agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear Pay Dirt,

I grew up in poverty, where we were always on the edge of eviction. If it wasn’t for school, my siblings and I wouldn’t have eaten. It left a large mark on me. I am much more financially conservative than my husband. I have also been the main breadwinner since we married. We need a cushion before even thinking about kids, it’s really important to me. But my in-laws don’t care!

My sisters-in-law grew up in luxury, graduated with degrees they never used, and married rich. Ever since we got married, they constantly try to pressure us to have kids. When I’ve said we want to be more financially stable, they blow me off and say that “families do it all the time” and that “God will provide.” I have told my mother-in-law and husband how condescending this nonsense is to me. They both said that everyone just wants the “best” for us.

Recently, my sister-in-law started in on me again with her breeding propaganda: How I wasn’t getting any younger (I turned 33 this year); That there “never a perfect time to have a baby;” and how “Divine Providence provides for everyone.” Well I finally lost my temper. I asked her where was God the times I went hungry to give food to my younger siblings? Or how is he providing for starving kids in war zones? She started to cry, so now I am the villain. My in-laws told my husband I need therapy. My reply is that maybe my actual life experience and personhood is worth a drop of empathy, and they should stop treating me like I was a sow at market. How can I get them to realize that not everyone is rich like they are and that some of us do need to save and plan for kids?

—Not Breeding Anytime Soon

Dear Not Breeding,

First of all, you have absolutely no obligation to explain your life choices to other people, especially around something as personal as having children. Your reasons are valid, even if it’s just “I don’t want kids.”

It sounds like your in-laws are being unreasonable and pushing their religious ideas on you, and that alone is cause for shutting down the conversation with them. You need to set a clear and strict boundary here—you don’t want to talk about kids, your life choices, or their religious beliefs. You’re different people, and if they think you need therapy because your choices don’t align with theirs, that’s fine—they’re welcome to think whatever they want. But they’re not welcome to talk to you about it. You can also let them know the truth: that their arguments have not persuaded you one bit—in fact, they’ve pushed you further into your decision.

Your husband should also have your back on this. If you’re telling them one thing, and he’s telling them another, then they might think it’s OK to push the issue. Make sure he knows these are the ground rules and that the two of you are a unit that can’t be divided. If your in-laws can’t stick to your boundaries, you may need some space from them, and they need to be prepared for that conversation, too.

Ultimately, the goal is not to win a debate with them about this, but to shut down the conversation before it gets to that point. If they truly want the best for you, the least they can do is respect your choice. If that’s out of the question, then they at least need to respect your boundaries.

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1. It may actually be beneficial for LW to go to therapy. I say this out of kindness, though - her inlaws are just fucking awful.

2. LW does not have an inlaw problem, LW has a husband problem. If Husband agrees with this decision to delay children or not have them then he needs to back LW up and tell his family to back off. Or if he doesn't then he still needs to tell his family to mind their own goddamn business and then he and LW need to talk. If they cannot agree on this issue then they need to at least be certain of that.

3. I've said this before and I'll say it again - when you explain yourself to other people you are sending the message that your decisions are up for debate. And if they're not, they're not. So don't do it.

It may actually be beneficial for LW to go to therapy. I say this out of kindness, though - her inlaws are just fucking awful.

If she goes to a good therapist, she might learn how to carry out the advice to set boundaries and demand her husband have her back. And I’m thinking her in-laws would not like the result. /schadenfreude

Your point three in particular is *excellent* advice.

It is absolutely shocking how often I have to say it. You'd think other people would've figured it out by now, but I guess not? (There was one person in the Slate comments beating the same drum, and good for them.)

I am really, really WTF when there are these responses from advice-person about 'they need to respect your boundaries' when it is clear that the persons in question would not recognise a boundary in letters of flaming fire manifested by a team of angels. I.e. good luck with that, but HOW? - operant conditioning of some sort?

Well... yes. Because before they can respect your boundary, you need to enforce it. Which is the part columnists often skip or gloss over.

In this case, the next time the inlaws bring up babies, the visit is over, and Husband does not answer calls or texts from his family for at least two weeks afterwards. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Agree, but people who are already not enforcing it probably need some help to figure this out and the columnists so rarely explain it at all. Most of the LWs will probably default to trying to explain or persuade the offenders that they really mean it in the absence of direction.

Yes, this is why Captain Awkward is so great.

The whole idea that you can't make them understand so you have to decide what YOU will DO in the absence of their understanding. It's training them that if they say or do a certain thing, the consequences will follow. And they might not like the consequences.

Somebody on... I think Ask a Manager once complained about how people say "boundaries" and don't explain how to enforce them - and then, predictably, when we said "You change the subject and if that doesn't work you end the conversation, you leave the party, you block your Mom from your phone for a week" said "Oh, well, I can't do that, it can't possibly work!"

