User blogs

It’s time for the recurring feature where I answer the search strings people typed in to find this place. No context, no background, just speculation and snap judgments straight from the Id of the Awkwardverse.

As is traditional, here is some mood music from Tori Amos. Lyrics here for anyone who hasn’t had this song encoded in their DNA since 1998. Yes, I know it’s February now, but it wasn’t when I picked the song, and I am a January middle-aged-woman who just had a birthday.

1. “how to show my gf i’d die for her.”

Does your girlfriend want or expect you to die for her? If she does, that’s not a girlfriend, it’s a cult. Run away.

Far more likely, if this is about you having big, intense love feelings and looking for a grand gesture to release the pressure before they explode out of you, then slow down. Pay attention to what your girlfriend likes. Ask her what she likes. Tell her what you like. Then look for consistent, kind, consensual ways to do more of the stuff everyone likes.

We’re coming up on Valentine’s Day and 12 years since I first I met Mr. Awkward, and here is some “romantic” stuff he did in the early days that was very endearing: He planned dates. Not “Do you want to hang out sometime” and then 25 texts back and forth to determine when and how in which I ended up doing most of the actual planning, but “Do you want to watch Twin Peaks Saturday, if yes I will bring DVDs and cherry pie after work.”  He came to karaoke with my friends and sang his face off and learned everybody’s names. When we cooked at his place, he noticed that I liked one of his knives, so he bought me a small version that would fit my hand. He worked at a used bookstore and whenever I was particularly excited about a book I was reading he quietly grabbed a copy for himself to see if he would also like it and the sequels for me/us to share. Small, consistent, kind demonstrations of care and attention beat grand gestures every time.

2. “if i meet a person and he tell me he loves me and he is looking for me what should i reply?”

In order from “annoying” to “yikes” to “terrifying,” “he” is either doing a funny bit and this is how he flirts with everyone with no expectation of being taken seriously, he thinks this is something you want to hear and is love-bombing you with it, or he’s completely serious and expects you to respond in kind. How to reply, if you reply, depends a lot on where you are meeting this person and how the behavior makes you feel.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the Pepé le Pew school of flirting. It’s not part of my culture, it’s not my style, and it never makes me feel flattered or noticed in a good way. Even if I believed in love at first sight, I don’t buy that the immediacy or intensity of another person’s feelings about me makes them particularly meaningful or remotely my problem. Someone who was destined to be my perfect match would know that and lead with finding out if I read any good books lately or if I have an unusual and entertaining minor peeves. But my way is not the only way, so sometimes I run into a Pepé Le Pew in the wild.

If someone sent me a message like the one in your search string on a dating site, I would block them without hesitation. If I showed up to a first date and they said this, I would not go on a second date and would be looking around for the fastest and safest way out of this one. “Wow! I don’t think this is going to work out, so let me get out of your hair.” If they are just joking, it isn’t funny, and if they are serious, we are so incompatible that there is no amount of explanation I need more than I need to be somewhere people don’t talk to me like I’m in a play I didn’t know I auditioned for.

If I am in public where I feel safe, and the person declaring their love is a passing stranger who is just doing a bit, then I’ve got about sixty seconds of banter in me before I reach the “I know you are just trying to be funny, but please stop” place or locate the nearest exit and go through it, whichever is more expedient. It depends a lot on whether I think they are trying to make me laugh or if they are trying to test boundaries and assert dominance. Icy silence if I’m trapped in the back of a cab or in a checkout line takes a lot of effort on my part and is too much like an invitation to keep talking, so I try to keep it light and give everyone a chance to be less embarrassing: “I get that a lot.” “Well, good thing there’s no pressure.”  “What a completely normal thing to say.” “Weird, if true.” Note the lack of question marks.

3. “i go crazy if partner switches up plans last minute.”

