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A selection of letters from Digg's Good Question
Good Question
1. A few months ago, I needed to have an emergency C-section a month before my due date. Thankfully I came through it safely, and have a wonderful little son. There is just one problem. When my husband “Wade” and I were in the process of choosing a name, Wade really liked a particular one, but I told him it was out of the question because it was the same name of the boy who bullied me relentlessly from elementary through middle school (let’s call him “Benny”). Wade said he understood, we chose another name we both liked together, and I didn’t think of it again. But then my husband did something while I was being closed up in surgery that still has me feeling hurt and betrayed.
When the nurse brought the baby into my hospital room, she said, “here’s ‘Benny.” I thought I was hearing things. I asked her to repeat herself. The name she gave was the one I thought I heard: the name of my childhood bully, Benny. I turned to my smiling husband and demanded to know what was going on. He told me that he had named our baby while I was still in surgery. I felt as if the floor had dropped out from beneath me and asked the nurse to take the baby out of the room.
Once they were gone, I told Wade either the name would be changed or I was going to divorce him. He tried to cajole me into leaving the name as it was, but backed down when I threatened to call my sister’s husband—who is a family law attorney—then and there to put the divorce in motion.
We changed the name to the one we had agreed upon and returned home. Wade has apologized, although I suspect he’s holding some resentment. I have tried to move on from this, but the sense of how he violated my trust still stings and I am considering getting a divorce anyway. Are my feelings justified, or am I being vindictive?
—Betrayed New Mom
Dear Betrayed New Mom,
Your feelings are one hundred percent justified. Your husband’s actions here show both disrespect for your opinion, and cowardice on his part. The idea that he would resent you is laughable. If anyone should be resentful (no one should, it’s not constructive) it’s you. He literally waited until you were incapacitated and then broke an agreement. And the cajoling! Who starts cajoling someone who has just had major surgery?!
There’s a good reason that people try to make some of these decisions before having kids. Hashing out big decisions right after having a baby when you are both pumped full of endorphins and one of you is (potentially) on a lot of meds is a bad idea. This should be a moment for meeting the beautiful new person you brought into the world, not an argument between caregivers.
It would be best for your relationship to somehow give your husband the benefit of the doubt, but I just can’t see a way to do that here. He really screwed up. If the two of you want to keep your marriage intact, he is going to need to figure out how to respect you and to understand what a cowardly act this was. I have to assume that “Benny” holds some kind of meaning and importance to him. If he couldn’t talk to you about that before the fact, it might be difficult for him to talk to you about this at all. Don’t “move on” from this if it’s still bothering you. Tell him you’re struggling with it. Consider doing a round of therapy. Ideally he will learn how to talk to you about something when he disagrees instead of waiting for you to be laid out and sneakily doing whatever he wants.
Link one
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2. DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been married 10 years and in a relationship for 20. I just found out that for more than a year he has been lying about working. He pretended he had a part-time contracting job and has been using our savings to pass as income from this fictional job.
Over the past year, we made a lot of financial decisions based on the assumption that he was employed, which has left us in a tight situation. He initially denied it when I confronted him and even provided fake documents about his "job" before finally coming clean. I'm feeling many emotions because of this betrayal, and I am unsure about how to proceed. Can you guide me? -- DUPED IN CALIFORNIA
DEAR DUPED: Your husband may have been embarrassed about his job loss, which is why he deceived you. What was he doing when he was supposedly working? His (and your) problems may go beyond the financial bind you are now in. Is your husband trying to find another job? Why was he let go?
Contact a CPA or financial adviser and ask what you need to do to get back on firm financial footing. You didn't mention whether you are employed, but if you aren't, it's time to find a job. Once that's done, marriage counseling is crucial.
Link two
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3. I had a parent-teacher conference for my 7-year-old son “Rick.” Everything’s fine with his personal academic progress. But while I was there, I noticed a bunch of writing assignments in his classroom, all about what they thought about going to [Our town name] Elementary “Skool.” I asked the teacher about it, and apparently, it’s a bubbled-up joke-slash-meme. She wasn’t sure how it started, but for a few weeks now, pretty much the entire class has been deliberately misspelling “school” and thinking it’s the funniest thing ever. She decided to roll with it, and allowed them to use the “alternate spelling” on the writing assignment.
