Our Vendors And Clients?
I've worked for my C-Suite boss for almost five years. We are in a line of work where we attend a lot of lunches and dinners at nice restaurants, most often as guests of vendors and clients. While I generally enjoy the fine dining opportunities, I find my boss to be an insufferable restaurant patron.
My boss considers herself a "foodie" so she is often the one who suggests a restaurant for these meals; she prefers to go to places she has not been before when someone else is paying. She rarely deems a restaurant good enough to go back to more than once!
Like clockwork, at the beginning of every meal she peruses the drink menu, announces that nothing sounds good, and asks the bartender to make her something off-menu (usually with lots of instructions and ingredients). Without fail, she does not like that custom drink and sends it back in a way that implies that the server didn't take all of her instructions or the bartender is bad at his job.
She often complains loudly that a dish is missing "something" or another vague criticism, and if she's loud enough for the server to overhear and inquire, she asks for the dish to be removed from the bill. If the server isn't paying as much attention as she would like, she comments to the table about how the tip should be lowered (particularly cringy when we are not the ones paying).
Instead of ordering dessert, she will start her meal over and order a cocktail and appetizer while everyone else drinks espresso, a move that usually confuses our dining companions and also can throw off the servers, not to mention it extends the meal another 30 minutes or longer just when we were close to wrapping things up.
Admittedly, I may be more sensitive to her particularities because I waited tables in a high end restaurant to support myself through high school and college. That experience has trained me to be a much more gracious, patient diner and to be a lot more forgiving when things aren't perfect.
However, I find it so embarrassing to eat with her that I've been turning down invitations (and missing some important networking opportunities). While I know her poor manners are a reflection on her and not me, I have noticed that our hosts are more frequently asking for me to pick a restaurant I think she'd find "acceptable" or suggesting that we "skip the meal this time." So I get the feeling others have picked up on this as well. Should I say something to her?
Alison Green encourages the letter writer to give their boss feedback on what they've observed, if she seems like she might be open to it. "Her behavior would be boorish in any circumstances, but particularly in a business context (where there's generally an assumption you'll overlook small issues because the food isn't the point of why you're there) and particularly when someone else is paying (because her behavior conveys that the host's choices have displeased her)," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.
How Can I Get My Boyfriend Of Two Months To Understand Why I Insisted On Getting His Friend's Contact Information?
My boyfriend and I started dating in April. I introduced him to my friends, then he introduced me to some of his -- by phone. I wasn't satisfied because I wanted to see people's faces.
When I tried telling him that I needed a close friend's contact information in case I can't reach him, he started saying that's suspicious -- and that he doesn't trust his friends.
I told him it's just in case I can't get to him. Then I know someone who can find him easily.
Even though he wasn't too happy about it, that's how the conversation ended.
I now have a friend's contact information, but my boyfriend isn't pleased. He says he doesn't have his friends' girlfriends' numbers, so why should his friends have mine?
Can you tell me how we can get over this?
Meredith Goldstein questions the letter writer's motivations for seeking the friend's number. "Sometimes people do their own thing, have their phone off, and take time to be alone," she writes. "I hope you can be comfortable with your boyfriend needing privacy sometimes." Read the rest of her answer.
Am I Being Unreasonable For Resisting My Husband's Desire To Have Another Child, Since I Do The Vast Majority Of The Childcare?
My husband has recently expressed a strong desire to have another child, but I do not want to at all. We already have two wonderful children, a 5-year-old and a 6-year-old, and I feel that they are more than enough for me to handle right now.
One of the major issues contributing to my reluctance to have another kid is that my husband is not a very involved dad. While he loves our children, he doesn't do much to help with their daily care. I am the one who manages their schedules, handles school and extracurricular activities, takes care of them when they're sick and ensures that all their needs are met. It often feels like I'm parenting on my own, and it's exhausting.
I have tried to talk to my husband about how I feel, explaining that adding another child to our family would only increase my workload and stress levels. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to fully understand or appreciate the weight of my concerns. He believes that having another child would bring more joy and completeness to our family, but I fear it would just push me further into a state of constant fatigue and overwhelm. Is there a way to reach a compromise, or am I being unreasonable in my refusal to have another child?
[UExpress]
Harriette Cole advises the letter writer to see what happens if they ask their husband to step up. "Create some expectations of your husband for helping with the children you have," she writes. "Come up with a reasonable list of duties for him that will help ease the burden on you." Read the rest of her answer.
Should I Spend $8,000 To Go To Tanzania With Someone I Met In A Movie Theater And Two People I Don't Know?
Should I go to Tanzania for two weeks with people I don't know and one person I only kind of know?
I mentioned I wanted to go to Tanzania some day and this lady in the movie theater said, "Oh, I'm going to Tanzania and we need one more person in our group." Between airfare and safari costs, it will be $8,000. I have the money, but I was planning to invest in a mutual fund. Should I go?
R. Eric Thomas strongly discourages the letter writer from going on the trip. "Report to your financial adviser's office, STAT," he writes. "It sounds like you just want something to spend money on." Read the rest of his answer.
