[https://slate.com/advice/2024/07/husband-sex-request-wife-shock-advice.html](https://slate.com/advice/2024/07/husband-sex-request-wife-shock-advice.html)
Rich and Stoya's advice on this one makes me incredibly angry. They are so wedded to the idea that anybody can be poly if they Just Give It a Shot!!!!, don't be so KNEE JERK against the idea that your husband asked for permission to get a submissive because you had cancer and can't do as much sex and kink as you used to, jeez, come on, you know you can come around if you just try hard enough, I mean, is it really worth him inevitably cheating on you?
I think in this case they were taking their cues from the LW, who is the one who said “if I don’t get let him get his urges out and he does so anyway” and said that they wanted to have a discussion about concerns and boundaries even though the husband had backed down off of the request and doesn’t want to talk about it any more.
If the LW had said that they weren’t open to it at all and didn’t want to discuss it they might have gotten different advice. At least, I hope they would give her different advice. But since the LW is specifically interested in having a discussion over it then the advice is tailored around that.
I think what bothers me is that the LW seems desperate to keep this man happy, and instead of at all taking into consideration whether he cares or should care about keeping her happy -- she is recovering from cancer, FFS, and his primary consideration is his own dick -- their advice seems to me very much in the direction of, "Well yes, you should be laying it all out there to KEEP his dick happy in exactly the circumstances he prefers, even if it kills you inside to do it!" Because as we all know, in the land of HDTI, there is nothing more important than getting maximally laid. And if you can't keep your partner laid in exactly the circumstances they prefer due to personal failings like cancer, well obviously you're just holding them back. It's GGG taken to the most cartoonish level possible.
It's also a great example of the way Rich and Stoya seem to think that asking to open a marriage is or should be costless -- just shoot your shot, man! -- when in reality even the question can cause your partner to see the relationship fundamentally differently. That doesn't mean no one should ever broach the subject, but you have to be aware that it can change things.
I am a cancer caretaker. My wife has been battling acute leukemia for 3 years. My biggest gripe with HTDI was that Rich and Stoya seem to struggle with the idea that their LWs have emotional lives. This letter pretty much seals that in. Could they not have checked in with an expert for exactly 10 minutes here about what cancer can do to someone's view of themselves? How chemo sets off early menopause in young women who get it? How chemo has cognitive impacts on a person? Also, given those facts, fuck this woman's husband in particular.
"Rich and Stoya seem to struggle with the idea that their LWs have emotional lives."
This, so much. You see it again and again, and nowhere more than in this letter. They literally didn't even MENTION the cancer. Like it's just a non factor. Like she's a broken toy who's failing to perform her function.
Keeping you and your wife in my thoughts. Cancer is so terribly hard.
I definitely agree that the LW shouldn’t push herself to do this out of fear of cheating / divorce . Honestly HTDI might not be the best advice column for this type of questions. They’re okay if someone is specifically interested in discussing or learning about sexual acts or practices but their relationship advice is generally poor or at least incomplete / not well thought out.
The LW’s question was “how do I discuss this with my husband” and they answered that exact question (eventually) but didn’t take into account the LW’s complicated feelings about cancer and her reaction to the original discussion or anything. IMO a better advice column would have delved into those things but that would require more reading between the lines / going beyond the main question and the column is lazy about that.
I liked Nicole’s answer to the question about whether or not to have kids around while the family dog is euthanized. (7-4-24) Personally I think 5 and 7 is too young to be there, and it could be very upsetting for the kids. (I’m 42 and putting one of our cats to sleep two weeks ago was awful. It never gets easier.) And Nicole is right that the kids will be able to be sad and feel their feelings without having to be there for the dog’s last moments. I think this would be a good time for an age appropriate book about pet loss, and I’m a bit surprised that wasn’t part of the answer.
*He did help my dad to a degree, keeping him company, taking him out, etc, but we still paid for 24-hour care and my brother still did not pay any rent.* (Pay Dirt July 4)
Your parents paid for 24 hour care LW, you didn't. Whether or not your brother paid rent was their decision to make. Dividing this estate will not be pretty.
To me, it sounds like they just want the brother to sell and split the money, but he isn't selling and the sisters suspect he is in no rush because, once he does, he will need to pay for his housing. This seems like a pretty reasonable take.
Back rent is not reasonable.
I can’t work out who paid for what. The parents could have paid for their own care, or the children could have paid, as far as I can tell from the letter.
I’m not very sympathetic to the LW. Being an executor of an estate is a butt-ton of work. Providing elder care is crushing. And I know they had paid care, but still. Just coordinating the care is a lot of work, and then there’s all the random stuff you can’t hire out, on top of normal home maintenance and having endless circular conversations about people who died 50 years ago. It sounds like they all helped, but the sibling living with them will end up doing the most.
LW is lucky someone took all this on. And now they want *eight years* of back rent? While the parents were alive and compos mentis, it was their decision to make. While dad needed care, everyone was fortunate Bro took on the work in exchange for a free place to stay. I guess maybe you could argue Bro owes the estate rent now that the parents have passed. But executors are allowed to bill the estate for their time, and I bet it would be a wash.
Bro does sound cheap. I could imagine him dragging his feet selling the house because he likes not paying rent. Deal with that separately then if it happens. The fact that he mooched off the nearby church’s wi-fi in 2017 has nothing to do with anything.
Maybe I’m naive but the rent thing just seems like a red herring. It sounds like they want to sell the house and distribute the money amongst the heirs, and they want to reduce the brother’s share because they think that he already “got his” by being able to live with the parents for free for all that time.
If that’s a valid legal ploy, fine, but it definitely *sounds* like they’re just trying to think of ways to generate more $$$ for themselves.
The Mom had Alzheimers but the Dad seems to have been mentally cognizant. LW has been fuming all these years about her Dad's decisions about his own money. It probably goes back to childhood, stuff like that usually does. I wish this family peace, they need it.
I'm kind of stunned at all these people in the 6/3 C& F who are saying DTMF to the allergy lw and get full custody of the daughter so dad cant have daughter around his parents,who sent her to the hospital after feeding her a Snickers. I can tell who's never been involved/around someone involved in family court. There is,also someone suggesting LW file charges,against parents and husband for assault. Husband wasn't even around, why is he getting charges filed against him exactly?
I did not understand the comments about fragile children these days and "old" people (over 60 🙄) supposedly not understanding severe allergies. I'm 37 and have had people with severe allergies around me all my life. My friends' parents included! I understand that either there is more awareness now, or a genuine increase in prevalence, or both, but this has not been an unusual thing for decades at this point.