I suppose it’s not particularly harmful, but I was left vaguely uneasy about the whole situation. Maybe I’m just a fossil, but none of my teachers would have ever allowed something like this at that age, and I find the notion of teachers bending to the whim of a class full of second graders to be a rather bad idea. Should I voice my concerns here, or just keep them to myself?
—My Kid Got Skooled
Dear Skooled,
This second-grade teacher stumbled upon a way to get a whole class even a little bit excited about a writing assignment? She sounds amazing. Don’t you dare get her in trouble.
Link three
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4. Dear Care and Feeding,
This past summer, my youngest sister, “Elena,” got married, which meant the extended family was in from out of town. To reduce the burden on the bride and groom, my wife and I volunteered to host a few informal get-togethers at our house. This is where things went sideways.
Immediately after lunch the day of the rehearsal dinner, my mom came storming into the kitchen, yelling. She’d gone into our bedroom to use our en-suite bathroom, and spotted my wife’s prenatal vitamins on the vanity as well as a pack of ovulation tests. She was very upset that we hadn’t told her we were trying for a baby! And she thinks my wife and I are “too old” to have a child (late 30s/early 40s) and that it’s “irresponsible” of us to subject ourselves and our future child to all of the issues that come with advanced parental age. She said all this in front of everyone. The news spread quickly, and it became the hot gossip at the rehearsal dinner.
Months later, Elena and her husband are still livid that we “hijacked [their] wedding with [our] baby news,” and our extended family has sided with them. We were selfish, everybody believes, to have “blindsided” the family with this information at Elena’s wedding and even more selfish to consider having a baby at our age. My wife and I contend that my mother is in the wrong because she violated our privacy (twice!), by invading our private space and then by telling others what she saw in there, but my family won’t stop complaining that we “selfishly stole Elena’s thunder.” Now my wife is pregnant, and we’re honestly unsure how to share this news. We don’t want our kid to grow up as “the baby that ruined Aunt Elena’s wedding.”
—We Didn’t Announce Anything
Congratulations! I am so happy for you! Tell whomever you want to tell, in whatever way you want to tell them—in the family group chat? In a Facebook post? A mass email? Individual phone calls? (If you want to save yourselves time and trouble, just tell your mom—she’ll be sure to tell everyone else for you.) Anyone who treats this news as anything other than welcome and wonderful does not deserve even a minute of your attention. If you hear of reactions other than yay!, tell the bearer of that news (even if it’s Mom) that you don’t want to hear anything more about that. If anyone (yup, even Mom) is grotesque enough to say anything directly to you other than, “What fantastic news! I’m so happy for you!”, you have my permission to 1) turn and walk away, 2) hang up the phone without a word, 3) leave the group chat, 4) say, “What an awful thing to say,” and 5) deny them further updates, including the birth announcement.
Your mother’s behavior was inexcusable. Your sister is behaving childishly. Your extended family should mind their own business. With a family like that, who needs enemies? Of course you didn’t hijack anything; of course you weren’t/aren’t being selfish. And the notion that you are “too old” to have a child is ludicrous. (Do they all not know anyone other than the members of the family? And do they not read the newspaper, magazines … or books? Or consume any media?) Please don’t dignify this stupidity with an argument. If you can’t bear to walk away or hang up, roll your eyes and change the subject, preferably to something that makes them feel terrible.
Link four
1. A few months ago, I needed to have an emergency C-section a month before my due date. Thankfully I came through it safely, and have a wonderful little son. There is just one problem. When my husband “Wade” and I were in the process of choosing a name, Wade really liked a particular one, but I told him it was out of the question because it was the same name of the boy who bullied me relentlessly from elementary through middle school (let’s call him “Benny”). Wade said he understood, we chose another name we both liked together, and I didn’t think of it again. But then my husband did something while I was being closed up in surgery that still has me feeling hurt and betrayed.
When the nurse brought the baby into my hospital room, she said, “here’s ‘Benny.” I thought I was hearing things. I asked her to repeat herself. The name she gave was the one I thought I heard: the name of my childhood bully, Benny. I turned to my smiling husband and demanded to know what was going on. He told me that he had named our baby while I was still in surgery. I felt as if the floor had dropped out from beneath me and asked the nurse to take the baby out of the room.
