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How Can I Get My Daughter To Break Up With Her Working-Class Boyfriend, And Other Advice Column Questions
There are too many excellent advice columns to keep up with, so we're committed to bringing you links to the best advice column questions and answers every week. Here's a roundup of the most interesting, thought-provoking and surprising questions that our favorite columnists addressed in recent days.
How Can I Get My Daughter To Break Up With Her Working-Class Boyfriend?
My daughter is a highly educated and beautiful girl. She has a great job and recently became a rich widow. My problem is she has a man living with her and my grandson. He is physically, mentally and socially very inferior to her.
She is a doctor, and he does not have a college degree. In fact, he assembles bikes at Walmart. My husband, two sons and their wives are doctors as well. His sister is a single mother and is a waitress — no high school degree — and his mother is a dental hygienist.
This is not a good fit for our family, and I am afraid he is a moocher. Any advice will be very much appreciated. And yes we do look askance at low-educated types.
Sahaj Kaur Kohli advises the letter writer to change her mindset if she wants to avoid a rift between her and her daughter. "By proclaiming that 'this is not a good fit,' you allude to a concern of how this may look to other people," she writes. "That shouldn't be more important than your daughter's happiness." Read the rest of her answer.
Should I Confront My Daughter-In-Law, Who Just Had A Baby, With My List Of Grievances Against Her?
I am at my wits' end with my daughter-in-law and her mother! My son and DIL have a new baby that I do not get to see very often, despite living close to them. HER mother on the other hand, lives about two hours away, but seems to see them several times a week. How do I know? My son and DIL have an app to upload photos of the baby (they don't allow photos of the baby on Facebook and say it's "too hard" to text me updates, which is a another can of worms). When I asked my son why she gets to see the baby more than I do, he said that she comes over to do chores. Well, I don't see photos of her doing chores, I see selfies of her cuddling my grand baby! When they have deigned to invite me over, I have offered to do chores too. One time, my DIL told me that I was washing the bottles incorrectly. The next time I arrived, she had a note printed of steps to take to wash the bottles taped up to the fridge, like I was an idiot!
The other time, they asked me to scoop the kitty litter box, even though they know I am allergic to cats! Other times I have been over, she has pumped her breast milk right in front of me, and once asked if she could take a nap while my son was napping also. Sure, just go off to your marital bed while grandma is here! This week, I confronted my son about the lack of invitations. She then invited me to go to a baby music class at the community center with her and the baby, instead of being invited to their home. I am deeply offended. I am thinking that I should confront her directly this time instead of my son, but my sister says that I should keep communicating through my son, not with her. What do you think?
[Slate]
Jenée Desmond-Harris urges the letter writer to try to be more supportive and easier to be around. "The rule when it comes to the parents of a new baby is that you don't do anything to make their lives hard, emotionally or physically," she writes. "You've run afoul of this. Badly." Read the rest of her answer.
How Can I Get The Daughter Of My Partner, Whom I Started Dating When He Was Married, To Stop Calling Me Her Stepmom?
I (age 45) have been dating my partner (age 60) for 10 years, seven of which were during his marriage to the mother of his children. She discovered the affair, and I moved with him into the house he bought while they were divorcing.
He has two daughters who are both adults. The older is 30 and the younger is 25. My partner's younger daughter hasn't spoken to him since shortly after the divorce, which I know hurts him deeply. I've never met her. The older daughter is very close to her father, and she has admittedly worked very hard to develop a relationship with me once it was clear that her father considered his relationship with me to be long-term. I was standoffish in the beginning, mostly because it felt a little bit like a trap (the divorce was very hard on her and I expected her to be passive-aggressive or rude) and also because we didn't have any interests in common. But over the last three years, we've developed a pleasant rapport. This is in part due, I believe, to her insisting on family therapy (she told him she wouldn't continue her relationship with him unless he agreed to this, and so he did). The therapy has been a great success.
Recently, she brought over her new partner, whom I had never met, and introduced me as her stepmom. I'm only 15 years older than she is, and I don't consider myself to be a mother of any kind. I don't like that she's casting me into this role, and when I expressed that to my partner privately, he said that he thought it was a good thing and meant that she was welcoming me into the family and considered me a permanent part of it. But I still don't like it! I want her to stop, but when I vented to a friend about it, she told me I should be thankful his daughter was being so welcoming to me. I disagree. Her father's choices were his; he made the decision to cheat — I wasn't a conniving seductress. How do I help my partner see it from my side?
[Slate]
Michelle Herman encourages the letter writer to accept being called "stepmom" by her partner's daughter. "I think it's remarkable that one of his children has worked hard to have a good relationship with you; I think it speaks volumes about her maturity, empathy, and capacity to love and to forgive," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.