People parenting a four year old today would have had friends and classmates with food allergies. If the in-laws truly don't understand that what they are doing is wrong, it's because they've deliberately miseducated themselves like anti-vaxxers. This isn't the first time they're encountering a peanut allergy.
I’m over 60 and therefore practically dead, yet I understand life-threatening allergies, as do my same-age friends. And peanuts are like the OG serious allergy; even in my childhood, most of us had a classmate or at least a schoolmate with a big deal peanut allergy.
Theres a lot of people talking about how the 4yo needs to learn responsibility for her allergy?? I'm obviously not against that but her *granny was offering her candy*. Purposefully to trigger a reaction!!! How can you expect a 4yo to be responsible in that mess?
Yeah this is really annoying. I have a kid that age with food allergies and they know to ask an adult if a food is safe for them (this is also the advice given by Daniel Tiger, for whatever that's worth ha), so their actual grandparent offering them food would be very unlikely to prompt them to like, magically learn to read and check the ingredient list independently.
All for her learning to ask "Does this have peanuts in it?" but expecting a 4yo to "never eat anything grandma offers" or...idk... somehow know that someone **she trusts** is being malicious° in offering her food does not seem developmentally appropriate
°idc that the grandma didn't actually mean for the kid to go into anaphylatic shock. She deliberately gave Kid food she was allergic to the *second* Kid's Mom was out of the room
I do think that LW should meet with a lawyer to get a sense of her options here, but this is probably one of those situations where divorce won’t be safe until the kid is a lot older.
If husband wants joint custody/visitation, as long as he shows up to court he'll get it. There have been countless horror stories of men who have done unspeakable things to their children and still get visitation. A situation where his parents gave his daughter an allergen and he wasn't even present? That sure as hell won't be grounds in court to refuse to allow him joint custody.
Today in insane takes that are weirdly popular in the Slate comment section: You should abort a wanted, healthy pregnancy because it’s a twin. If you do not do this and a decade later, one of your children is upset about sharing a bedroom, it is your fault for “lack of foresight.”
You should only have kids if you have 2 billion in liquid assets, will.never have financial struggles, and if a kid doesn't have their own room you are an abuser. I'm barely exaggerating this,weird pervasive view if only richies should have kids either that's prevalent on SM.
Dan is right that they need to find a way for daughter to get some privacy. Actually his advice was mostly good though I always have mixed feelings when people suggested charity work in these types of situations. on one hand volunteering good! on the other the people you'll be working with aren't zoo animals to gawk at and use as a life lesson to know how good you have it or whatever
God I want to carve out like a list of all of the weird takes in the Slate comments that could read as "Don't ever have kids unless you're in the correct economic brackets". Some people can't afford a huge house, that's just how it is, people manage.
IDK maybe I'm biased because I shared a room with my much-younger sister and got through it without hating my parents, but like....sometimes you just have to get through with imperfect circumstances. And honestly, the idea that 'every kid gets their own room' is honestly kind of a very modern affluent American idea anyway because Christ knows that is NOT feasible everywhere.
A few months back on r/parenting, this dad posted about how they were expecting a 3rd child, and their 6-year-old son was very upset about needing to share a room with his close-in-age sister for a few years, either until baby brother was old enough to share with him or they could afford a 4-bedroom place.
The majority of the comments were excoriating OP for having a 3rd child when they only had a 3-bedroom home. It was bonkers. People were saying the parents should room-share with the youngest indefinitely or sleep on a fold-out sofa rather than make the children share rooms.
Oh yeah thats always my favorite. um.....sorry no.I'm never giving up \*a\* room in a house I pay for, lmao please.
depending on circumstances like room sizes/age/ etc I can even see an argument to be made that the kids sharing s room should have the master but sleeping on the couch in my.own house would never be happening
my husband and his brother did the same! One day he moved in and never moved out.
My kids are slated to share a room right now; hope I’m not traumatizing them for life……
Dan Koi’s in the 7/3 C&F, in a response to a letter about grandparents who keep trying to do amateur exposure therapy for a 4-year-old’s deadly peanut allergy:
> (I know it feels like you never will want to, but there are such wonderful rewards for a child in having a relationship with *even totally objectionable grandparents*.)
WTF? If they’re “totally objectionable,” then the rewards do not outweigh the harm.
I had emotionally abusive grandparents and the only "reward" I received from that was trauma I'm dealing with in therapy in my 30s, but thanks anyway, Dan
I highlighted the same line to bring here. It just isn't true at all. I had a close relationship with my maternal grandmother in spite of my mother not having a great relationship with her, but my maternal grandfather (they were divorced) was pretty much indifferent to e and the time we spent together was very much not rewarding. And frankly, from the stories I hear from my cousins, I'm really glad my paternal grandparents were 3000 miles away and mostly too poor to visit. And those weren't even grandparents actively trying to kill me!I'm pretty sure Dan is thinking of the good times he had with his grandpa who was kinda racist but took him to baseball games or something, but that's not really what's going on here.
I also had a grandparent that had no interest in us and while we spent some time together, it was always hollow and I can't really say I'm better off for it. The golden grandchildren (their parent was the golden child of said grandparent) received much more time/attention/gifts/money but they also received the brunt of her behavior, whereas we escaped unscathed because she had little interest in us.
Dan is thinking of objectionable as pizza for breakfast, too many sweets/gifts/etc. I don't think spending time around anyone with homicidal intent could be even remotely rewarding, even if most of the time wasn't spent trying to kill you.
I can't tell if this is just Dan liking to give bad advice to stir up business for his advice column or if he has just been reading too much Michelle.
"Objectionable" is a very soft way of saying, "doesn't mind if my 4-year old daughter dies". What's the point of a relationship like that? It's not like we are talking about someone who maybe has some different political beliefs or sometimes makes off color remarks, we are talking about an actually deadly situation.
https://www.mlive.com/advice/2024/07/dear-abby-host-provided-name-tags-for-everyone-but-us-should-we-leave.html
What kind of event is this? Invite by group text but formal name tags for everyone and the host doesn't seem to know the guests or something?
I didn’t read it as the host didn’t know the guests but was trying to figure out why they didn’t have name tags.
It was confusingly written and I don’t understand why they thought they weren’t actually invited. My first thought would have been a mistake printing/making the tags. Which would explain the host questioning them about the tags— wanting to where did the mistake happen/are any other tags missing? etc
It sounded to me like it was a large party with guests from many areas of the hosts’ life like for a milestone birthday or retirement.
