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agonyaunt2024-08-27 11:02 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2024-08-27 11:02 am
Entry tags:
Dear Prudence: Two on a Theme
Help! My Husband and I Became Temporary Parents. It Showed Me a Scary Side of Him.
Dear Prudence,
My husband and I agreed that we didn’t want to have kids. But last year, we said yes when someone in his family needed us as foster parents. I’d like to think that I was an OK foster mom: I made her my first priority and understood that our life was going to be organized around her. It turned out that her mom was in active addiction during pregnancy so she had more medical needs and troubles than most babies. It was not a radical or transformative experience with love, empathy, and bonding. It was an anxious, sleepless slog for a kid who needed it.
I felt like my husband passed the hardest parts off to me: all of the nighttime care, the daycare problems, the more painful doctor appointments, or the annoying social services bureaucracy. We fought about it but it never really got better. We only had her for six months but it was the longest six months ever.
My husband was heartbroken when it was time but I mostly felt relief when it was safe for her to return to her birth mom. Our monthly visits are perfect for me. We’d been together for 15 years and married for a decade but I suddenly saw all these cracks and selfishness within my husband that I’d never seen before. I’m still angry with him and I don’t know what to do—our marriage is back to feeling sweet and balanced but I can’t forget this nightmare experience. Part of me says this is a clue for how he’ll treat me badly if we grow old together and part of me says it was an experience we’d never had before and will never have again. What do I do here?
—Open Eyes
Dear Open Eyes,
This is definitely the kind of letter that makes me want to do an audit of your entire marriage, asking questions like: How does your husband act when you’re sick? Does he notice and try to take things off your plate if you’re stressed or overwhelmed? Does he check out when it comes to tasks traditionally assigned to women? Do you generally feel alone or abandoned when it comes to the harder parts of life?
But since I only have what you wrote to do, if “sweet and balanced” is really an accurate description of your relationship, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. “It was an experience we’ve never had before and will never have again” sounds accurate. I’d call his behavior disappointing but not predictive of him turning into a monster during your golden years. Taking care of an infant is a lot (especially for someone who never wanted children) and I can see how that combined with the societal messaging that women are somehow naturally more qualified to deal with crying babies and make pediatrician appointments led to a situation where he fell down on the job. That’s not an excuse, but an explanation. You showed great character and compassion by pushing through and giving the child what she needed. Hopefully, there are other areas of your life where he has been just as impressive.
Help! My Boyfriend’s Family Tried to Starve Me During an Isolated Backwoods Vacation.
Dear Prudence,
I am a vegan for a variety of reasons. I don’t preach and often find it easier to bring my own food rather than pick at my hosts for what goes into a meal. My boyfriend was invited to a family summer gathering. It was very isolated and rural. I explained I was bringing my own food (his father and brother made special vegan jokes to me before). What happened was the kids raided my food (it was in my pack) when the pantry snacks got locked up. I’d brought enough food for me for five days; they went through everything in five hours! I got upset, and it was just a big joke to everyone. Then it seemed to become a game. If I set aside some peanut butter and celery, someone would eat it. Same for the oranges I put aside for breakfast (I got offered cereal and milk instead). I tried to get my boyfriend to drive me to a grocery store, and he told me it would take more than two hours one way and to lighten up. By the time I left, I wanted to cry. My boyfriend and I have been fighting about it. He tells me I was overreacting and it wasn’t like I’d starve out there. Is he right? We’ve been together for nine months and talking about moving in together. I am having doubts.
—Vegan Vacation
Dear Vegan,
Advertisement
If you were still there while you wrote this, I was going to ask if you needed someone to come rescue you and put out a call to our readers. These people tried to starve you to death! What would make this a tricky question would be if your boyfriend’s relatives were monsters and he was a nice guy who was just too timid to stand up to them. Instead, his relatives are monsters and so is he. I’m a little saddened and concerned that that isn’t clear to you, and that he has you wondering whether you’re overreacting. I can sit here and tell you that you’re absolutely not, but I think you need to hear it from others, too. Do you know five people of any age who are in happy relationships, or even single people who you think of as having good self-confidence? I want you to reach out to each of them and get their perspective.
They are all going to tell you that you are 100 percent right and your boyfriend is 100 percent wrong and that you deserve better. They might add that he’ll only treat you worse and worse as time goes on. I bet someone will throw in that his entire family is going to find a new thing to gang up on you about every season. I hope someone also mentions that nine months is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Please work on understanding that you deserve to be treated with respect. And please never move in with someone who can’t even be trusted to stand up for you in a fight over peanut butter and celery.
Dear Prudence,
My husband and I agreed that we didn’t want to have kids. But last year, we said yes when someone in his family needed us as foster parents. I’d like to think that I was an OK foster mom: I made her my first priority and understood that our life was going to be organized around her. It turned out that her mom was in active addiction during pregnancy so she had more medical needs and troubles than most babies. It was not a radical or transformative experience with love, empathy, and bonding. It was an anxious, sleepless slog for a kid who needed it.
I felt like my husband passed the hardest parts off to me: all of the nighttime care, the daycare problems, the more painful doctor appointments, or the annoying social services bureaucracy. We fought about it but it never really got better. We only had her for six months but it was the longest six months ever.
