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Some people are waaaaaaay too invested in other people's business
1. DEAR NATALIE: My friend divorced recently and I was the last to know what was going on. In fact, I only found out when our mutual friend invited us to her “divorce party.” I was really disgusted to even be included in something so crass, and I told my friend that I didn’t even know they were having marital problems. “Oh yea, she’s been miserable for months,” is what my friend said to me. For months? I had just been out with her and her husband several weeks before this announcement and they seemed fine. I also didn’t appreciate my friend confiding in everyone before me. I don’t think I want to go to this party. We are very good friends with her soon-to-be ex-husband, as well. Do you think if I skip it I’ll look as though I’m choosing sides? I care about her, of course, but why celebrate something so sad? It doesn’t sit well with me. Thoughts on this? – WHY A PARTY?
DEAR WHY A PARTY: Perhaps your friend didn’t confide in you because even in this letter, I can hear the judgment in your voice coming through the keys. You don’t have to go to this party. In fact, it may be better that you don’t, considering how you feel. I would call your friend or meet her privately for coffee or a drink to learn more about what happened if she is willing to share. Don’t center yourself in this. When people are going through a traumatic experience, it is important that they are sharing space with people who will be supportive and empathic. It’s fine to remain friends with both parties as long as you realize that one of the parties may not want to remain friends with you for that decision. Very rarely does remaining Switzerland work out well for friendships during a divorce. If you can’t be there for her right now, I suggest you send flowers or a card at the very least.
Link
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2. My sister staged a fake wedding years ago. Her boyfriend’s mother was giving money to her children, and the married ones got double the amount of those who were single. We flew cross-country, in good faith, for this charade and spent thousands of dollars. I discovered the truth only six years ago, when I learned that my sister receives Medicaid benefits as a single person who earns little, even though she lives with her boyfriend in a huge house with many trappings of wealth. Now, my mom wants me to invite them for Christmas dinner with my sisters’ families, but I can’t overlook their lies. My mom says it’s none of my business, but as taxpayers, my sisters and I are outraged at the way they scam the system. I think inviting them would end in a big fight. Advice?
SISTER
It’s your house. You can invite whomever you like for Christmas. From my perspective — which is not as close-up as yours — your sister and her boyfriend are still together many years after the fake wedding. That’s better than most married couples. Would you be less upset if they had called the event a commitment ceremony? They made a poor choice in response to an unusual decision by the boyfriend’s mother. I’ve made poor choices before. Have you?
As for your sister’s Medicaid benefits, you haven’t presented enough information to judge whether she is scamming the system. Generally, unmarried couples are not considered a household in establishing Medicaid eligibility. If your sister’s boyfriend can’t (or won’t) include her on his health insurance, her small income and other factors may, indeed, qualify her for Medicaid.
You are entitled to your opinions about your sister’s gamesmanship when it comes to rules and bureaucracy. I don’t see why they should take center stage at your Christmas celebration. Still, you are free to exclude her if you like, but I agree with your mother: We don’t have to admire every decision a sister makes to invite her to dinner.
Link
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3. Dear Carolyn: I am 39, and I have three younger brothers. One of them is engaged and living with his fiancée, and one weekend last summer we all stayed with him. And I cannot stand his fiancée.
Part of it is on principle: My brother is 37, and she is 26. He is a doctor, and I think he focused on getting established, and when he wanted to have kids, he picked a younger woman. I have a lot of female friends in their 30s who describe dating as very hard specifically because men want younger women.
The other part is that she is such a Stepford wife. She is a teacher and was off for the summer. Their entire house was clean and organized, she had meals or local restaurants planned, she made activities suggestions for our other brother’s kids, and looked incredible — thin, young, hot. It feels like my smart, accomplished brother picked a young, hot woman instead of somebody his own age who is too busy with a career to put cereal in plastic bins.
I agreed to be a bridesmaid because I couldn’t think of a way to say no. But I don’t know how to fake it for an entire wedding.
My husband just says, “She was very nice to us,” which is true if you just look at the surface. I need help not tearing my hair out.
— Anonymous
Anonymous: Please reread your letter. It is ageist, petty, cruel, bedazzled with cheap assumptions and ungrateful to the point of comedy.
Your brother chose, from your description, a kind, generous, inclusive and conscientious person with one of the most difficult, underpaid and self-sacrificing careers out there, and she busted her shapely backside to host you all — and you hate her for her looks. Holy tap-dancing mean.
If she were 26 and fat, would you like her then? Or still thin, but 36? What about 26, thin, leaves dishes stacked in the sink? Unthreatening enough?
You offer no examples of her being thoughtless, destructive, mean, passive-aggressive, dishonest.
I’m sorry your friends can’t get dates. That you correlate one man’s choice of one woman with collective female suffering just gave me “domestic supply of infants” flashbacks that I could have done without today.
You can worry about demographic trends, yes — but using trends to impugn individual choices and presume you’d make better ones crosses just about all the lines.
Here’s my advice: Sit with your reasons for trashing her — and some reasons not to — for a good, long time.
Readers have thoughts:
· Please stop judging people’s life choices, especially women’s. Sisters need to pull together instead of tearing each other down.
· As a married working mom who at 37 still had time to buy cereal in bulk and decant it into storage bins, I am struck by just how many insecurities the fiancée brings out in Anonymous. Actually hating a person for their age and approach to housekeeping looks like misplaced energy.
· My superstar, 10-years-older sister-in-law used her words and told me well in advance she had no need to be part of our wedding party. If she disliked my anxious, insecure self, she’s never given any indication, and I have appreciated the chance to get to know her over time.