Once they were gone, I told Wade either the name would be changed or I was going to divorce him. He tried to cajole me into leaving the name as it was, but backed down when I threatened to call my sister’s husband—who is a family law attorney—then and there to put the divorce in motion.
We changed the name to the one we had agreed upon and returned home. Wade has apologized, although I suspect he’s holding some resentment. I have tried to move on from this, but the sense of how he violated my trust still stings and I am considering getting a divorce anyway. Are my feelings justified, or am I being vindictive?
—Betrayed New Mom
Dear Betrayed New Mom,
Your feelings are one hundred percent justified. Your husband’s actions here show both disrespect for your opinion, and cowardice on his part. The idea that he would resent you is laughable. If anyone should be resentful (no one should, it’s not constructive) it’s you. He literally waited until you were incapacitated and then broke an agreement. And the cajoling! Who starts cajoling someone who has just had major surgery?!
There’s a good reason that people try to make some of these decisions before having kids. Hashing out big decisions right after having a baby when you are both pumped full of endorphins and one of you is (potentially) on a lot of meds is a bad idea. This should be a moment for meeting the beautiful new person you brought into the world, not an argument between caregivers.
It would be best for your relationship to somehow give your husband the benefit of the doubt, but I just can’t see a way to do that here. He really screwed up. If the two of you want to keep your marriage intact, he is going to need to figure out how to respect you and to understand what a cowardly act this was. I have to assume that “Benny” holds some kind of meaning and importance to him. If he couldn’t talk to you about that before the fact, it might be difficult for him to talk to you about this at all. Don’t “move on” from this if it’s still bothering you. Tell him you’re struggling with it. Consider doing a round of therapy. Ideally he will learn how to talk to you about something when he disagrees instead of waiting for you to be laid out and sneakily doing whatever he wants.
Link one
2. DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been married 10 years and in a relationship for 20. I just found out that for more than a year he has been lying about working. He pretended he had a part-time contracting job and has been using our savings to pass as income from this fictional job.
Over the past year, we made a lot of financial decisions based on the assumption that he was employed, which has left us in a tight situation. He initially denied it when I confronted him and even provided fake documents about his "job" before finally coming clean. I'm feeling many emotions because of this betrayal, and I am unsure about how to proceed. Can you guide me? -- DUPED IN CALIFORNIA
DEAR DUPED: Your husband may have been embarrassed about his job loss, which is why he deceived you. What was he doing when he was supposedly working? His (and your) problems may go beyond the financial bind you are now in. Is your husband trying to find another job? Why was he let go?
Contact a CPA or financial adviser and ask what you need to do to get back on firm financial footing. You didn't mention whether you are employed, but if you aren't, it's time to find a job. Once that's done, marriage counseling is crucial.
Link two
3. I had a parent-teacher conference for my 7-year-old son “Rick.” Everything’s fine with his personal academic progress. But while I was there, I noticed a bunch of writing assignments in his classroom, all about what they thought about going to [Our town name] Elementary “Skool.” I asked the teacher about it, and apparently, it’s a bubbled-up joke-slash-meme. She wasn’t sure how it started, but for a few weeks now, pretty much the entire class has been deliberately misspelling “school” and thinking it’s the funniest thing ever. She decided to roll with it, and allowed them to use the “alternate spelling” on the writing assignment.
I suppose it’s not particularly harmful, but I was left vaguely uneasy about the whole situation. Maybe I’m just a fossil, but none of my teachers would have ever allowed something like this at that age, and I find the notion of teachers bending to the whim of a class full of second graders to be a rather bad idea. Should I voice my concerns here, or just keep them to myself?
—My Kid Got Skooled
Dear Skooled,
This second-grade teacher stumbled upon a way to get a whole class even a little bit excited about a writing assignment? She sounds amazing. Don’t you dare get her in trouble.
Link three
4. Dear Care and Feeding,
This past summer, my youngest sister, “Elena,” got married, which meant the extended family was in from out of town. To reduce the burden on the bride and groom, my wife and I volunteered to host a few informal get-togethers at our house. This is where things went sideways.