It’s good that you know that about yourself. What if we could dial back the “go crazy” part and approach this as a matter of style, compatibility, and boundaries? You know you don’t like last minute changes, presumably your partner also knows this, so what happens if you give yourself permission to opt out of plans that you know will stress you out when they start to diverge? Maybe try an experiment where you either do the original plan as is, or you cancel the whole thing, but no more fighting or trying to meet in the middle when you already know that “the middle” sucks for you.

I had an ex where if I said, “Hey, let’s go to bed,” I meant “I will be sound asleep in half an hour, so if you want to do anything that is not sleeping, now is the time!” If he said, “Sure, be there in a minute!” that meant he might come to bed shortly, or he might play video games or surf online for another hour or even more. If I fell asleep before he showed up, he would be miffed that I didn’t wait for him, especially if he felt like he’d rushed through his weekly raid to be there sooner. If I didn’t fall asleep or if he woke me up accidentally or on purpose, the longer “in a minute” turned out to be, the less in the mood I was. We are exes for a reason, but I can tell you that we did get temporarily less annoyed and more routinely laid when I stopped trying to be flexible and adapt to his sleep schedule and made it clear that “Let’s go to bed” was an invitation that would self-destruct in 15 minutes.

4. “how to seem cool to your online edgy friends”

Instead of trying to impress a bunch of mean people (which is what “edgy” usually translates to), embrace being a big soft silly nerd and find friends who appreciate your baseline levels of coolness.

5. “women want a light-hearted seducer”

“Light-heartedness” is certainly not the worst quality “a seducer” could cultivate, but please don’t erase those of us who like a little brooding now and then as a treat. The world is wide and contains multitudes!

6. “i just found out my mom and dad have sex toys what should i do”

Do exactly the same thing you hope your parents will do if they ever stumble across your sex toys or other private stuff someday: Leave them alone, forget you saw them, and do absolutely nothing with the information because it’s none of your business.

7 “what to answer if he tells you that he admires your passionate virtue”

If anyone ever said that to me, I would definitely need examples, the more precise and detailed the better. Is this admiration born of observation, in which case, what did I do? And what kind of “virtue” are we talking about? Patience? Generosity? Thrift? Or is this some weird purity culture fantasy projection, in which case, yikes and also LOL at the number of illusions that are about to be absolutely shattered.

Probably can’t go wrong with “How interesting, nobody’s ever said that to me before. Can you tell me more about what you mean?”

8 “what should i answer if someone asks me what i want my husband to look like”

I assume we’re talking about a hypothetical future husband here and not “Hey, babe, do you think I should grow a mustache again?” or “Is this too casual for business casual? Y/N” from your actual living spouse.

In that case, try one of these:

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“I always figured that was more of a ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ thing. Why do you ask?”

“Is it like a Build-A-Bear Workshop, where I get to pick? In that case, give me the [Celebrity Crush Of Record] kit and I’ll take it from there. Wait, is there some reason you asked?”

I spent enough years as a teenage diner waitress to experience a ton of creepy dudes asking me about my ‘type,” and in those cases I recommend scorching the earth and salting the ashes. “Aren’t we awfully close to a school for you to be asking me this question?” You can just start listing qualities that are the opposite of them, like, “Let me see, younger than my dad would be a good start, gainfully employed, good tipper, doesn’t smell like an ashtray, knows about vegetables besides potatoes and restaurants that aren’t in a mall. Why, do you have a single grandson or something? Does he look like you? Aw, too bad.”

Which is to say, in my experience, people rarely ask questions like this without an agenda. They either want to know what your fantasy template is so that they can measure themselves or someone they hope to set you up with against it, argue you into relaxing your standards, or because they want to talk about their specs but they want you to go first (like when someone signals that they want to eat the last slice of pizza by offering it to everyone else). If somebody wants to know, they can tell you why, and there’s little reward for you in guessing until they do.

9 “why can’t my mom be polite”

Is your mom rude to everyone, ever, inside the house and out of it, including people older than she is? Or does she pick and choose who to be polite to, and when she’s rude does it mostly roll downhill onto you?

