Dear Prudence: My Fiancée Is Related to a Notorious Criminal...

[minoanmiss]

She's so sensitive that she attacked my cousin over a joke about it.



I’m engaged to a lovely, kind, sensitive woman, “Adele,” who happens to be related to a notorious but long-dead criminal. All her life Adele has been teased about her last name, and sometimes even ostracized when people find out she’s actually related, even though she and her family naturally condemn this man and his actions. We’ve had to postpone our wedding more than two years because of COVID, so finally making it happen is a huge deal.

At the barbecue where we first introduced our extended families, my 15-year-old cousin “Kim” held up a picture of the criminal on her phone and made a terrible joke, despite my whole family having been warned not to mention him. In response Adele threw a small rock at her, unintentionally hitting her in the face and injuring one of her eyes. In Adele’s defense she did not realize Kim was just 15, and assumed (reasonably, due to her clothing and appearance) that she was at least several years older. Kim’s parents raised holy hell, and Adele has been charged with aggravated battery plus aggravated child abuse, which given her personal trauma has been hugely upsetting for her.
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The District Attorney, who knows my family, has agreed to drop the charges if Kim refuses to testify. My uncle “Rob”—my mom’s sister’s husband and Kim’s father—told us she would do so if Adele apologizes to her and we agree to pay for 100 percent of her medical and cosmetic treatment, which is still uncertain and may run to tens of thousands of dollars. Rob has a good job, and I’m sure excellent family health insurance. Kim is also lamenting that her injury may prevent her from becoming a pilot, which she’d expressed only casual interest in before. Worse, my entire family has rallied around Kim—so in support of Adele and the vows we’ve already taken in spirit, I’ve disinvited them all from our wedding.

In retaliation, Rob is now saying Kim will refuse to testify only if, in addition to their previous demands, I re-invite my side of the family (he, his wife, and Kim will stay away). I might be more inclined to cooperate if Kim was equally remorseful—but neither she nor her parents have apologized in the slightest, maintaining it was “just a stupid joke” and even insinuating Adele is violent due to her “blood.”
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I’m now torn because Adele is pushing hard to just apologize, pay the bills, and re-invite my family. Partly because she is mortified by her loss of temper and the blowup it’s become, and wants to try to repair relations with them; partly because she wants a “nice, normal” wedding with both sides present; but mainly because she is terrified of the slightest possibility of having to spend even a day in prison if Kim testifies against her. Should I go along with this, even though it would (A) cost us a lot of money, and (B) feel like giving my family carte blanche to abuse her—and, by extension, disrespect me—thus failing her at the very start of our marriage? Or should we stand firm, have our wedding without them, and trust that with a good defense attorney, no sane judge will sentence her to prison for reacting to such cruelty as she did?

— Torn Apart

Dear Torn Apart,

You have to go with Adele here. I’m thinking mostly about the amount of stress this situation is putting on her already. She’s nervous about going to jail, she’s feeling pressure from your family, and she just wants a “nice, normal wedding.” Prolonging this by drawing a line in the sand with your family is only going to wear on her. Look, there’s plenty of blame to go around here, and at some point, you do need to talk to your family in a serious manner about their treatment of Adele. However, the fact remains she hit a 15-year-old with a rock. I’m not judging. I’m simply stating facts. It’s hard to come back from. Mend the fences you can; give Adele the day she’s asking for; and then see about reframing your relationship with your family. I suspect that they will continue to make cruel jokes about her and you will probably need to set a hard boundary in the future. But this situation is so complicated, you’re best served by squelching the conflict before it gets worse.

Comments

[sathari]

...I'm going to be a dissenting opinion here.

