Slate: Two on Siblings

[minoanmiss]

Der Care and Feeding, My daughter “Peyton” just turned two, and my idiot brother thought it would be funny to get...

My daughter “Peyton” just turned two, and my idiot brother thought it would be funny to get her a plush poop emoji toy that makes fart noises when squeezed as a gift. This toy has become Peyton’s most favorite thing in the world, and it accompanies her everywhere, sound effects included. You can imagine what it’s like when shopping or at the doctor’s office. If I take it away from her so I can have a respite from the endless sounds of flatulence, she has a meltdown. Peyton plays with it to the exclusion of almost everything else, and while she’s never laughed so much in her life, I don’t know how much more I can take. My husband finds it hilarious. I don’t!

—In a Snit Over a Stuffed Piece of Shit

Dear In a Snit,

This would drive me bonkers. I don’t like bathroom humor, and I’ve never even used the poop emoji because it disgusts me. So I can only imagine what you’re feeling. However, the baby is only 2-years-old—not quite enough to understand how fart sounds might make some of us feel—and your brother has given her something she absolutely loves, which is great for their relationship. I’m sorry, but I think you’re gonna just have to make peace with the poop, at least for the time being. Since she clearly likes funny sounds, try finding her another toy that makes silly noises. Regularly encourage her to play with other toys. Eventually, the poop toy will be yesterday’s news.

Dear Prudence, While I was dating my college boyfriend, my sister started to date his brother.
While I was dating my college boyfriend, my sister started to date his brother. My relationship started getting rocky, and I had a choice between starting a new job in a different city or working on my relationship. My boyfriend was adamant that I not take the job and stay here with him. I made the mistake of staying. We broke up a year later because I found him cheating on me. My sister was still dating his brother and they ended up engaged. It was very difficult for me to be around my sister and her fiancé. After they got married, holidays were even worse. I struggled but moved on. Well, several years later, they are in the process of getting a divorce. And my brother-in-law just decided to nuke my relationship with my sister by sending me a taunting text containing a major shock.

In it, he revealed his brother had been cheating on me a long time before I found out, and my sister knew all the time!

I called my sister in tears and she confessed. I screamed at her. She was the one that encouraged me to stay and skip my chance at a new job. I called her a selfish whore and said that I considered her dead to me now. In the aftermath, our parents are more upset at me for adding more stress to my sister than about what happened to me. They say it was years ago and that I am overreacting. This has me so sick that my doctor put me on anxiety medication. I don’t know how to go on from here.

—Hurt and Lost

Dear Hurt and Lost,

Don’t let the terrorists (these two awful brothers) win. It’s not fair that your boyfriend cheated on you, and it’s even worse that your brother-in-law went out of his way to hurt you on his way out the door. I’ll be transparent about my agenda here: I don’t want this story to end with the two bad guy exes living happily ever after and enjoying each other’s company while you and you and your sister have to cope without each other. You say “My BIL decided to nuke my relationship with my sister” —but his whole plan fails if you don’t let him do that.

Also, totally separate from my desire for a narrative in which the terrible men don’t come out on top, I think your relationship with your sister is worth saving. Yes, it’s fair to be upset with her, to wish she’d made a different choice with regard to telling you about the cheating, and to need some time to get over it. But her behavior doesn’t rise to “selfish whore who is dead to me” levels. People often write to me often asking for advice on whether to tell a loved one that their partner is being unfaithful. It’s a common dilemma because this is a situation in which it’s really hard to know what the victim of infidelity would want. While some are grateful for the intel, plenty of others become outraged at the deliverer of bad news. I’ve made the case before that when there is cheating, there are almost always clues and that person in the relationship could pursue if they truly wanted to know, so there’s no obligation to inform them. But whether to speak up is a legitimately tough call—one about which good, kind people can disagree. Sometimes I think we should get ahead of the issue by giving our friends and family instructions about whether we’d want to be informed if they ever suspected that our partners were cheating.

What you’re experiencing is real pain and distress, and I would never agree that you’re overreacting or that the time that’s passed means you should be over it. But I suspect your response might be more about how much being cheated on all those years ago hurt you—and your shame over making a “mistake”— and less about what your sister knew and when. I hope the anti-anxiety medication is helping, and I wonder if it will give you the mental space to process what happened in your relationship, why you made the choice you did, and how you can forgive yourself for staying in a city with a guy who turned out not to be worth it. That’s a totally understandable (and extremely common) decision. And it’s worth noting that it did not ruin your life. I hope you can make peace with it and see it as part of your journey rather than something that derailed you completely. If you can do that, you may begin to see your sister is also someone who has made missteps but isn’t defined by them, and perhaps the two of you can figure out your next steps together.