My husband was heartbroken when it was time but I mostly felt relief when it was safe for her to return to her birth mom. Our monthly visits are perfect for me. We’d been together for 15 years and married for a decade but I suddenly saw all these cracks and selfishness within my husband that I’d never seen before. I’m still angry with him and I don’t know what to do—our marriage is back to feeling sweet and balanced but I can’t forget this nightmare experience. Part of me says this is a clue for how he’ll treat me badly if we grow old together and part of me says it was an experience we’d never had before and will never have again. What do I do here?
—Open Eyes
Dear Open Eyes,
This is definitely the kind of letter that makes me want to do an audit of your entire marriage, asking questions like: How does your husband act when you’re sick? Does he notice and try to take things off your plate if you’re stressed or overwhelmed? Does he check out when it comes to tasks traditionally assigned to women? Do you generally feel alone or abandoned when it comes to the harder parts of life?
But since I only have what you wrote to do, if “sweet and balanced” is really an accurate description of your relationship, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. “It was an experience we’ve never had before and will never have again” sounds accurate. I’d call his behavior disappointing but not predictive of him turning into a monster during your golden years. Taking care of an infant is a lot (especially for someone who never wanted children) and I can see how that combined with the societal messaging that women are somehow naturally more qualified to deal with crying babies and make pediatrician appointments led to a situation where he fell down on the job. That’s not an excuse, but an explanation. You showed great character and compassion by pushing through and giving the child what she needed. Hopefully, there are other areas of your life where he has been just as impressive.
Help! My Boyfriend’s Family Tried to Starve Me During an Isolated Backwoods Vacation.
Dear Prudence,
I am a vegan for a variety of reasons. I don’t preach and often find it easier to bring my own food rather than pick at my hosts for what goes into a meal. My boyfriend was invited to a family summer gathering. It was very isolated and rural. I explained I was bringing my own food (his father and brother made special vegan jokes to me before). What happened was the kids raided my food (it was in my pack) when the pantry snacks got locked up. I’d brought enough food for me for five days; they went through everything in five hours! I got upset, and it was just a big joke to everyone. Then it seemed to become a game. If I set aside some peanut butter and celery, someone would eat it. Same for the oranges I put aside for breakfast (I got offered cereal and milk instead). I tried to get my boyfriend to drive me to a grocery store, and he told me it would take more than two hours one way and to lighten up. By the time I left, I wanted to cry. My boyfriend and I have been fighting about it. He tells me I was overreacting and it wasn’t like I’d starve out there. Is he right? We’ve been together for nine months and talking about moving in together. I am having doubts.
—Vegan Vacation
Dear Vegan,
Advertisement
If you were still there while you wrote this, I was going to ask if you needed someone to come rescue you and put out a call to our readers. These people tried to starve you to death! What would make this a tricky question would be if your boyfriend’s relatives were monsters and he was a nice guy who was just too timid to stand up to them. Instead, his relatives are monsters and so is he. I’m a little saddened and concerned that that isn’t clear to you, and that he has you wondering whether you’re overreacting. I can sit here and tell you that you’re absolutely not, but I think you need to hear it from others, too. Do you know five people of any age who are in happy relationships, or even single people who you think of as having good self-confidence? I want you to reach out to each of them and get their perspective.
They are all going to tell you that you are 100 percent right and your boyfriend is 100 percent wrong and that you deserve better. They might add that he’ll only treat you worse and worse as time goes on. I bet someone will throw in that his entire family is going to find a new thing to gang up on you about every season. I hope someone also mentions that nine months is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Please work on understanding that you deserve to be treated with respect. And please never move in with someone who can’t even be trusted to stand up for you in a fight over peanut butter and celery.
no subject
Re LW#2: Call Whole Man Disposal ASAP. Not only did BF not defend LW to his family after they stole and ate her food, he also sided with them. That's more than enough reason to leave, or to send him packing.
no subject
no subject
2) DTMFA
no subject
no subject
2) Yeah, this guy is not worth it. You didn't have anything to eat for 5 days, the kids are poorly behaved enough to steal from guests, the *adults* are badly behaved enough to not apologize and make it right, and your boyfriend thought you were making too much of it. DTMAF and his awful family.
no subject
LW 1, do you still both not want to have kids? If this is really the only time you've had these kinds of issues with him, it's possible he's just a person who made the correct choice in marrying someone else who never wanted kids, because he was aware he would be very bad at the skills required for coparenting. Maybe there's something about babies that just makes him shut down as a person. So don't have kids with him, but that was already your plan, so good. If you end up having to take your foster child short-term again, be realistic about what he's going to be like, and don't put any expectations on him (unless you think you can successfully negotiate for him doing more of the non-kid household work while you're on full-time kid duty.) Therapy for both of you still might not be a bad idea if you can swing it - foster parenting a newborn and then giving them back is tough regardless!
But if you have other evidence that he's unwilling to take on his share of responsibilities in other ways - are you also handling all of *his* bureaucracy and medical appointments? Does he not help out when you're sick? Does *any* criticism of him end with unproductive fights? - then you have a bigger problem that you need to think really hard about.