Which... well, it's about what I expect from people who really urgently need to set some strong boundaries with their families, but she didn't like hearing "Yes, you can do that, you just really don't want to" very much either. (No evidence that her problematic whoever was on the brink of death or otherwise could not take a few weeks no or very low contact.)

I've yet to find a way to shape this thought so people will accept it if they're not ready to do that.

She can't make them understand and must give up trying.

All she can do is tell them stop asking and them decide what she will do if they won't... leave the house? Take a break from seeing them?

And yes, her husband needs to back her up.

So many advice letters -- and I noticed this first at Captain Awkward -- are full of people wanting to MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND or MAKE THEM CHANGE. All a person can do is state their own boundary and enforce it. It's quite a sea change away from How Can I Make Them Understand. These people will never understand. Her in-laws are completely without empathy.

Reading Captain Awkward helped me A LOT because that was exactly where I was going wrong in my relationships. The belief that if I just did or said the exact right thing, or did a perfect job of explaining how I was being harmed, the person causing the problem would change... it was deeply ingrained, and it took a lot of repeated explanations and examples for me to understand what the alternative was. Captain Awkward has certainly done a lot of those letters, but I actually needed the repetition so I'll always be grateful to her for that!

Oh, I am not criticizing the repetition in any way. I agree, it is a message that must be heard over and over.

I too found it very hard to give up the idea that somehow, I could make them understand if I just explained it better. Sometimes they do not want to or cannot understand.

Setting boundaries is very scary at first. And for me it was a revelation that there even was such a thing! I grew up in a very codependent, "my feelings are your fault" kind of a family. So yeah.

Oh, I didn't think you were criticizing the repetition! I was just remarking on it.

It was the same for me. I literally didn't know there was another way. I thought the choices were either persuade people to stop hurting me, or just keep getting hurt. I didn't know I could make decisions about what I would put up with independently of other people's willingness to respect it. My family definitely did not teach that lesson.

Well I finally lost my temper. I asked her where was God the times I went hungry to give food to my younger siblings? Or how is he providing for starving kids in war zones? She started to cry,

This is supposed to have been rude or mean of LW? She's pointing out facts that contradict the statements they have continued to repeat when they knew she did not find them persuasive before, so: badgering her with them! And answering with a few widely known and completely obvious facts about the fact that children are sometimes hungry in the world is being painted as aggression on her part?!

This is such White Women's Tears bullshit that I have to wonder if there actually is a race or class divide that they were relying on.

Definitely a class divide - I'm guessing that the inlaws are sufficiently enriched by family money that they never really had to worry about job choices, which also explains why LW outearns Husband but this doesn't seem to be a point of contention as it so often is with the fundie crowd.

I hope that LW has un-tamperable birth control in place. If she is on pills, she needs to keep them somewhere the in-laws can't get at them when they visit (assuming they do, which, with people like this, I'm sure they do, and that they snoop).

I have noticed a lot of overlap between people who say "Have kids; God will provide" and people who vote against programs that will help the people who have said kids.

This is not unintentional - if people have a safety net then they don't have to rely on their churches. And that's not just me being snide, this is something I've seen them actually put in print and on the record. Some of the more obnoxious Christians I've met will willfully claim that Jesus' words that we'll always have the poor with us are equivalent to a commandment not to try to remedy that situation

LW, you need to talk to your husband and make sure you're on the same page. Part of being on the same page should be that if you decide you do want kids, you need to make a concrete financial goal of when it will be time (because without concrete goals it's really easy to keep moving the goalposts so it's never time, or not work for it and then act surprised it didn't happen.)

If you both agree you don't want kids enough to make those financial goals a big part of your life, or you don't think the amount you'd need to be comfortable with it is realistically achievable, (which is super valid and the path I chose!) you start telling your husband's relatives that you've decided you don't want kids and then shutting it down immediately. And make sure you're on the same page with what you're saying.

If you do set those goals (once we have a financial cushion of X years of income in savings/once we have X amount of reliable yearly income/once we have a house that's X% paid off/whatever) you start sweetly and with maximum passive aggression telling the rich relatives that you don't want to have kids until you have a specific financial cushion that you're working on, comparable to the ones they have, but if they'd like to contribute to a trust fund toward that goal, you would be happy to talk to them about how to set that up. And if they don't agree to contribute, then shut it down immediately. (Oh, well, if you're not interested in helping I don't think the details are any of your business, lovely weather we're having--)

If they do offer to set up a generous trust fund it's time to have another chat with your husband about how much and how you're willing to accept from these people! But I think the odds are low.

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