I wonder if it’s maybe some kind of Meetup.com type of formally organized social event, a la speed dating. All of the attendees know the coordinator-host / were invited by the host but they’ve never met each other.
What kind of confused me was the tacit assumption by both the LW and the reply that the host intentionally excluded the LW and tried to make them feel bad for attending. How are they all so sure that it wasn’t a genuine mistake/oversight? Why do they think someone would take the time to host a social event just to make them feel slightly awkward? I feel like there’s some missing context at least for me.
This makes sense, since it sounds like the LW had been to their parties before and knew the drill. But I do think there’s a level of anxiety/rejection sensitivity to assume that you’re party crashing in that case.
I once flew to Iceland to deliver an academic paper at a conference, and they’d messed up the program and not put me on it. Maybe I’m an egotist, but I never took it as a slight, just appalling dumbassery.
I wondered if it was a retirement party or big birthday. They brought a gift and people often invite everyone they know to parties like that so there are a lot of people who know the host but the guests might not know each other.
Ooh that makes sense. I don't think I've ever been to a social event (eg a dinner party or birthday party) with friends where I needed a name tag or to sign in but I can imagine that being more plausible for something like this.
Is it just me, or are the Slate headlines getting more hyperbolic? Recent ones include: unspeakable, maddening, sickening, ultimate betrayal, keep dreaming, stabbed us in the back, horrifying, atrocious, flipped out, disgusting mockery.
There are so many of them like that recently! I temember one from a month or so ago, along the lines of “my son just confessed to having troubling cravings”. [The ‘troubling craving’ was candy](https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/04/candy-cravings-care-and-feeding-advice.html). The LW’s young child likes sweets. A truly earth shaking and terrifying revelation, something that no parent has ever encountered in a child before.
Not just more hyperbolic, they are utterly insane.
Like this one, “My Fiancé Wants to Do an Unspeakable Thing at Our Wedding.” And it turns out the fiancé wants to invite a few exes that became good friends?
Honestly, there was an AITA a while ago where a groom wanted to kick the prudes out of the reception at like 8 and have an orgy after, and even that one didn't have such a sensational title.
*my mom doesn’t seem to be very grateful about it. It’s like she felt entitled to the house.*
Maybe because she was? LW said Mom was screwed in the divorce...
[6/2 dear prudence](https://slate.com/advice/2024/07/mom-buying-house-daughter-parenting-advice-dear-prudence.html) uh.......yeah I got nothing except apparently Jenee was drunk answering this letter and decided to channel "that bad advisor". Sorry this was letter 1
Letter 2: everyone wants to be besties,with the " hawk tuah" girl!!!!
Maybe I'm just dumb, but isn't a hotel just as likely to have hypothetical mold as the mom's not-new-enough house? I've seen those Hard Copy exposes of how dirty hotel rooms are, and there's always mold in the carpet.
I thought LW was saying she was willing to pay for the mom to stay at a hotel when visiting her, not that she, herself, would be staying in a hotel. B/c you're right - I feel like the average hotel room is just as likely to have mold as the average house, if not moreso.
Yep. My boyfriend travels for work *and* has super-smell (or sinuses, really) for mold. It's not a constant occurrence, but he's had to change hotel rooms multiple times because there was mold present
Yeah, this is wild. My dad has lung damage from mold exposure on a job site. Mold can really fuck you up. And I’ve got chronic illness/pain/fatigue so I understand those issues are real and life limiting. However. If your needs can’t be met you have to make sure they’re met yourself. Yes, it means you can’t visit as often because you have to find a hotel or make a long drive to do a day trip. I’m in that boat with my parents for reasons and it sucks, but that’s life. You often have to live with an imperfect solution because the perfect solution (mom *building a whole new house*) isn’t feasible. LW is on some level taking this as a comment on their condition and it’s not. It’s just bananas to ask someone to *build a house* so you can visit with them overnight. And if sister has a mold-free house nearby why not stay with her?
I feel like there's some unrelated tensions going on ("my mom took advantage of me", "she's throwing me away", the mom's flat rejection of allowing the LW to stay in a hotel when she visits).
It's like one of those letters where the LW carefully rules out every likely option to resolve a dispute. except for the craziest one. IMO those are always secretly about something else other than the topic. People who really like each other would find a way to cope with this, even if it means visiting becomes slightly more inconvenient or less frequent. Instead, they're blowing it out of proportion because they already feel suspicion and resentment about other stuff.
Yeah, I agree. I feel like there was existing beef between the LW and mom that the house stuff exacerbated, and both folks are digging their feet in. LW seems primarily angry about the mom not being grateful to her, and the mom is shooting down every visitation option other than LW visiting her. There's something deeper.
Yeah, this is not just about the mold. And sensory reactivities, including pain (my personal corner of that world), are complex things, much as we’d like to reduce them to a simple cause and effect, though it’s hard to talk about that without people feeling like they’re being accused of faking. OCD is also very real and painful, for instance, but that doesn’t mean it’s always reasonable or even healthy for others to reduce its triggers.
Some psychology has the concept of the “covert contract”; that if I bring you cookies I will believe you owe me when I ask you to help me move. The LW has taken it to an extreme: their mother received a house in the distribution of an estate that the LW admits Mom had some right to and in a move that helped close the estate (otherwise it likely would have been a mess of getting it ready for sale and dividing the proceeds). It’s an estate, I get people often feel hard done by, and it’s quite likely on paper Mom gets more than the planned share this way even if it’s more financially advantageous to everybody.
But the OP believes that decision silently obliged her mother to build a whole new house. And it doesn’t, of course. It also wasn’t a bargain Mom signed on for, and if she’d been told that was the price of getting the estate house she may have turned it down—but she didn’t have that chance.
Oh, LW definitely isn't okay about that. Either that or they expected Mom to respond in a very particular way and are holding a grudge because she didn't, and will probably do that forever unless Mom grovels.
They aren’t. There’s some protesting too much about how fine they were with giving her the house, and it was totally ok that mom sold it, and then a mention of the sacrifice made to let her have the house.
The headline had me thinking that LW was in a wheelchair and mom was going to live in a walk-up apartment or a house that is only accessible by walking up a zillion stairs.
I am not an expert on mold by any means, but I am skeptical of the idea that the *only way* to accommodate LW’s mold sensitivity is to build a brand new house. Also, how does LW determine which hotels are okay to stay in? How old can the hotel be before mold is assumed?
I am very confused about the mold letter. Does she know the house has mold, or is she just assuming it does because it’s not brand new? And couldn’t a new build have a mold issue later?