There’s a concept of “family” or “friendship” or other kinds of intimacy where, the closer people are, the less effort they think they have to put into politeness. For people who operate this way, “manners” are a performance for outsiders, but inside where everybody loves each other nobody needs to try so hard. Family needs no invitation before coming over. Family doesn’t need to knock on closed doors before opening them. Family doesn’t need to ask before borrowing stuff, or say please or thank you, or find out if it’s a good time to talk before launching in, or respect your preferences about who gets to touch you and what name you go by. It’s almost like the rudeness acts like proof of love, but when you look closer you’ll see the same hierarchies and power dynamics as other families. For instance, in a family where lack of boundaries = love, “I’m your mom, everything about you is my business” and “I’m your mom, don’t you dare talk to me like that” seem like they should be wildly inconsistent rules, but it rarely works like that. File it next to “why do people only brag about honesty when they are being mean” and other mysteries.

If you’re in a family like that, it’s really hard to change the culture. Sometimes all you can do is see it for what it is and do your best not to recreate it in your other relationships. And sometimes you can set boundaries where how much the other person loves you is not in question, but there are minimum standards for how they get to treat you if they want your company and attention.

10 “i will be a fool to go back to my ex boyfriend”

I believe you! What if you blocked him on your phone and every social media platform and email address just to make it sink in?

11 “difference between no contact and silent treatment”

If someone cuts off contact with you, they want you to go away and leave them alone. They don’t want you to think about them constantly and look for ways to repair the relationship. They want to be free of you, and set you free in return. The relationship is over.

If someone gives you the silent treatment, they want you to punish you, but they don’t want you to go away. They want you to stick around and devote every minute of your life to understanding what you did wrong and getting back into their good graces. It’s a manipulation tactic that stops working the second you stop chasing, which is why my standard advice for people encountering the silent treatment is to try to enjoy the silence for as long as it lasts.

If someone asks you for space, and you’re not sure if it’s the silent treatment, here’s one weird trick you can use to tell: Give it to them and see what happens. Somebody who just needed a break to gather themselves will be grateful for the opportunity to come back when they are calmer. Somebody who wanted to leave will keep on going. Somebody who was trying to manipulate and punish you will be angry that you gave them what they said they wanted, and use that as an excuse for another round of punishment. They are taking a gamble that their baleful, hostile, punishing presence is somehow better than the silence, and I think it’s worth finding out for sure!

That’s all for this round, be well!

Hi Captain,

I’m hoping you can help me find a way to navigate a non-optional relationship with my mother–in–law of close to 15 years because I’m at my wit’s end and things keep escalating.

The backstory is this: I (they/them) was the first child-in–law. When I first started dating her oldest (they/them), there was an initial flurry of excitement. She was effusive and enthusiastic, seemingly welcoming. I didn’t have a great relationship with my own parents, so this was a welcome experience. I had high hopes that we would be close. After we got married, that “honeymoon” period lasted for a bit longer, but quickly started to fade as I realized she was intrusive and had high expectations of involvement with the family. She often turned to my spouse for emotional support that she couldn’t get from her husband. Her marriage has never seemed to be an overly close or happy one, and she had really sunk her identity and sense of fulfillment into her kids but relied on my spouse more than the others for the companionship of a spouse. She also borrowed huge sums from us to pay off credit card debt a couple of times at a time when we could ill afford to lend money because we were just starting out.