Am I Wrong To Feel Offended That No One Has Told Me How Much Money My Brother-In-Law Made When He Sold His Business?
I am the youngest of three siblings. I'm in my 60's. To avoid conflicts with my older sister, "Ann," I will say "good idea," but will do things my way, anyway. We live on opposite sides of the country and don't get along.
My husband and I have a good, happy marriage.
Ann's marriage is not always as happy, so she may be jealous.
Her husband, "Bill," and my husband have become very good friends.
Last year, Bill sold a business. I believe he received a substantial amount in the sale. When I asked how much he had received, my sister said she "didn't know," but I'm sure she does know.
Bill confided the amount to my husband, but also asked him not to tell me.
I really don't care how much he received, as their finances are their business. What bothers me is that they now have my husband in the loop and are keeping a secret from me.
When I asked my husband about it he said he is respecting Bill's wishes. I feel this has driven a wedge between the four of us.
This is not the first secret Ann and Bill have kept from me.
I do not discuss their lives with anybody else, so I don't get it.
Am I wrong to feel this way? My relationship with Ann and Bill is no longer the same. We do talk but not as often as before.
When we do talk, she is always distracted and never really listens to what I say.
Is it right that my husband has more respect for Bill than for me?
My husband loves me and takes great care of our family. He is a good man but this whole issue irks me.
How do I move forward?
Amy Dickinson points out that Bill probably told the letter writer's husband to keep the details of the sale private from everyone, not just the letter writer. "I don't think it's obvious that your husband has more respect for Bill than for you; it is obvious that you don't believe in this family's right to hold this information close," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.
How Can I Stop My Boss From Scheduling Meetings Outside My Working Hours While He’s On Vacation In A Different Time Zone?
I work on a small team that has daily meetings at 10 am, usually lasting 30-60 minutes. I personally don’t think daily meetings are even necessary, but they are my boss’s way of keeping up with our work as he rarely meets with any of us individually and he likes for us to know what everyone else is working on.
My boss's work is his life, so he frequently will work in the evenings and on weekends. He recently said about Thanksgiving, "It's another day for me to get some work done."
As you can imagine, he has built up a lot of unused vacation leave, and despite our organization's generous carry-over policy, he was going to start losing hours. His solution was a two-month trip to Asia. The problem is, even though he is going to be using leave, he is planning to keep working the entire time and attending our meetings (we already work remotely). With the time difference, our regular meeting time would be the middle of the night for him, so he proposed the times that have the best overlap between timezones, early morning here (7 am) or evening (5-9 pm).
I typically work an 8:30-5 day and have a fairly rigid schedule outside of that with daycare drop-offs, a toddler to take care of, and regular evening activities. I responded with the following: "I can make the occasional meeting outside of regular working hours, but with my schedule and childcare responsibilities I can't regularly do so."
His suggestion was that he attends two meetings a week, one early morning and one evening, and we meet at the regular time the other days and write up a summary to send him.
While I could probably make this work most of the time, it will be a real burden. It would be one thing if my boss was on business travel, or if it was just a week or two, but he's on two-month vacation leave. I feel like I shouldn't have to accommodate his travel on principle.
How much should I push back on this? I can't force him to not work on his leave, but his choice to keep participating in our meetings is putting me in an awkward position. I can probably opt out when it is especially inconvenient, but I will feel bad about it. When I do make it to the meetings, I will feel angry that I have to be there guilty about the extra burden it puts on my husband. Is there any way to say he can't do this while on leave?
Alison Green rules that the letter writer's boss is being ridiculous. "[D]o any of you have the ear of someone above him?" she writes. "Or a competent HR department that would be alarmed to hear about this?" Read the rest of her answer.
Why Don't Businesses Have The Common Sense And Courtesy To Respond To Unsolicited Questions And Cold Calls?
I hope you can explain why so many people do not return business calls, texts or emails. For example, over a number of years I emailed questions to a nationally known nonprofit about their televised programs. Not once did I get an answer. My son, a professional musician who performs internationally, has contacted volunteers and paid staff at numerous organizations about performing at their venues, only to get no response.
What boggles me is that my son and other people they probably don’t respond to could be quiet philanthropists who could generously donate to their organization. Or they might know people who would donate, publicize and otherwise do good things for their organizations. I would be leery about donating to places that don't have the common sense and courtesy to respond. In my opinion, their rudeness or indifference reflects badly on them and their organization. This seems like Business/Life 101.
Karla L. Miller counsels the letter writer to be more strategic about contacting businesses and nonprofits. "Above all else, try not to take it personally. Everyone is swamped," she writes. "Resources are finite, even in large companies, and there's no point in raging at a brick wall." Read the rest of her answer.