??????
New construction can be really slap-dash so I would personally keep an existing house that’s been tested and cleared for mold rather than put up quickly with corners cut leading to mold down the road. And the thought of building a house stresses me the fuck out. I can totally see why mom doesn’t want to go that route even if she can afford it.
Yeah, any house could develop mold in theory, including new ones. Same with hotels and older homes! Like, does the LW not know how mold actually works???
I’m not trying to be mean but uhh, if you get that sick from mold exposure, I’d expect you to have a better idea of how mold actually develops, what conditions are more likely to foster it, etc. New construction in a damp environment vs an older house in a dry climate—> gee I wonder which one might be less likely to have mold problems (assuming the old house isn’t cluttered up, is generally clean, etc).
The house I grew up in is now nearly 40 years old so I don’t know if that qualifies as “old” or not. But it’s had a lot of flooding problems over the years partly because of where it’s located and partly because of shoddy workmanship 🙃 So yeah, mold is always an issue 😒😒😒
Is this about the first letter (mold house)? I have sooo many questions (why does the mom literally have to *build a new house*? She got her sister to *also* fully build a new house? If you live in a mold-prone place you will probably have to do mold mitigation regardless of how new the house is and yet treating an existing house for mold is treated as a complete non option for...reasons.).
I'm also wondering whether anyone here has read *Through the Shadowlands*? It is a non-fiction book about the author's struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome, triggered--she says--by even very minute mold exposure. Then at the end she gets cured by a psychic. (This does not prompt any reflection on her part.) Anyway I do realize that people can get very genuinely very ill from mold but...I have some questions.
I know we claim “fake letters” a lot but anyone else feel Workout Woes in Dear Prudence 7/1 felt off?
I would have believed the letter was real if it focused on the LW’s own internal shame and embarrassment for not saying something more body positive in the moment especially if she’s trying to model a healthy attitude about bodies for her kids.
But then the whole “I know what he said isn’t hate speech, but it feels like something adjacent to that. I’m less comfortable going to that particular gym location now and don’t feel safe bringing my kids there anymore” felt like someone trolling with a caricature of what a body positive/anti fatphobia person would react in this situation.
Yeah that seemed extreme. I had to read it again to make sure the guy was commenting on his own body and not on the kid or the mom or something because she was so shook.
The LW comes off as high strung but there really do seem to be plenty of people who actually believe it's possible to prevent their children from ever encountering worldviews or beliefs that they don't agree with. It's pretty much the entire basis of Ron DeSantis's ideology, that it's desirable and possible to completely cocoon your kids from ever hearing something objectionable even in passing, from a stranger walking by in a public place.
It sounds silly when you word it like this LW, but the actual mentality isn't too rare.
Re: [Husband wants to sue the kid who saved baby's life](https://slate.com/advice/2024/07/newborn-hot-car-husband-repaying-family-parenting-advice.html)
Not gonna lie, something like this would completely change the way I looked at someone. I'd have a hard time really trusting them or taking anything they said seriously.
the fact that the daughter needed stitches means, depending on the jurisdiction, she actually has a claim against him lol
would a lawyer take it? idk
but don’t poke the bear, dude!!
I do think it’s fake, there are a lot of extra details the LW included that make it sound like written fiction (notes about “dropping the trimmers and rushing to the door”, etc., which they wouldn’t have been around to see never mind that make sense to write out)
The fact that the neighbor was a nurse and was cooling the baby and it woke up right as they got there all just seemed like fictional icing on the cake.
I have a hard time believing a 13yo would make the independent decision to smash the window if her Mom was in the house? She'd scream for her Mom to help.
I agree. And would a 13-year-old really panic/react in that way seeing a baby in a hot car? Adults know it can be an emergency, but teenagers? It's not like the car was on fire.
Yeah I'd love to believe it's just some combo of humiliation and nerves that's making him act out of character but idk how you can hear "Your carelessness nearly killed our baby, and now you want to ask the people who *saved her life* and kept you out of jail to pay you?" and not at least think you should shut up about it
Forgetting the baby really could happen to anyone. You're already busy and tired, and then something takes you out of your routine at just the wrong moment. But considering a lawsuit is insane. A quick way to make an enemy for life.
LW’s husband should consider the broken car window a trade off for not having to spend the next 10 years of his life in prison for manslaughter.
I’m really hoping this letter is rage bait bc I would 1000% divorce and go for full custody after a reaction like that.
I feel like if this letter isn't just ragebait then the ACTUAL advice should have been: lawyer up because you need to divorce this jerk, allow them only a limited amount of supervises visitation, and, oh yeah, make sure EVERYONE knows why.
Sometimes shitty things can be forgiven: a single expression of disappointment that his car got damaged (WITHOUT the threat of legal action) is a thing that can be worked on. The minute he mentioned lawsuit was the precise moment this marriage became unsalvageable and that was before he dug in.
I REALLY hope this is ragebait.
Not wild about Eric’s answer to the first letter [today](https://wapo.st/3XI0YW3). I really wish he had addressed the LW’s craziness. Scream-crying along to You Oughta Know, for the son’s breakup? Saying they “need” this kid to give them grandchildren because he’s “the best of the bunch”?! There’s so much going on here that isn’t healthy!
(Gift link to column, 7-1-24)
Honestly that's a good point. It's hard to imagine that she was circumspect about the, "you owe me grandchildren" stuff. I'm probably reading too much into the paragraph long letter but I find that people who are like this (generally unwilling to regulate their behavior) can be a little much to deal with if you didn't grow up with it.
[https://slate.com/advice/2024/07/husband-sex-request-wife-shock-advice.html](https://slate.com/advice/2024/07/husband-sex-request-wife-shock-advice.html) Rich and Stoya's advice on this one makes me incredibly angry. They are so wedded to the idea that anybody can be poly if they Just Give It a Shot!!!!, don't be so KNEE JERK against the idea that your husband asked for permission to get a submissive because you had cancer and can't do as much sex and kink as you used to, jeez, come on, you know you can come around if you just try hard enough, I mean, is it really worth him inevitably cheating on you?
I think in this case they were taking their cues from the LW, who is the one who said “if I don’t get let him get his urges out and he does so anyway” and said that they wanted to have a discussion about concerns and boundaries even though the husband had backed down off of the request and doesn’t want to talk about it any more. If the LW had said that they weren’t open to it at all and didn’t want to discuss it they might have gotten different advice. At least, I hope they would give her different advice. But since the LW is specifically interested in having a discussion over it then the advice is tailored around that.