I was trying to learn how to set boundaries with the help of my first therapist and processing an incredibly abusive childhood that I hadn’t come to terms with. She became the practice ground for setting boundaries, but I often did so by being unavailable for what she requested or giving simple no’s. I did have to work on de-triangulating my relationship with her and my spouse (I had to tell them they couldn’t agree to have me do favors for her without her asking me for favors directly). She would do things like set up family pictures and just tell us when to show up, not checking on availability for work schedules or anything. She wanted us to spend the night on Christmas Eve so my spouse could “wake up on Christmas morning with their family the way they always have” and would drop birthday parties on us with short notice “It’s sibling X’s birthday tonight, we’re having a family dinner.” (NOTE: My spouse has many siblings and a large extended family). I learned that she could be manipulative and vindictive when I was overly obvious about setting boundaries. She arranged for my spouse to get flown to a family vacation while I was left to choose to go by buying my own ticket. I still have a framed photo of everyone except me because I wasn’t willing to call out of work on short notice for the family picture. There were several other very hurtful things she did in the early years that soured my relationship with her, but the way I handled it was hard-core gray-rocking.

My spouse was often defensive of her even though they also recognized her behavior was a problem. Without their support, I tried to be as unavailable as possible for things I didn’t want to do and then tried to be utterly invisible at family functions. Perhaps in the beginning that was the best I could do, but over time it became habit. Since I didn’t do holidays at all with my own family, she basically got all major holidays.

Then in–law number 2 came along and I watched a similar process of enthusiastic acceptance followed by attempts at enmeshment and control and manipulation and eventually a souring of the relationship. Same thing with in–law number 3. Except with both of those, they still had good relationships with their own family’s of origin which caused another angle of conflict as they would want to divide holidays between the two families. Eventually she would begin to gossip to me and spouse about how much she disliked 2 and 3 and would go on and on about what she thought were problems in their parenting methods or relationships with their families etc. My relationship with her for the most part became less rocky because I was suddenly the golden in–law, but I also had to navigate increasing bids for attention that would seem to follow conflict or displeasure with the others.

In the process of watching these relationships, I had to confront my own perpetual attempt at invisibility and the fact that it wasn’t working. I didn’t have real relationships with my sibling-in–laws or with my M-I-L because of this strategy, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life and my marriage this way. So I upped my attempt to be authentic. I started to lean into planning things with her that were things I was interested in, not just on avoiding the things I didn’t like. And for a while, it seemed to work. I felt like we were developing a begrudging friendship, and I was elated that I had seemed to find a way to have a peaceable relationship with her where others had failed. It didn’t mean her antics necessarily stopped though. I had to navigate the feelings of her manipulating another family vacation without the in–laws during that time, except this time, I wasn’t the only one left out. I still had to navigate a minefield of “what’s the hidden agenda in this seemingly benign conversation” and extricate myself from expectations and requests that felt unreasonable. I also had to navigate her utter lack of privacy on family trips when we’d stay together and she would WALK INTO OUR ROOM WITHOUT KNOCKING. But I felt more positive and more connected to her and that seemed important.

Then this year spouse and I had a much needed long vacation very far away by ourselves. When we came back, I felt like I’d been transformed. I was feeling grounded in my body in a way that over a decade of therapy hadn’t even achieved.The first time I saw M-I-L again, that immediately disappeared. I dissociated the whole time. It made me realize that maybe that period of time where I felt like I was building a relationship with her was not so successful after all. Maybe I had just been stuffing down my discomfort. Since that vacation, her own behavior has escalated as well. I directly confronted her for the first time after an egregious overstep in my home that I couldn’t ignore and the retribution has been so subtle that, though I’m certain it’s there, I can’t even point it out to her or anyone else because there’s so much plausible deniability that even I doubt myself at times. Nevertheless, it has felt in more ways than one that she is trying to steal my spouse’s affections and loyalty.

That was bad before, but it got worse very suddenly. My spouse started their own business this year and recently disclosed they are thinking about hiring M-I-L as their secretary, presumably temporarily. This is a nightmare. It would involve her even more in my spouse’s life and subsequently blur the boundaries I’ve clawed my way towards. Because of the start-up of the business, they are working long hours, and the idea of her spending potentially more time with them than I do and having an even more in-depth understanding of their day to day (which we can’t talk about because of confidentiality laws they have to abide by) than even I do feels like the ultimate usurpation. They don’t see or understand enough of what she does to see it as a problem. They think I’m being unreasonable and over-reactive even though in separate conversations they’ve admitted she’s manipulative and inappropriate and even mean sometimes. I’m hoping beyond hope you have some good suggestions of how to navigate this situation because I’m all out of ideas aside from going utterly nuclear on her in a way that will make me look like the problem. Traditional advice on dealing with in–laws doesn’t seem to cover this particular situation.