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

LW1: sometimes toys stop working. You can still play with them, but they don't make noise because the batteries have run down. (Or coincidentally disappeared overnight.) A plush toy that makes fart noises probably has a thick plastic balloon inside. A small puncture with something like a knitting needle can stop the fart sounds. If the needle goes in between the stitches, the hole in the plush isn't noticeable. Not that I'm saying Mama should destroy Poopy! Just...it would be awfully convenient if Peyton were to wake up and be handed her plush toy that made non fart-like squeaks or was altogether quiet.

[cimorene]

Lol this was my first thought, too

[movingfinger]

Exactly right. Parents and pet owners have been disabling noisemakers for a very long time!!

[full_metal_ox]

I plead guilty to once having been That Enabling Relative, by regifting a noisemaker: a friend of mine had seen fit to buy her friend group motion-sensitive plush Godzillas that roared upon activation—-except that mine somehow gradually glitched to go off randomly at whatever hour of the day or night.

Well, I found myself on a lengthy family road trip with my sister and brother-in-law and a couple small nephews; the latters’ idea of suitable background ambiance for a hazy green scenic morning drive through the Smokey Mountains was “Space Jam” and “Veggie Tales”—-and specific catchphrases thereof—-againandAGAINandAGAIN on the car TV; I’m never the driver, and so I never get to pick the audio. Suffice to say that, come the next plausible gift-giving occasion, I knew exactly where to rehome the thing.

[minoanmiss]

giggle giggle giggle

[magid]

For the second letter, the answer doesn't address what I think is a big part of the reaction: the opportunity cost that LW paid. She could have had a shiny new job and avoided a whole lot of pain had her sister told her. Who knows what her life would look like had that road been taken? No way to know, but finding out that it was clearly the wrong choice to stay makes it so much harder to get over; even though the choice was made years ago, finding out now is still a big shock. I do think the histrionics of the response ("dead to me") is too much, but I can understand a higher level of upset than the answer seems to think reasonable.

[movingfinger]

1000% justified!

[green_grrl]

Absolutely agree. I’m just grateful that when my sister found out my boyfriend was cheating on me, she told our mutual friend (bf’s roommate) that he had a week to tell me or she was telling me herself. No effing way was she standing for that bullshit.

[cimorene]

Agreed. This specific action is rightly what LW is focused on, because even if the intent was not to harm her - I'm assuming here, but she perhaps didn't want her sister to move away from her, possibly was genuinely invested in the sister's relationship succeeding if only in repressed fears for her own - the action was still a betrayal. It encompasses the issue of whether to tell your loved one about cheating, but isn't limited to it. And the answer doesn't really seem to get that. In order to evaluate sister's ethics, motives, and actions, we would have to know more precisely what she knew and what LW discussed with her, but even in the best case withholding critically relevant information from an adult in order to influence their major life choices is a serious wrong.

[topaz_eyes]

Re LW1: Hang in there, LW. Her daughter will eventually turn her attention to other toys. Also, it's possible that part of daughter's delight may also be from eliciting LW's response to her toy; LW should try to ignore the poop toy as much as possible.

Re LW2: I hope you can make peace with it and see it as part of your journey rather than something that derailed you completely.

LW's life would have turned out far differently had she taken that job. Whatever sister's reason was for keeping silent re LW's BF, that silence cost LW a life-changing opportunity. To me, that's a fundamental breach of trust on sister's part.

I’ve made the case before that when there is cheating, there are almost always clues and that person in the relationship could pursue if they truly wanted to know LW seriously considered moving to a different city for a new job because of the relationship problems. Had LW not listened to her sister--because LW believed her sister had LW's best interests at heart--LW probably would not have had to write this letter at all.

[mrissa]

People often write to me often asking for advice on whether to tell a loved one that their partner is being unfaithful. It’s a common dilemma because this is a situation in which it’s really hard to know what the victim of infidelity would want. While some are grateful for the intel, plenty of others become outraged at the deliverer of bad news.

Okay but...isn't there some middle ground between "go out of my way to tell her in front of everyone at the family reunion, including pictures of proof" and "actively encourage her to make life decisions based on a situation where I'm pretty sure she does not have all the relevant information"? There's so much room for the sister to have said, "Oh yeah, that's a tough one, I don't know what I'd do, I'll buy you some ice cream while you process if you want," instead of, "definitely stay with him."

[melannen]

Yeah, there's a big gap between "decide not to tell sister about the cheating" and "actively encourage sister to torpedo her career to stay with the cheater"!

That said, she was pretty clearly also in a dysfunctional relationship with a manipulative asshole at the time, who probably would have blown up *their* relationship if she hadn't - in fact, frankly, the most likely way this came about is that BIL told her but made her promise not to tell for the specific purpose of being able to break her relationship with her sister at will - so LW, sit with it a bit and then find space to offer her some grace.