Immediately after lunch the day of the rehearsal dinner, my mom came storming into the kitchen, yelling. She’d gone into our bedroom to use our en-suite bathroom, and spotted my wife’s prenatal vitamins on the vanity as well as a pack of ovulation tests. She was very upset that we hadn’t told her we were trying for a baby! And she thinks my wife and I are “too old” to have a child (late 30s/early 40s) and that it’s “irresponsible” of us to subject ourselves and our future child to all of the issues that come with advanced parental age. She said all this in front of everyone. The news spread quickly, and it became the hot gossip at the rehearsal dinner.
Months later, Elena and her husband are still livid that we “hijacked [their] wedding with [our] baby news,” and our extended family has sided with them. We were selfish, everybody believes, to have “blindsided” the family with this information at Elena’s wedding and even more selfish to consider having a baby at our age. My wife and I contend that my mother is in the wrong because she violated our privacy (twice!), by invading our private space and then by telling others what she saw in there, but my family won’t stop complaining that we “selfishly stole Elena’s thunder.” Now my wife is pregnant, and we’re honestly unsure how to share this news. We don’t want our kid to grow up as “the baby that ruined Aunt Elena’s wedding.”
—We Didn’t Announce Anything
Congratulations! I am so happy for you! Tell whomever you want to tell, in whatever way you want to tell them—in the family group chat? In a Facebook post? A mass email? Individual phone calls? (If you want to save yourselves time and trouble, just tell your mom—she’ll be sure to tell everyone else for you.) Anyone who treats this news as anything other than welcome and wonderful does not deserve even a minute of your attention. If you hear of reactions other than yay!, tell the bearer of that news (even if it’s Mom) that you don’t want to hear anything more about that. If anyone (yup, even Mom) is grotesque enough to say anything directly to you other than, “What fantastic news! I’m so happy for you!”, you have my permission to 1) turn and walk away, 2) hang up the phone without a word, 3) leave the group chat, 4) say, “What an awful thing to say,” and 5) deny them further updates, including the birth announcement.
Your mother’s behavior was inexcusable. Your sister is behaving childishly. Your extended family should mind their own business. With a family like that, who needs enemies? Of course you didn’t hijack anything; of course you weren’t/aren’t being selfish. And the notion that you are “too old” to have a child is ludicrous. (Do they all not know anyone other than the members of the family? And do they not read the newspaper, magazines … or books? Or consume any media?) Please don’t dignify this stupidity with an argument. If you can’t bear to walk away or hang up, roll your eyes and change the subject, preferably to something that makes them feel terrible.
Link four
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2. Husband2 is more sympathetic than Husband1. It's amazing. Oh, don't get me wrong, his actions are still very wrong - but at least I can see where he might be coming from. Regardless, LW2 needs to follow the same advice I gave LW1.
3. Another LW with this same complaint might be making a good point. LW3, however, just sounds like a buzzkill. Does your kid actually know how to spell the word correctly? If so, let the teacher manage her classroom as she sees fit.
4. LW4 needs some serious therapy while she considers how much contact, if any, she wants to have with these people.
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Right? It's awful behaviour, but it's a thing that does happen, people lie, ashamed at their position, trap themselves in it, and tell themselves it will be fine. Losing their savings is a blow, but at least those decisions can't have involved ones that require proof of income. Time for counselling, individual and together, and in the future for goodness sake make sure you can see proof of his income. In the actual account, not via his print-outs.
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The fake documents elevate the husband's choices to a whole nother level. LW needs to talk to a financial advisor, she needs to talk to an attorney about whatever her rights are in her state, she needs to lock her personal credit down tight and say nothing of it to her husband, and she needs to get a job so she won't be living in a box eating cat food in a few years thanks to her genius husband's money management skills.
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It wouldn't occur to me to ask for the statements to confirm that the money was still there, and I'd be surprised (though not upset) if he wanted to see details about the retirement accounts that are in my name.
This may be imprudent, but it's not that unusual.
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Lots of women (and LW's gender isn't in the letter, I realise) still leave long-term finances entirely to their husbands. A more dramatic version of this happened to my best friend's mum. She divorced him.
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LW1: Never drink from an open container in your husband's presence.
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Word.
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LW #4 -- if this family would really call a child "the baby who ruined Aunt Elena's wedding" I don't think you want to stay in contact with them.
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