Sincerely,

Desperate Spouse and In–Law

Dear Desperate Spouse and In-Law,

I used to have this pair of snow boots that were perfect in every way. They got stellar reviews online, and multiple friends had similar ones and swore by them. They were waterproof, they had great traction and a springy supportive insole, they were my size, they felt great walking out of the store and seemed to need no breaking in. They were also absolutely freaking adorable, with this sassy little plaid that matched my brown jacket and favorite blue hat and worked equally well with pants or tights/leggings/skirts. People used to stop me and ask where I got them.

Only one problem: Sometimes when I wore them for a long time, the next day I would wake up in terrible pain.

But they were the perfect boots! Better than any other boots I’d ever owned, and besides, these had felt amazing at first, so even if I found some that might work better, how could I be sure that the same thing wouldn’t happen again? They’d been a splurge and it’s not like I could afford to replace them, so I’d just have to make it work. I tried everything: Shoe stretchers, different socks, special insoles, wearing them constantly around the house to break them in better, saving them for only the snowiest days and rotating them with different, lesser boots. I asked my physical therapist for foot and ankle stretches I could do before I put them on and before I went to bed and did them diligently. On long teaching days, I tried to  bring street shoes to change into and save the boots just for the snow, but that was one more thing to carry around and keep track of when I bounced between multiple work sites. I lost so many shoes and then had to wear the boots all day anyway that it was honestly better when I forgot to pack them or eventually stopped trying.

Contrary to what you may have heard, winter does not last forever in Chicago, so eventually I would limp into spring, put the boots in the closet mumbling something about replacing them before next year, forget to do that, and restart the cycle on the next first snowfall. It didn’t help that they always felt great until they didn’t, and they still looked brand new so there were no visual reminders to chuck them out.

I wore those boots for THREE YEARS. Three years of boots that were perfect except for how sometimes I woke up crying and couldn’t put my feet on the floor.

As metaphors go, this one could apply to multiple questions on this site and an embarrassing amount of my adult life.  I’m intimately acquainted with sunk cost fallacy in the sense that I keep making out with it behind the bleachers and going to graduate school, or sacrificing all my favorite shoes to the Chicago Transit Authority Lost-and-Found because feeling like my feet have been hit with a sledgehammer and encased in cement is just normal life now. There is something deep inside of me that only comes alive when things are as effortful and unrewarding as possible. For fifty years it has grown sleek and plump on narratives about perseverance and hard work being the only way to attain anything worthwhile and how quitting = giving up = failure. Knowing that it’s in there and that I should absolutely not let it drive the bus does not mean it will ever stop trying to take the wheel. I have to fight it every time. One of the ways I have learned to fight is to pay very close attention to times when I am unhappy and in pain correlate with messages about how I am too sensitive and probably overreacting.

And then I run a series of tests to evaluate the premise.

First, where is the message coming from? Do *I* fear I might be overreacting, or is someone else insisting that I am? In the case of the ill-fitting boots, it was all me. But when other people are involved, it’s not always clear-cut. Because of how my brain is wired, the potential for outsized emotional reactions comes with the territory. So when I feel overwhelmed or unusually reactive or avoidant, before I do or say anything I can’t take back, it pays to stop and check: Is this reasonable reaction given the circumstances, is it my brain being a jerk again, or is it some combination where one thing exacerbates the other? Once I stop and think it through, what’s the worst thing that happens if I trust how bad I feel and act accordingly?

What was I reacting to? Setting my reaction and its relative scale and appropriateness aside completely for a second, in the plainest possible language, what happened? What did the person say or do? This step is very useful for cutting through euphemisms that attempt to minimize bad behavior. Was it a one-off or part of a pattern of similar events? What were the consequences for me?

