Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Prudence,
My dearest wonderful husband has always been incredibly close to his mother, to the point that I sometimes felt left out. He also usually assumes everyone will always act in the best interest of everyone else, even when confronted with evidence otherwise. So, now that we’ve discovered something shocking about my 95-year-old MIL’s living situation, I don’t know what to do.
A close, personal friend who was visiting my MIL recently has twice reported to us that his mother’s partner is drinking heavily and screaming at her for being forgetful, because she has Alzheimer’s and cannot remember even simple things. My MIL is very old and shouldn’t be subjected to such abuse. I am appalled. My husband claims there is nothing he can do because we don’t live there, and we should just let them live it out, and because he asked her and that is what she wants. He says unless I can think of a way to help, I should just stay quiet.
I can’t imagine letting this go on. I have already suggested Adult Protective Services and the like, but not to them. He has seen their finances, they have millions and can afford any care they need, but they apparently don’t want any. I had to watch one of my grandparents get abused until we could get her out of a relative’s care, so I don’t understand how he can stand by and let this happen. However, I want this to be about caring for her, and not my worries.
—Don’t Need Rescuing
Dear Rescuing,
I suppose you could think of some ways to help and present them to him. You could ask (and possibly pay) that close friend to make regular visits to check on your MIL’s well-being. You could take a trip to where your MIL lives, and along with the friend and any other loved ones nearby, sit down with her partner to tell him what you’ve observed, how you believe it’s abusive, and what you plan to do if it continues. You could make a report of elder abuse and see what comes of it. You could invite her to come and live at your home. You could hire an attorney to look into what it would take to take the decision to move away from her abuser out of her hands.
Those are all reasonable ways to react to this situation, and if your partner doesn’t choose one of them, he’s telling you loud and clear that he thinks his mother, despite her diagnosis, should be free to choose to live in this situation. Your final move to try to change his mind could be to appeal to his love for her and ask him how he will feel if, once she’s no longer here, he has to live with the reality that she spent the last five years of her life being mistreated.
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Dear Prudence,
When I was in my early 20s, my boyfriend of five years tragically passed away. I was grieving for three years and did not seek a new relationship. During this period, I spent most of my time with his family and found comfort in his best friend. Fast forward a couple of years, and I’ve been married to his best friend for two years now (with the support of my last partner’s family). Shortly after my wedding, my husband moved to another country for a job opportunity. I have been living back here on my own and have become quite independent and content with being alone. I feel like I’ve found myself again, as this is the first time I am alone and not grieving. My husband and I have previously discussed that I would move out there in a couple of months so we can be together. This means that I would have to quit my job and be a housewife/mom essentially. We are ready to try and start having a family, but now I am having reservations because I realize that I am happy without him. Am I in a relationship with him because I was vulnerable and we were trauma-bonded? Shouldn’t I want to be with him?
—Should I Pack My Bags
Dear Pack My Bags,
It’s possible that the way you ended up in this marriage—through you and your husband’s shared connection to your late boyfriend—is making your dilemma feel more complicated than it really is. Even without that fact pattern, if you told me, “I’m happy on my own and don’t want to give up my job and move to live with him and become a housewife,” I’d tell you to pay very close attention to that feeling. Maybe you two trauma-bonded; maybe not. (For what it’s worth, I did note that you said you found comfort in him while you were mourning, not that you realized how amazing he was and how happy he made you and how you wanted the same thing in life and fell in love.) The more important question is about whether you are going to leave a life that makes you happy (a huge accomplishment after your tragic loss) for one that you don’t have much interest in, that will leave you dissatisfied at best. Don’t do that to yourself.
You don’t have to run to a lawyer and file for divorce this week or anything. But you should at least begin having the conversations with your husband that you should have had before you got engaged, when you were both too preoccupied with your grief. I’m talking about the basics, like, “Do we want children?” “How will we each prioritize our careers?” and “Could we both be happy in a different country?” You’ll have to ask yourself some questions, too, like “What if he moved back here and I continued working and made sure to carve out time for myself every week? Would I be excited about our marriage under those circumstances? Or do I truly just want to be alone?”
Take your time and think about it without rushing the process, but don’t delay forever either. Hopefully you both learned from the tragic and unexpected loss of your first husband that life is too short to stay in a situation that doesn’t bring you joy.