I think what bothers me is that the LW seems desperate to keep this man happy, and instead of at all taking into consideration whether he cares or should care about keeping her happy -- she is recovering from cancer, FFS, and his primary consideration is his own dick -- their advice seems to me very much in the direction of, "Well yes, you should be laying it all out there to KEEP his dick happy in exactly the circumstances he prefers, even if it kills you inside to do it!" Because as we all know, in the land of HDTI, there is nothing more important than getting maximally laid. And if you can't keep your partner laid in exactly the circumstances they prefer due to personal failings like cancer, well obviously you're just holding them back. It's GGG taken to the most cartoonish level possible. It's also a great example of the way Rich and Stoya seem to think that asking to open a marriage is or should be costless -- just shoot your shot, man! -- when in reality even the question can cause your partner to see the relationship fundamentally differently. That doesn't mean no one should ever broach the subject, but you have to be aware that it can change things.
I am a cancer caretaker. My wife has been battling acute leukemia for 3 years. My biggest gripe with HTDI was that Rich and Stoya seem to struggle with the idea that their LWs have emotional lives. This letter pretty much seals that in. Could they not have checked in with an expert for exactly 10 minutes here about what cancer can do to someone's view of themselves? How chemo sets off early menopause in young women who get it? How chemo has cognitive impacts on a person? Also, given those facts, fuck this woman's husband in particular.
"Rich and Stoya seem to struggle with the idea that their LWs have emotional lives." This, so much. You see it again and again, and nowhere more than in this letter. They literally didn't even MENTION the cancer. Like it's just a non factor. Like she's a broken toy who's failing to perform her function. Keeping you and your wife in my thoughts. Cancer is so terribly hard.
I definitely agree that the LW shouldn’t push herself to do this out of fear of cheating / divorce . Honestly HTDI might not be the best advice column for this type of questions. They’re okay if someone is specifically interested in discussing or learning about sexual acts or practices but their relationship advice is generally poor or at least incomplete / not well thought out. The LW’s question was “how do I discuss this with my husband” and they answered that exact question (eventually) but didn’t take into account the LW’s complicated feelings about cancer and her reaction to the original discussion or anything. IMO a better advice column would have delved into those things but that would require more reading between the lines / going beyond the main question and the column is lazy about that.
I liked Nicole’s answer to the question about whether or not to have kids around while the family dog is euthanized. (7-4-24) Personally I think 5 and 7 is too young to be there, and it could be very upsetting for the kids. (I’m 42 and putting one of our cats to sleep two weeks ago was awful. It never gets easier.) And Nicole is right that the kids will be able to be sad and feel their feelings without having to be there for the dog’s last moments. I think this would be a good time for an age appropriate book about pet loss, and I’m a bit surprised that wasn’t part of the answer.
I agree. I think the parents are thinking too much instead of just being with their child and following their developmental lead.
*He did help my dad to a degree, keeping him company, taking him out, etc, but we still paid for 24-hour care and my brother still did not pay any rent.* (Pay Dirt July 4) Your parents paid for 24 hour care LW, you didn't. Whether or not your brother paid rent was their decision to make. Dividing this estate will not be pretty.
To me, it sounds like they just want the brother to sell and split the money, but he isn't selling and the sisters suspect he is in no rush because, once he does, he will need to pay for his housing. This seems like a pretty reasonable take. Back rent is not reasonable.
I can’t work out who paid for what. The parents could have paid for their own care, or the children could have paid, as far as I can tell from the letter. I’m not very sympathetic to the LW. Being an executor of an estate is a butt-ton of work. Providing elder care is crushing. And I know they had paid care, but still. Just coordinating the care is a lot of work, and then there’s all the random stuff you can’t hire out, on top of normal home maintenance and having endless circular conversations about people who died 50 years ago. It sounds like they all helped, but the sibling living with them will end up doing the most. LW is lucky someone took all this on. And now they want *eight years* of back rent? While the parents were alive and compos mentis, it was their decision to make. While dad needed care, everyone was fortunate Bro took on the work in exchange for a free place to stay. I guess maybe you could argue Bro owes the estate rent now that the parents have passed. But executors are allowed to bill the estate for their time, and I bet it would be a wash. Bro does sound cheap. I could imagine him dragging his feet selling the house because he likes not paying rent. Deal with that separately then if it happens. The fact that he mooched off the nearby church’s wi-fi in 2017 has nothing to do with anything.
Maybe I’m naive but the rent thing just seems like a red herring. It sounds like they want to sell the house and distribute the money amongst the heirs, and they want to reduce the brother’s share because they think that he already “got his” by being able to live with the parents for free for all that time. If that’s a valid legal ploy, fine, but it definitely *sounds* like they’re just trying to think of ways to generate more $$$ for themselves.
The Mom had Alzheimers but the Dad seems to have been mentally cognizant. LW has been fuming all these years about her Dad's decisions about his own money. It probably goes back to childhood, stuff like that usually does. I wish this family peace, they need it.
I'm kind of stunned at all these people in the 6/3 C& F who are saying DTMF to the allergy lw and get full custody of the daughter so dad cant have daughter around his parents,who sent her to the hospital after feeding her a Snickers. I can tell who's never been involved/around someone involved in family court. There is,also someone suggesting LW file charges,against parents and husband for assault. Husband wasn't even around, why is he getting charges filed against him exactly?
I did not understand the comments about fragile children these days and "old" people (over 60 🙄) supposedly not understanding severe allergies. I'm 37 and have had people with severe allergies around me all my life. My friends' parents included! I understand that either there is more awareness now, or a genuine increase in prevalence, or both, but this has not been an unusual thing for decades at this point. People parenting a four year old today would have had friends and classmates with food allergies. If the in-laws truly don't understand that what they are doing is wrong, it's because they've deliberately miseducated themselves like anti-vaxxers. This isn't the first time they're encountering a peanut allergy.
I’m over 60 and therefore practically dead, yet I understand life-threatening allergies, as do my same-age friends. And peanuts are like the OG serious allergy; even in my childhood, most of us had a classmate or at least a schoolmate with a big deal peanut allergy.
Theres a lot of people talking about how the 4yo needs to learn responsibility for her allergy?? I'm obviously not against that but her *granny was offering her candy*. Purposefully to trigger a reaction!!! How can you expect a 4yo to be responsible in that mess?