If the “you are overreacting (again)” message is coming from someone else, then what do they think would be a more appropriate reaction? How did other people react or not react to the same events? Do I trust this person’s feedback, perspective, or sense of proportion? Is there *any* reaction on my part that they would find acceptable?

One last failsafe: What are the consequences of potentially overreacting vs. not reacting at all?What’s the worst that happens if I do nothing else about this problem? Specifically what happens to me if I do nothing? If I apologize and promise to stop reacting so much, does the problem go away on its own? Everything is all fixed now?

If you were to run your history with your spouse and their mom through these tests, I think what you would find is this:
It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s always the wrong thing. Try or don’t. Work very hard at setting boundaries, or don’t. Show up to family pictures or don’t. Grey rock or engage proactively. Decide now that every holiday, birthday, vacation, and other supposedly fun life event revolves around her and comes pre-ruined for you, or decide that you’ll start skipping stuff again even if that means staying home alone when your spouse inevitably goes without you.This lady doesn’t care if you are included or not as long as her child shows up and participates on her terms. Said child always shows up, so why should she change anything? Whenever her whim conflicts with your comfort, convenience, or happiness, your spouse chooses her and criticizes you. That problem was not caused by you not trying hard enough, and it won’t be fixed that way either. If you can find some minimal level of engagement that is sustainable for you and does not create a lot of friction for you, do that. But if it doesn’t work, it’s not through lack of trying!

It’s been fifteen years. You’ve tried all the things. When is it time to acknowledge that your spouse is not only fine with the status quo but is actively choosing the maximum level of engagement with this person? They want this level of  involvement. Not only do they not see the problem as it pertains to your peace and happiness, when they need someone to wrangle communications, scheduling, finances, and sensitive information for a fledgling business, who do they hire? The nosiest person they know who hates doors and loves shit-talking people behind their backs, who is notoriously loose with money, and who does not so much “schedule” as cast a summoning spell the day of and come up with subtle ways to retaliate against anyone who is slow to be summoned. Cool, cool, cool. You’re worried about the additional wear-and-tear on your relationship, but this is a bad idea for business reasons, too. What could possibly go wrong when she blabs confidential information to the wrong person, gate-keeps access and alienates clients and staff who take up “too much” of baby’s attention, or tries out a little light embezzlement (as a treat)? I hear you never forget your first disbarment/HIPAA lawsuit.

Look, I never applied to be a roving curator-at-large for the International Shitshow Museum, Traveling Exhibitions Division, Subcategory: Family and Relationships, but as we are called, so must we serve. This is probably a bad idea. That said, your current ability to influence whether your spouse hires their mom is pretty much, “Whoa, that sounds like a terrible idea, but you’re the boss! I hope you’ll reconsider mixing work and family like this, but if you do it, I hope it goes way more like how you want it to than how I think it will.”

My reasoning, please pick whatever makes the most sense to you:

-Doing this job I get a front row seat to a lot of other people’s imminent mistakes, and one thing I clutch onto for dear life is this: I always want people to not suffer more than I want to be right. Always. If we’re right about how this will probably go down, your spouse will suffer as a result. Ergo, we should probably hope your MIL is secretly a god-tier admin who is totally different at work.

-When your spouse’s mom wants something that you think is a bad idea, how does it usually go? The last fifteen years seem to indicate that she gets her way whether or not you speak up, and the only variable is how much you get blamed for not sufficiently enjoying that. If this goes poorly, and you’re all up inside it, it might be one more instance where it’s safer and easier for your spouse to shoot the reasonable messenger than it is to confront her. Think “You never even gave it a chance!” “You never believed in me/her/us!” “Well I hope you’re happy now!” and the like. If your spouse doesn’t hire her and the person who does get hired makes a single mistake, get ready for that to be your fault, too.