LW's niece (I refuse to write out even her pseudonym) has apparently learned the opposite of empathy--- that it is fun to cause other people distress and that she can do it with impunity because she does not feel other people's distress that she caused as a bad thing, in fact the opposite and that her well-connected family will cover it up if any of the people to whom she causes distress for her amusement do the only things that will make her feel in any way bad about the distress she causes others, namely cause her physical pain. (Seriously, the level of entitlement you have to have as a legal minor to torment and mock a totally-strange-to-you legal adult who is about to become a member of your family and thus might end up with guardianship rights, however temporary, over you is staggering to me.) I bet that if news of this has gotten out in the wider community, there are a whole bunch of LW's niece's other victims who are quietly cheering on Adele. And also that maybe Adele should take this as a warning sign and back away slowly from that family, who have clearly enabled LW's niece to think that she can knowingly and deliberately torment other people for her own amusement with impunity. And this is the carefully worded version of my response to this.

[lilysea]

I agree that LW's niece acted as an absolute arsehole,

and if LW's fiance had responded by shouting or delivering verbal insults to LW's niece, I would be 100% on team LW's fiance,

but while LW's niece behaved ***appallingly***,

it didn't justify throwing a stone/rock at her face!

[sathari]

The problem I've found with people like that is that, essentially, they don't think you're human; yelling and showing verbal distress is just funny to them and encourages them to be even nastier to you because they like getting you worked up. And I've had a lot of those people in my life. All you can do is either hurt them physically (with may or may not expose you to, well, what's happening to LW; see also, for example, reactive abuse, which is how I would frankly classify LW's fiance's response; even if this is the first time that particular abuser inflicted that on her, she's been getting enough of it from a variety of sources for long enough that she and LW specifically warned the family not to do it!) or find someone they do think is a real person whose feelings actually matter to them, usually someone with some kind of power over them, to impose some consequence on them that they do find meaningful. Shouting and showing upset is the response they want.

Now, perhaps either LW's fiance or LW coulda-shoulda-woulda turned to niece's parents or LW's parents (or if the family has a "head", however informal, someone who's understood to lay down the law about family dynamics) and frigidly and contemptuously (not upset/angry, because again that is what LW's niece wants and she will enjoy their distress) said something along the lines of, "Are you going to let this nasty little brat act like that to a prospective family member? Because that's a terrible impression you're giving of this family." Though given the way niece's parents reacted to the whole situation, and for that matter the fact that LW's niece thought it was perfectly fine to do a specific hurtful thing that she had been told not to do says that the parents at least are perfectly fine with the behavior, though other adults in the family might not be.

But the thing is that LW and fiance thought that they had headed this problem off at the pass by asking LW's family not to bring it up, so the level of blindsiding there probably would probably see fiance's action clear the standard for irresistible impulse in at least some jurisdictions--- she was expecting to be safe from that and then here's this person inflicting it on her.

[minoanmiss]

and this is the other piece of this. I was trying to think of how to say "Niece and parents are being utter assholes" without sounding like I was justifying rock-throwing, but you nailed it.

[sathari]

♥ ♥ ♥ Oh, thank you so much for this! I had high confidence when I saw that it was you who had posted it that you wanted some wrangling with, as you say, the other piece of this.

And... yeah. This is the thing that doesn't get talked about enough with dehumanization--- that you're leaving the person you've dehumanized with no way to interact with you except through some kind of force.

[minoanmiss]

Well, goodness, you had some really good points, it would be remiss to not acknowledge that. :)

I was thinking about this and both LW and the Kim&Bob assemblage seem to be operating from "if the other side was wrong I can't be". Kim's original joke was utterly cruel and the way Bob is doubling down is disgusting but LW needs to understand what Adele seems to have, that she shouldn't've escalated to the physical (and the bit about them "disrespecting him" was eyeroll-worthy).

I hope Adele can find peace and healing, at least.

[sathari]

Still, thank you; it means a lot to me.

Yeah, you are very right about... this family having some kind of something going on.

[lemonsharks]

+ infinity. Thanks you for saying so eloquently what I couldn't figure out how to say myself

[sathari]

You are more than welcome! I'm glad I could put words on that dynamic.

[ethelmay]

I think fifteen-year-olds can do appalling things without necessarily being appalling people (but yes, sometimes a fifteen-year-old is already an appalling person, or hurtling towards that, and the odds of that seem higher in this instance given the various ways the adults around her reacted).