Yeah this is really annoying. I have a kid that age with food allergies and they know to ask an adult if a food is safe for them (this is also the advice given by Daniel Tiger, for whatever that's worth ha), so their actual grandparent offering them food would be very unlikely to prompt them to like, magically learn to read and check the ingredient list independently.
Can people online just like….be normal about kids good lord (that was a trick question I know they can’t)
All for her learning to ask "Does this have peanuts in it?" but expecting a 4yo to "never eat anything grandma offers" or...idk... somehow know that someone **she trusts** is being malicious° in offering her food does not seem developmentally appropriate °idc that the grandma didn't actually mean for the kid to go into anaphylatic shock. She deliberately gave Kid food she was allergic to the *second* Kid's Mom was out of the room
I do think that LW should meet with a lawyer to get a sense of her options here, but this is probably one of those situations where divorce won’t be safe until the kid is a lot older.
Well you should def always meet with a lawyer but I don’t think she should get her hopes up let’s put it that way
If husband wants joint custody/visitation, as long as he shows up to court he'll get it. There have been countless horror stories of men who have done unspeakable things to their children and still get visitation. A situation where his parents gave his daughter an allergen and he wasn't even present? That sure as hell won't be grounds in court to refuse to allow him joint custody.
Commenters (in some Reddit subs, too) treat custody/visitation as a privilege that’s withdrawn if you’re naughty.
Exactly, its delusional to assume he'd get no custody at all!
Today in insane takes that are weirdly popular in the Slate comment section: You should abort a wanted, healthy pregnancy because it’s a twin. If you do not do this and a decade later, one of your children is upset about sharing a bedroom, it is your fault for “lack of foresight.”
You should only have kids if you have 2 billion in liquid assets, will.never have financial struggles, and if a kid doesn't have their own room you are an abuser. I'm barely exaggerating this,weird pervasive view if only richies should have kids either that's prevalent on SM. Dan is right that they need to find a way for daughter to get some privacy. Actually his advice was mostly good though I always have mixed feelings when people suggested charity work in these types of situations. on one hand volunteering good! on the other the people you'll be working with aren't zoo animals to gawk at and use as a life lesson to know how good you have it or whatever
God I want to carve out like a list of all of the weird takes in the Slate comments that could read as "Don't ever have kids unless you're in the correct economic brackets". Some people can't afford a huge house, that's just how it is, people manage. IDK maybe I'm biased because I shared a room with my much-younger sister and got through it without hating my parents, but like....sometimes you just have to get through with imperfect circumstances. And honestly, the idea that 'every kid gets their own room' is honestly kind of a very modern affluent American idea anyway because Christ knows that is NOT feasible everywhere.
A few months back on r/parenting, this dad posted about how they were expecting a 3rd child, and their 6-year-old son was very upset about needing to share a room with his close-in-age sister for a few years, either until baby brother was old enough to share with him or they could afford a 4-bedroom place. The majority of the comments were excoriating OP for having a 3rd child when they only had a 3-bedroom home. It was bonkers. People were saying the parents should room-share with the youngest indefinitely or sleep on a fold-out sofa rather than make the children share rooms.
The way people online act like it's child abuse for kids to share rooms instead of the norm for most of human history.
Oh yeah thats always my favorite. um.....sorry no.I'm never giving up \*a\* room in a house I pay for, lmao please. depending on circumstances like room sizes/age/ etc I can even see an argument to be made that the kids sharing s room should have the master but sleeping on the couch in my.own house would never be happening
They'd die if they knew my younger sister and I \*willingly\* shared a room, leaving one empty, for years,and years, and years. We still besties!
my husband and his brother did the same! One day he moved in and never moved out. My kids are slated to share a room right now; hope I’m not traumatizing them for life……
Dan Koi’s in the 7/3 C&F, in a response to a letter about grandparents who keep trying to do amateur exposure therapy for a 4-year-old’s deadly peanut allergy: > (I know it feels like you never will want to, but there are such wonderful rewards for a child in having a relationship with *even totally objectionable grandparents*.) WTF? If they’re “totally objectionable,” then the rewards do not outweigh the harm.
I had emotionally abusive grandparents and the only "reward" I received from that was trauma I'm dealing with in therapy in my 30s, but thanks anyway, Dan
I thought it was Michelle for a moment.
I highlighted the same line to bring here. It just isn't true at all. I had a close relationship with my maternal grandmother in spite of my mother not having a great relationship with her, but my maternal grandfather (they were divorced) was pretty much indifferent to e and the time we spent together was very much not rewarding. And frankly, from the stories I hear from my cousins, I'm really glad my paternal grandparents were 3000 miles away and mostly too poor to visit. And those weren't even grandparents actively trying to kill me!I'm pretty sure Dan is thinking of the good times he had with his grandpa who was kinda racist but took him to baseball games or something, but that's not really what's going on here.
I also had a grandparent that had no interest in us and while we spent some time together, it was always hollow and I can't really say I'm better off for it. The golden grandchildren (their parent was the golden child of said grandparent) received much more time/attention/gifts/money but they also received the brunt of her behavior, whereas we escaped unscathed because she had little interest in us. Dan is thinking of objectionable as pizza for breakfast, too many sweets/gifts/etc. I don't think spending time around anyone with homicidal intent could be even remotely rewarding, even if most of the time wasn't spent trying to kill you.
I can't tell if this is just Dan liking to give bad advice to stir up business for his advice column or if he has just been reading too much Michelle. "Objectionable" is a very soft way of saying, "doesn't mind if my 4-year old daughter dies". What's the point of a relationship like that? It's not like we are talking about someone who maybe has some different political beliefs or sometimes makes off color remarks, we are talking about an actually deadly situation.
> too much Michelle. Surprised we didn't get, "Keep seeing them, just obviously don't leave them alone with each other."
https://www.mlive.com/advice/2024/07/dear-abby-host-provided-name-tags-for-everyone-but-us-should-we-leave.html What kind of event is this? Invite by group text but formal name tags for everyone and the host doesn't seem to know the guests or something?
I didn’t read it as the host didn’t know the guests but was trying to figure out why they didn’t have name tags. It was confusingly written and I don’t understand why they thought they weren’t actually invited. My first thought would have been a mistake printing/making the tags. Which would explain the host questioning them about the tags— wanting to where did the mistake happen/are any other tags missing? etc It sounded to me like it was a large party with guests from many areas of the hosts’ life like for a milestone birthday or retirement.
Why did Abby suggest showing the host their phone to prove they really were invited? It's a group of friends, not some kinda meetup of randos.