· I absolutely struggle with the urge to hate thin, young, beautiful and competent women, so I empathize. One thing that helps me is remembering that it is society’s fault for suggesting humans only have worth if they are young, conventionally beautiful, productive, etc. That is NOT TRUE. Don’t hate the future fiancée, hate the systems that make you want to hate her!
Link
DEAR WHY A PARTY: Perhaps your friend didn’t confide in you because even in this letter, I can hear the judgment in your voice coming through the keys. You don’t have to go to this party. In fact, it may be better that you don’t, considering how you feel. I would call your friend or meet her privately for coffee or a drink to learn more about what happened if she is willing to share. Don’t center yourself in this. When people are going through a traumatic experience, it is important that they are sharing space with people who will be supportive and empathic. It’s fine to remain friends with both parties as long as you realize that one of the parties may not want to remain friends with you for that decision. Very rarely does remaining Switzerland work out well for friendships during a divorce. If you can’t be there for her right now, I suggest you send flowers or a card at the very least.
Link
2. My sister staged a fake wedding years ago. Her boyfriend’s mother was giving money to her children, and the married ones got double the amount of those who were single. We flew cross-country, in good faith, for this charade and spent thousands of dollars. I discovered the truth only six years ago, when I learned that my sister receives Medicaid benefits as a single person who earns little, even though she lives with her boyfriend in a huge house with many trappings of wealth. Now, my mom wants me to invite them for Christmas dinner with my sisters’ families, but I can’t overlook their lies. My mom says it’s none of my business, but as taxpayers, my sisters and I are outraged at the way they scam the system. I think inviting them would end in a big fight. Advice?
SISTER
It’s your house. You can invite whomever you like for Christmas. From my perspective — which is not as close-up as yours — your sister and her boyfriend are still together many years after the fake wedding. That’s better than most married couples. Would you be less upset if they had called the event a commitment ceremony? They made a poor choice in response to an unusual decision by the boyfriend’s mother. I’ve made poor choices before. Have you?
As for your sister’s Medicaid benefits, you haven’t presented enough information to judge whether she is scamming the system. Generally, unmarried couples are not considered a household in establishing Medicaid eligibility. If your sister’s boyfriend can’t (or won’t) include her on his health insurance, her small income and other factors may, indeed, qualify her for Medicaid.
You are entitled to your opinions about your sister’s gamesmanship when it comes to rules and bureaucracy. I don’t see why they should take center stage at your Christmas celebration. Still, you are free to exclude her if you like, but I agree with your mother: We don’t have to admire every decision a sister makes to invite her to dinner.
Link
3. Dear Carolyn: I am 39, and I have three younger brothers. One of them is engaged and living with his fiancée, and one weekend last summer we all stayed with him. And I cannot stand his fiancée.
Part of it is on principle: My brother is 37, and she is 26. He is a doctor, and I think he focused on getting established, and when he wanted to have kids, he picked a younger woman. I have a lot of female friends in their 30s who describe dating as very hard specifically because men want younger women.
The other part is that she is such a Stepford wife. She is a teacher and was off for the summer. Their entire house was clean and organized, she had meals or local restaurants planned, she made activities suggestions for our other brother’s kids, and looked incredible — thin, young, hot. It feels like my smart, accomplished brother picked a young, hot woman instead of somebody his own age who is too busy with a career to put cereal in plastic bins.
I agreed to be a bridesmaid because I couldn’t think of a way to say no. But I don’t know how to fake it for an entire wedding.
My husband just says, “She was very nice to us,” which is true if you just look at the surface. I need help not tearing my hair out.
— Anonymous
Anonymous: Please reread your letter. It is ageist, petty, cruel, bedazzled with cheap assumptions and ungrateful to the point of comedy.
Your brother chose, from your description, a kind, generous, inclusive and conscientious person with one of the most difficult, underpaid and self-sacrificing careers out there, and she busted her shapely backside to host you all — and you hate her for her looks. Holy tap-dancing mean.
If she were 26 and fat, would you like her then? Or still thin, but 36? What about 26, thin, leaves dishes stacked in the sink? Unthreatening enough?
You offer no examples of her being thoughtless, destructive, mean, passive-aggressive, dishonest.
I’m sorry your friends can’t get dates. That you correlate one man’s choice of one woman with collective female suffering just gave me “domestic supply of infants” flashbacks that I could have done without today.
You can worry about demographic trends, yes — but using trends to impugn individual choices and presume you’d make better ones crosses just about all the lines.
Here’s my advice: Sit with your reasons for trashing her — and some reasons not to — for a good, long time.
Readers have thoughts:
· Please stop judging people’s life choices, especially women’s. Sisters need to pull together instead of tearing each other down.
· As a married working mom who at 37 still had time to buy cereal in bulk and decant it into storage bins, I am struck by just how many insecurities the fiancée brings out in Anonymous. Actually hating a person for their age and approach to housekeeping looks like misplaced energy.
· My superstar, 10-years-older sister-in-law used her words and told me well in advance she had no need to be part of our wedding party. If she disliked my anxious, insecure self, she’s never given any indication, and I have appreciated the chance to get to know her over time.
· I absolutely struggle with the urge to hate thin, young, beautiful and competent women, so I empathize. One thing that helps me is remembering that it is society’s fault for suggesting humans only have worth if they are young, conventionally beautiful, productive, etc. That is NOT TRUE. Don’t hate the future fiancée, hate the systems that make you want to hate her!
Link
no subject
(Both to existing, serious, live-in partners -- I was engaged to one -- but in both cases, our hand was forced by insurance changes to domestic partnership rules. And getting married screwed me out of a lot of disability benefits that I would otherwise have been entitled to, like a program that would have paid for a wheelchair ramp for my car.)
When you have a serious chronic illness or disability, you wind up making a LOT of hard choices with regard to both marital status and insurance coverage :/