Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.
Dear Prudence,
What’s my responsibility to take care of my mother-in-law? My wife moved her 80-year-old mom into our house. She was soon after diagnosed with cancer and Alzheimer’s. She’s also nearly deaf. Now I’m a full-time caretaker for someone else’s parent. I never signed on for this. Both she and my wife refuse to consider moving her mom into another living situation. I tried making it work for 18 months, taking her to most of her medical appointments because my job has more flexibility than my wife’s job. We’re managing her finances and also multiple repairs to her home that she refuses to sell. After all this, she still gets upset that we don’t give her enough daily attention and involvement in our lives. I have my own parents, my own job, and we’re raising two kids. This is too much for me.
—Feeling Stuck
Dear Feeling Stuck,
Since you agreed to let her move in, your responsibility is to be kind to her, engage with her and talk to her like you would with any other member of your family, prepare enough food for her when you’re making a meal, and assist with any emergencies. That’s it. You say you didn’t sign on for all the work you’re doing, but I would argue that when you started doing it, you kind of did. It’s time to stand down.
If you’ve pushed for your mother-in-law to move out and your wife has refused, you should revisit that conversation. But this time, don’t just say, “This isn’t working for me.” Be clear by saying: “I’m not going to continue to participate in her care in the way I have. It’s too much.” If you kindly but firmly stop handling the trips to the doctor’s appointments, finances, and home repairs (give a couple of weeks’ notice that it’s become too much and you need her to take over), I suspect your wife will realize that the arrangement isn’t as great or as sustainable as she once thought it was.
Give Prudie a Hand in “We’re Prudence”
Sometimes even Prudence needs a little help. This week’s tricky situation is below. Submit your comments about how to approach the situation here to Jenée, and then look back for the final answer here on Friday.
Dear Prudence,
My husband and I are at an impasse over his weed smoking. A little backstory: We are in our 60s (me early, him late), retired, and married for 15 years. When we began dating, he was upfront about his previous drug use—mostly weed from his mid-teens to his 40s. He told me then that his life was so much better without weed and he would never go back to smoking.
When marijuana became legal in our state, he mentioned he’d like to get some “for old times’ sake” and assured me it would be just an occasional thing. At first, it was but within a few weeks, it became an everyday thing. Then in a few weeks more, it was an all-day, everyday thing. When I pointed this out, he said it was just the novelty of being back to living high and he would cut back soon, but soon has never come.
On several occasions over the last few years, I’ve tried to explain the impact his smoking has on our lives. I’ve waited until he wasn’t high and explained how his smoking negatively impacted our relationship (the smell makes me nauseous so I don’t want to be close to him, it’s hard to have meaningful conversations with him because he tends to monologue, and even if I do manage to get a word in, he doesn’t remember what I say), and also have pointed out the impact in the moment (“No, I don’t want to you to kiss me because your breath is dank, I’ve told you this before, but you talked over me and don’t remember what I said”), but all I get are more promises that he’s going to quit or slow down, which of course, he doesn’t.
For the past few years, I’ve resigned myself to this friendly, somewhat distant relationship where he’s high most of the time and I don’t expect too much of him. Three weeks ago, he told me he was going to quit (again) because he wanted to take a more active, responsible role at the nonprofit where he volunteers, and he didn’t think they’d take him seriously or trust him if they knew he smoked. I was a bit irritated because he was more motivated to quit for relative strangers who might judge him for his marijuana use than because of the impact it was having on our marriage.
—Weed Wars
Dear Prudence,
I have two friends who had a DEVASTATING falling out following the death of our third friend when we were all in college. Context: Friend one was having a horrendous fight with a male friend, and he died of a tragic accident before they could resolve it. He got a girlfriend shortly before he died, and they took completely different sides in the conflict. Ever since he passed, our friend group has been frozen in our positions on who was right and who was wrong.