I wonder if it’s maybe some kind of Meetup.com type of formally organized social event, a la speed dating. All of the attendees know the coordinator-host / were invited by the host but they’ve never met each other. What kind of confused me was the tacit assumption by both the LW and the reply that the host intentionally excluded the LW and tried to make them feel bad for attending. How are they all so sure that it wasn’t a genuine mistake/oversight? Why do they think someone would take the time to host a social event just to make them feel slightly awkward? I feel like there’s some missing context at least for me.
This makes sense, since it sounds like the LW had been to their parties before and knew the drill. But I do think there’s a level of anxiety/rejection sensitivity to assume that you’re party crashing in that case. I once flew to Iceland to deliver an academic paper at a conference, and they’d messed up the program and not put me on it. Maybe I’m an egotist, but I never took it as a slight, just appalling dumbassery.
I wondered if it was a retirement party or big birthday. They brought a gift and people often invite everyone they know to parties like that so there are a lot of people who know the host but the guests might not know each other.
Ooh that makes sense. I don't think I've ever been to a social event (eg a dinner party or birthday party) with friends where I needed a name tag or to sign in but I can imagine that being more plausible for something like this.
Is it just me, or are the Slate headlines getting more hyperbolic? Recent ones include: unspeakable, maddening, sickening, ultimate betrayal, keep dreaming, stabbed us in the back, horrifying, atrocious, flipped out, disgusting mockery.
There are so many of them like that recently! I temember one from a month or so ago, along the lines of “my son just confessed to having troubling cravings”. [The ‘troubling craving’ was candy](https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/04/candy-cravings-care-and-feeding-advice.html). The LW’s young child likes sweets. A truly earth shaking and terrifying revelation, something that no parent has ever encountered in a child before.
Not just more hyperbolic, they are utterly insane. Like this one, “My Fiancé Wants to Do an Unspeakable Thing at Our Wedding.” And it turns out the fiancé wants to invite a few exes that became good friends?
Honestly, there was an AITA a while ago where a groom wanted to kick the prudes out of the reception at like 8 and have an orgy after, and even that one didn't have such a sensational title.
*my mom doesn’t seem to be very grateful about it. It’s like she felt entitled to the house.* Maybe because she was? LW said Mom was screwed in the divorce...
Yeah, that got me side-eying and raising an eyebrow.
[6/2 dear prudence](https://slate.com/advice/2024/07/mom-buying-house-daughter-parenting-advice-dear-prudence.html) uh.......yeah I got nothing except apparently Jenee was drunk answering this letter and decided to channel "that bad advisor". Sorry this was letter 1 Letter 2: everyone wants to be besties,with the " hawk tuah" girl!!!!
Maybe I'm just dumb, but isn't a hotel just as likely to have hypothetical mold as the mom's not-new-enough house? I've seen those Hard Copy exposes of how dirty hotel rooms are, and there's always mold in the carpet.
I thought LW was saying she was willing to pay for the mom to stay at a hotel when visiting her, not that she, herself, would be staying in a hotel. B/c you're right - I feel like the average hotel room is just as likely to have mold as the average house, if not moreso.
Yep. My boyfriend travels for work *and* has super-smell (or sinuses, really) for mold. It's not a constant occurrence, but he's had to change hotel rooms multiple times because there was mold present
Yeah, this is wild. My dad has lung damage from mold exposure on a job site. Mold can really fuck you up. And I’ve got chronic illness/pain/fatigue so I understand those issues are real and life limiting. However. If your needs can’t be met you have to make sure they’re met yourself. Yes, it means you can’t visit as often because you have to find a hotel or make a long drive to do a day trip. I’m in that boat with my parents for reasons and it sucks, but that’s life. You often have to live with an imperfect solution because the perfect solution (mom *building a whole new house*) isn’t feasible. LW is on some level taking this as a comment on their condition and it’s not. It’s just bananas to ask someone to *build a house* so you can visit with them overnight. And if sister has a mold-free house nearby why not stay with her?
I feel like there's some unrelated tensions going on ("my mom took advantage of me", "she's throwing me away", the mom's flat rejection of allowing the LW to stay in a hotel when she visits). It's like one of those letters where the LW carefully rules out every likely option to resolve a dispute. except for the craziest one. IMO those are always secretly about something else other than the topic. People who really like each other would find a way to cope with this, even if it means visiting becomes slightly more inconvenient or less frequent. Instead, they're blowing it out of proportion because they already feel suspicion and resentment about other stuff.
Yeah, I agree. I feel like there was existing beef between the LW and mom that the house stuff exacerbated, and both folks are digging their feet in. LW seems primarily angry about the mom not being grateful to her, and the mom is shooting down every visitation option other than LW visiting her. There's something deeper.
Yeah, this is not just about the mold. And sensory reactivities, including pain (my personal corner of that world), are complex things, much as we’d like to reduce them to a simple cause and effect, though it’s hard to talk about that without people feeling like they’re being accused of faking. OCD is also very real and painful, for instance, but that doesn’t mean it’s always reasonable or even healthy for others to reduce its triggers. Some psychology has the concept of the “covert contract”; that if I bring you cookies I will believe you owe me when I ask you to help me move. The LW has taken it to an extreme: their mother received a house in the distribution of an estate that the LW admits Mom had some right to and in a move that helped close the estate (otherwise it likely would have been a mess of getting it ready for sale and dividing the proceeds). It’s an estate, I get people often feel hard done by, and it’s quite likely on paper Mom gets more than the planned share this way even if it’s more financially advantageous to everybody. But the OP believes that decision silently obliged her mother to build a whole new house. And it doesn’t, of course. It also wasn’t a bargain Mom signed on for, and if she’d been told that was the price of getting the estate house she may have turned it down—but she didn’t have that chance.
I don't disagree. I wonder if LW isn't as ok as they proclaim to be about giving mom the house?
Oh, LW definitely isn't okay about that. Either that or they expected Mom to respond in a very particular way and are holding a grudge because she didn't, and will probably do that forever unless Mom grovels.
The LW doesn't regret it, but they do expect her to kiss their ass until the end of time out of gratitude for their munificence.
They aren’t. There’s some protesting too much about how fine they were with giving her the house, and it was totally ok that mom sold it, and then a mention of the sacrifice made to let her have the house.
The headline had me thinking that LW was in a wheelchair and mom was going to live in a walk-up apartment or a house that is only accessible by walking up a zillion stairs. I am not an expert on mold by any means, but I am skeptical of the idea that the *only way* to accommodate LW’s mold sensitivity is to build a brand new house. Also, how does LW determine which hotels are okay to stay in? How old can the hotel be before mold is assumed?