-Just like the cure for control is never more compliance, the antidote for someone who is embroiled with a controlling person is never more control. You will never beat this lady on that playing field in a million years without becoming someone like her, which I do not recommend. Sometimes all you can do is remind the other person of their own competence and agency, because the controlling person will be doing the opposite.

You can certainly ask questions, like, “Hmmm, whose idea was that?” and “Is this a business decision or is this about helping out family, and are you sure you want to mix those things together?” and “Are you asking me to weigh in or telling me about a decision you’ve already made?” “Do you want to be talked out of this or into this? What makes you want to do this, and what are your fears?” “If it doesn’t work, what’s your plan then?” You don’t have to ever pretend to be happy about it or lie, but at the end of the day, it’s not your business/circus, not your monkeys/mother, and not your decision.

Which leaves you in the heart-rending position of being almost certainly correct and relatively powerless to do anything about it at the same time, at least as far as the hiring goes. And as long as this remains a story about a manipulative mother-in-law and a helpless spouse who can’t see how she is, it will be the story of your marriage, too. Your spouse has choices about how they treat you. They’re the person who lent “huge sums” you could not afford. (And because I’m petty like that, how many of the all-expenses-paid-except-for-you family vacations did you foot the bill for without even realizing?) Your spouse watched as the therapy you needed to heal from your horrific childhood got hijacked to deal with their family of origin and was there when all the other people who married into the family got treated the same way you did, and they still think the problem is you and your reactions. Are they incapable of being in solidarity with you or simply unwilling? How many more years until it stops mattering anymore?

You have choices, too, about where you search for acceptance, belonging, community, support, and vacations that don’t suck. Probably that is not comforting to hear right now. However, may I suggest that you spend this coming year when your spouse is likely to be occupied to the hilt with the business investing your energy in growing your own choices in ways that don’t depend on someone else’s capacity or interest in learning to set boundaries with their mom? At the very least, plan more vacations like the one you actually enjoyed.

The story of the boots doesn’t have a satisfying, feel-good ending. Eventually they hurt so bad that I would rather be cold and wet than force my feet into them even one more time so I threw them in the trash and told my spouse to physically restrain me if I even thought about fishing them back out. Then I got an unexpected bonus from a freelance client and used it to go to the nicest store I could find, try on all the boots, and buy multiple pairs, one of which ended up working out long-term. I donated the uncomfortable ones instead of making the mistake of assuming that there was an amount of work that could change them or my feet into something that could co-exist happily in the same place. I was the only person who could decide when enough was enough. If that sounds like a metaphor for something in your life, it probably is. and solidarity.

Dear Captain Awkward,

Four years ago I convinced my ex husband to have an open marriage.  We are now officially divorced. Before we started the open marriage, I promised my ex we can start a family after we gave it a try. I still want to keep my promise and give him four children. That was the number he wanted. I wanted two, but I’m open to whatever he wants. I’m 34 and I want to do this as soon as possible. Now that he is single, I know he can find someone else. But I fear it will take him a lot longer finding anyone than just trying with me. I know he will be the best dad in the world and he deserves to have children of his own. I know with some certainty that he still wants to have children with me but he is still deeply hurt for what I dragged him through.

I don’t want to come off as if I’m manipulating him again. I don’t blame him, but I can’t wait for him to come around. I also plan to give up all parental rights to our four children. If my ex wants me to have no part in the children’s lives, I will stay away. If he wants me to pay child support, I’ll gladly do it. I need help to convince him to put up with me for another four more years and be at my side during the pregnancy.

The tricky part is I’m still in the polyamory lifestyle. I know he still wants to have children with me, but he’ll never ask me. And in his mind it’s probably too soon to be bringing up such a crazy idea. I know this plan sounds very selfish of me and it may seem like another attempt to manipulate him or keep him in my life. I genuinely do want to give my ex husband children. Doing this for my ex is very important to me. I want to make amends for being a terrible wife and ruining our marriage by giving him the only thing I can give him and the only thing he may still want from me. Failure to do this will leave a rot in my soul for the rest of my life.