Question: Even though it’s years later, Friend one and Girlfriend can’t be in the same room as one another. I care about them both and they mean so much to me, but EVERY TIME I plan a gathering I have to manage the guest list. I want to let go of this and just invite them both and count on them to decide for themselves whether to come or just be civil with one another. But I worry that doing that will make both feel unsafe and worried during an event that should just be fun. Lately, I’ve been planning two separate birthday parties and separate events for people who took different sides on the issue. But it’s exhausting. I feel like if I stop, it would mean picking a side. What should I do?
—Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Dear Get Along,
You might actually need to pick a side! If the fight was that devastating and horrendous, and both of these people are holding onto it, I’m guessing it couldn’t have been a simple misunderstanding or difference of opinion. Someone did something that wasn’t OK. I’m almost sure of it. You don’t provide any details here but really go back over the facts and your experience with Friend one and Girlfriend and ask yourself, honestly, who deserves your support, and who (if anyone) has a basis for feeling unsafe around the other. If you really can’t do that, at least stop with the two separate birthday parties. That’s ridiculous. You can warn each of them that you don’t have the capacity to do every event twice and—as you said—let them figure it out for themselves. Tip: The one who gets mad at you or makes you feel guilty about your decision is probably the one who was in the wrong to begin with.
How to Get Advice
Submit your questions anonymously here. (Questions may be edited for publication.) And for questions on parenting, kids, or family life, try Care and Feeding!
Dear Prudence,
After college, a toxic relationship and drug use forced me (he/him) across the country for rehab. In early sobriety, I got a barista job that I kept while in school for a license I never completed. COVID hit, and having a job at all felt lucky. Another emotionally abusive relationship, alongside preexisting mental health issues, landed me in the psych ward for suicidal ideation. Poor management and five years without a raise became quiet quitting, which became getting fired. Now I’m struggling to get interviews, and still am clueless about what career I even want. I feel like a complete fuck-up. I see people my age having kids and buying houses, not struggling to find work or withdrawing from their retirement to avoid eviction. It’s impacted my relationship with my brother. 17 months younger, I’ve always felt compared to him. He and his (genuinely amazing) wife live somewhere I can’t afford. I struggle talking to them because they’re living the life I wanted. I’ll be seeing them during a trip home for my 30th birthday, which I’m already struggling with. I don’t want to resent them for doing well but don’t know how to control those feelings currently. I’m afraid I’ll make a dick of myself during this trip (which they paid for), but don’t know if I can bite my tongue that long. How can I balance all this?
—Unmoored Going on 30
Dear Unmoored,
Your awareness of where these feelings are coming from and your desire to stop them from harming your relationship with your brother make me really hopeful. I have an idea: Just put it all out there. Tell him everything you’re feeling before the trip like this: “You know I’ve really struggled over the past decade, I’ve had so many setbacks and I honestly feel like a complete fuck-up right now. I’m so jealous of people around my age who are doing well, including you. You have a wonderful life that’s exactly what I would want for myself and you totally deserve it but I just can’t shake this feeling of resentment. I’m telling you this because I’m worried I’m going to make a dick of myself during the trip because of all these feelings, and I am afraid of ruining our relationship. I’m hoping that being open about it might help me avoid lashing out. But also, if I do say something out of line, I hope you’ll call me out but also maybe give me a little leeway and know that I’m not my best self right now.”
I think he’d receive this kind of vulnerability well, it might make everything feel less intense for you if you know you’re understood, and it could even lead to some kind of an offer to help you get to a better place.
In addition, to address the underlying feelings, I think you should dive into recovery communities for drug use and support groups for people who have mental health issues. Really surround yourself with people who have been through the same things you’ve been through. The conversations that happen in these places could remind you that you’re actually a huge success story, a survivor, and a person who’s overcome two major challenges. Being sober and not suicidal is really something to celebrate. You’ll be so much happier with yourself if you can start to compare yourself to the version of you that existed years ago, instead of to people who are a few steps ahead financially.
Classic Prudie
I live in the same small town where I grew up; I’ve had lifelong relationships with many of my friends (and their moms were friends with my mom 50 years ago!). I was laid off in the pandemic and decided to start a small business from home, just to keep myself occupied and add a little income to the household. Prudie, I’ve been devastated by how unsupportive my friends have been.