(no subject)

[conuly]

My friend and I recently went on a three-day backpacking trip together, which involved several sections of alpine terrain. She’s afraid of lightning to the point where she perseverates about it, even though the risk of being hit by lightning is extremely small. There’s a reason that “you’re more likely to be hit by lightning” is a common phrase. I promised that we would do everything we could to be below the treeline in the afternoons, when storms tend to come in. The weather ended up being overcast but not stormy for the first two days, which was too bad because we couldn’t really take in the views.

On our last morning, we slept in, and when we woke up the weather was nicer than it had been the whole time. It seemed like a waste to have come all that way and then hurry back when everything was perfect, so she agreed to add on an extra short hike up to a view point before we started back to the trailhead. It was only two miles so it shouldn’t have added more than an hour or so to our hiking for the day.

She kept pulling out her phone while we were hiking to check the time, which irritated me, because one of my pet peeves is people looking at their phones when we’re trying to be present together. Because I was irritated, I was distracted, and we ended up missing a turn and going on a longer route. This led to us being caught in a brief thunderstorm and she freaked out. It passed in about 15 minutes and we were fine. I tried to explain to her that by obsessing over bad weather, she had actually caused us to be caught in bad weather, and if she could try to let her fears go, we would have a much better time. This was a mistake on my part, because she wasn’t in the mood for feedback. She’s mad at me for getting lost, and I’m annoyed because I think she owes me an apology, too. How do we get past this?

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(no subject)

[conuly]

Hi, Carolyn: My husband and I are estranged from his sister. She has been emotionally abusive toward us, and the last straw was her bullying our 10-year-old son. I have her contacts blocked, but his sister keeps finding reasons to contact him. She texted saying she thought their mom was declining cognitively, and to say her daughter missed my husband so they needed to FaceTime. I think this is so manipulative of my sister-in-law, but my husband says he would be a monster for not responding.

I’m not sure how we deal with this. I don’t want to insist my husband have no contact with his sister, but she is not a safe person for us, especially our son, whose needs I think should be paramount here.

— Anonymous

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