Dear Prudence,
I need some help shaking myself free of some of my self-pity and probable pettiness before I lose my closest friend. My best friend and I of 20 years live about four hours apart and have this wonderful, respectful and cherished relationship. I think we’ve always both been careful to nurture and tend to.
About a month ago, I was telling her how depressed I was about having to cancel a long-planned trip because of a breakup. She was supportive and urged me to take advantage of the long weekend I’d at least get to enjoy during that time by planning fun things like a long bike ride I never normally get time for. Fast forward to the Saturday of the long weekend, when I’m texting her from the ER about to go into emergency surgery after being hit by a car on my bike. She says she loves me and she’ll check in … and then it doesn’t. I was in recovery for five days and as I’m scrolling through social media, I see she’s posted about her amazing long weekend glamping with mutual friends. Lots of photos of a girls trip full of hikes and restaurants and good cheer.
She finally checked in with me the day I happened to be going home, and I sent a cursory text about my prognosis and she seemed shocked it was “that severe.” (Which, had she checked in after my emergency surgery…) Anyway, she has called since then, but I just texted her later saying I wasn’t in a space to talk, to which she sent a bunch of “thinking of you” replies. No other offers of support.
I would be hurt under normal circumstances to not have been invited on that trip with our friends, but now it’s compounded by my irrational fury that had I been, I wouldn’t have had this accident and that the trip apparently kept her too preoccupied to spare a thought for me. I’m afraid if I answer her calls, I will spew the immature and illogical shit building up inside me (she’s allowed to do things without me even if she knew I was sad and at loose ends that weekend). I need to get some perspective before I really muck up our relationship. We are incredibly close, but I think we’ve also remained that way by being very kind and respectful of boundaries. Voicing my feelings on this feels like it might ruin a lot. On the other hand, despite no other evidence or prior intuition, I feel like I’ve just been knocked down the ladder of importance in her life and I’m reeling.
—I’m Hurting Everywhere
Dear Hurting Everywhere,
My first thought is to dissect the glamping weekend. Who planned it? Who issued invitations? Are you actually close to the mutual friend who was the ringleader? Is it possible that your best friend was invited by someone who you know but aren’t really close to? And that she wasn’t in a position to add another guest? Were all the people who attended local to her, and three hours away from you? I want this to make sense because the alternative is that a bunch of your good friends all decided to exclude you from their getaway with no explanation, and then didn’t even hide it from you on social media. That would suggest that something much larger than this one incident is amiss with your relationships and there was a conscious decision to exclude you. If that’s the case, a “Have I done something to upset you or make you not want to be around me?” conversation is in order.
But if there’s a reasonable explanation for why you weren’t invited on the trip (and I hope there is), you can chalk this whole incident up to a miscommunication, misunderstanding, or moment of distraction on your best friend’s part. Go back to your texts and see if there’s a way in which someone who was in a crowded Airbnb about to go on a hike after three mimosas could have failed to absorb what a crisis you were in, based on what you said and how you said it. After all, she did tell you she didn’t grasp the severity of your accident. A 20-year friendship in which she’s been nothing but caring and understanding entitles her to the benefit of the doubt here. It should also be able to withstand you saying “I think I understand where you were coming from, but I just want to tell you that I was really hurt.”
Catch up on this week’s Prudie.
More Advice From Slate
I am a nursing student who has worked as a part-time nanny for the past two years for adorable twin 4-year-olds. Their mother is 65 years old. She had them with the help of a fertility clinic. I’ve stayed with her this long solely for the sake of the children. She is single and is majorly in over her head. She has been in three car accidents with the twins in the last 18 months. She wasn’t even able to take them for an outing by herself until they were 3 years old because she said she couldn’t handle it. Her neighbors and parents of the twins’ classmates have enquired about the situation because they just can’t believe their eyes. She has nannies six days a week, often working 12-hour shifts. She doesn’t eat dinner with the children and rarely puts them to bed. What kind of doctor would allow this to happen? She will be nearly 80 years old when they are graduating high school! There are no other family members involved and I can’t imagine what’s ahead. The twins need me but I’m reaching the end of my rope and don’t know how long I can stay involved.