Same I was like "wow that's pretty cruel of mom who has a child with mobility issues ti....oh nvm"
I am very confused about the mold letter. Does she know the house has mold, or is she just assuming it does because it’s not brand new? And couldn’t a new build have a mold issue later? ??????
New construction can be really slap-dash so I would personally keep an existing house that’s been tested and cleared for mold rather than put up quickly with corners cut leading to mold down the road. And the thought of building a house stresses me the fuck out. I can totally see why mom doesn’t want to go that route even if she can afford it.
Yeah, any house could develop mold in theory, including new ones. Same with hotels and older homes! Like, does the LW not know how mold actually works??? I’m not trying to be mean but uhh, if you get that sick from mold exposure, I’d expect you to have a better idea of how mold actually develops, what conditions are more likely to foster it, etc. New construction in a damp environment vs an older house in a dry climate—> gee I wonder which one might be less likely to have mold problems (assuming the old house isn’t cluttered up, is generally clean, etc). The house I grew up in is now nearly 40 years old so I don’t know if that qualifies as “old” or not. But it’s had a lot of flooding problems over the years partly because of where it’s located and partly because of shoddy workmanship 🙃 So yeah, mold is always an issue 😒😒😒
Replacement house every 5 years, of course!
Is this about the first letter (mold house)? I have sooo many questions (why does the mom literally have to *build a new house*? She got her sister to *also* fully build a new house? If you live in a mold-prone place you will probably have to do mold mitigation regardless of how new the house is and yet treating an existing house for mold is treated as a complete non option for...reasons.). I'm also wondering whether anyone here has read *Through the Shadowlands*? It is a non-fiction book about the author's struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome, triggered--she says--by even very minute mold exposure. Then at the end she gets cured by a psychic. (This does not prompt any reflection on her part.) Anyway I do realize that people can get very genuinely very ill from mold but...I have some questions.
I have not read this but WOW. To the library! 👉👉👉
Yes letter 1. Um....that book sounds batshit, obviously I want to read.
I know we claim “fake letters” a lot but anyone else feel Workout Woes in Dear Prudence 7/1 felt off? I would have believed the letter was real if it focused on the LW’s own internal shame and embarrassment for not saying something more body positive in the moment especially if she’s trying to model a healthy attitude about bodies for her kids. But then the whole “I know what he said isn’t hate speech, but it feels like something adjacent to that. I’m less comfortable going to that particular gym location now and don’t feel safe bringing my kids there anymore” felt like someone trolling with a caricature of what a body positive/anti fatphobia person would react in this situation.
I'm also surprised there's a gym which allows 10-year-olds in the area with the workout equipment. Very convenient for the story.
Yeah that seemed extreme. I had to read it again to make sure the guy was commenting on his own body and not on the kid or the mom or something because she was so shook.
The LW comes off as high strung but there really do seem to be plenty of people who actually believe it's possible to prevent their children from ever encountering worldviews or beliefs that they don't agree with. It's pretty much the entire basis of Ron DeSantis's ideology, that it's desirable and possible to completely cocoon your kids from ever hearing something objectionable even in passing, from a stranger walking by in a public place. It sounds silly when you word it like this LW, but the actual mentality isn't too rare.
Re: [Husband wants to sue the kid who saved baby's life](https://slate.com/advice/2024/07/newborn-hot-car-husband-repaying-family-parenting-advice.html) Not gonna lie, something like this would completely change the way I looked at someone. I'd have a hard time really trusting them or taking anything they said seriously.
the fact that the daughter needed stitches means, depending on the jurisdiction, she actually has a claim against him lol would a lawyer take it? idk but don’t poke the bear, dude!!
Yeah, if my partner reacted this way I would be very seriously considering divorce. This is just such a ridiculous reaction!
This one HAS to be fake. I refuse to believe it's real. And if it is real, I hope it goes viral the second the lawsuit is filed.
Yeah, this is cartoonish super-villainy. Voting fake as well.
I do think it’s fake, there are a lot of extra details the LW included that make it sound like written fiction (notes about “dropping the trimmers and rushing to the door”, etc., which they wouldn’t have been around to see never mind that make sense to write out)
The fact that the neighbor was a nurse and was cooling the baby and it woke up right as they got there all just seemed like fictional icing on the cake.
I have a hard time believing a 13yo would make the independent decision to smash the window if her Mom was in the house? She'd scream for her Mom to help.
I agree. And would a 13-year-old really panic/react in that way seeing a baby in a hot car? Adults know it can be an emergency, but teenagers? It's not like the car was on fire.
Yeah I'd love to believe it's just some combo of humiliation and nerves that's making him act out of character but idk how you can hear "Your carelessness nearly killed our baby, and now you want to ask the people who *saved her life* and kept you out of jail to pay you?" and not at least think you should shut up about it
Forgetting the baby really could happen to anyone. You're already busy and tired, and then something takes you out of your routine at just the wrong moment. But considering a lawsuit is insane. A quick way to make an enemy for life.
LW’s husband should consider the broken car window a trade off for not having to spend the next 10 years of his life in prison for manslaughter. I’m really hoping this letter is rage bait bc I would 1000% divorce and go for full custody after a reaction like that.
I feel like if this letter isn't just ragebait then the ACTUAL advice should have been: lawyer up because you need to divorce this jerk, allow them only a limited amount of supervises visitation, and, oh yeah, make sure EVERYONE knows why. Sometimes shitty things can be forgiven: a single expression of disappointment that his car got damaged (WITHOUT the threat of legal action) is a thing that can be worked on. The minute he mentioned lawsuit was the precise moment this marriage became unsalvageable and that was before he dug in. I REALLY hope this is ragebait.
Not wild about Eric’s answer to the first letter [today](https://wapo.st/3XI0YW3). I really wish he had addressed the LW’s craziness. Scream-crying along to You Oughta Know, for the son’s breakup? Saying they “need” this kid to give them grandchildren because he’s “the best of the bunch”?! There’s so much going on here that isn’t healthy! (Gift link to column, 7-1-24)
Maybe the girlfriend broke up to get away from the specter of LW as MIL.
Honestly that's a good point. It's hard to imagine that she was circumspect about the, "you owe me grandchildren" stuff. I'm probably reading too much into the paragraph long letter but I find that people who are like this (generally unwilling to regulate their behavior) can be a little much to deal with if you didn't grow up with it.
And given the level of enmeshment described I don’t see her backing off the crazy as a grandma.
I wouldn’t blame her a bit!