DL

Dear DL,

You write a snappy email subject line (preserved as post title) and I could not look away from the rest of your email. Yes, I’m trying to dig up something nice to say so that you’ll have at least one good memory of our time together before we dive in.

I’m going to say this as gently as I can: It is time to leave your ex-husband alone. You’re divorced. Outside of any ongoing legal and financial settlements dictated by the courts, there’s a big fat zero in the column of the ledger where all the promises you made each other before and during the marriage used to be. Even in lasting marriages children are not bargaining chips, consolation prizes, or debts owed, so whether he wanted four and you were willing to compromise with two doesn’t matter anymore because it’s done. Your rotting soul is not your ex’s problem and his future dating prospects and reproductive plans are not your business, not anymore. Let him go. Let him go be sad, if that’s what’s happening. His sadness about what might have been is not an excuse for you to avoid dealing with your own grief, and it’s not your job to interpret his unspoken needs (if it ever was). Leave that man alone.

You write “I know this plan sounds very selfish of me and it may seem like another attempt to manipulate him or keep him in my life.” “I don’t want to come off as if I’m manipulating him again.”

You can stop sounding selfish and seeming manipulative with this one weird trick:  Don’t be either of those things. Let this email to me be a fever dream you had when you were in a very bad place, and then don’t manipulate your ex to stay in your life just long enough to take care of you through four pregnancies in four years (!!!!) while you continue to date other people (sure, why not) at which time you will “gladly” (checks notes) abandon a newborn and a stack of toddlers to his care while you go on your merry way. (You do realize that once upon a time he wanted to both have and raise babies together and not just have you be an egg donor/surrogate, right?) The problem here isn’t that it’s “in his mind it’s way too soon to bring up such a crazy idea.” The problem is that every single part of your plan on its own is the worst plan I’ve ever heard, and together they form a bullshit Voltron worthy of its own wing the International Shitshow Museum. And while we’re here, there is a word for “convincing” that keeps going after one party opts out, and that word is “coercion.” It has no business anywhere near the process of making babies, including accidentally-on-purpose-which-this-would-definitely-be if you were to have a little unprotected ex-sex for old time’s sake. Leave. That. Man. Alone.

If I have any encouragement to offer it’s that you will probably not flail like this forever, you will probably not feel this level of grief and FOMO forever, and your soul is probably not going to rot and fall off permanently. But you will not feel better until you stop pretending that this terrible baby-trap-and-release program is just some fleeting generous favor you are doing for your ex’s sake vs. one last desperate attempt to hold on for dear life because you’re not ready to let go.

Like this guy, that probably means finding a therapist and starting a lot of sentences with “I decided_____” until you can be honest with yourself, come back to reality, and own your choices for what they are. You wanted to be polyamorous and you wanted to be married to that guy, so you chose to try to open up the marriage. After trying things your way, your ex decided that he would rather be single. That was the risk you took, and these are the consequences. You can’t have “both/and” when the other party votes “neither.” Now you’re free to do whatever you want. Please grant your ex that same freedom and go find people who don’t require convincing about the stuff that will make you happiest.

Announcement: the audience for these has changed, so I’m going to do them once every three or four months instead of monthly. So please come to this January one if you’re interested, there won’t be another until probably April.

20th January, 1pm, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX.

We will be on Level 2 (the upper levels are closed to non-ticket-holders), but I don’t know exactly where on the floor. It will depend on where we can find a table. I have shoulder length brown hair, and will have my plush Chthulu which looks like this:

https://images.fun.com.au/products/53367/1-1/cthulhu-12-plush.jpg

Please bring your masks/exemption lanyards, and obey any rules posted in the venue.

The venue has lifts to all floors and accessible toilets. The accessibility map is here:

https://bynder.southbankcentre.co.uk/m/7dc306803bc2d7cf/original/21539-24-Access-Updated-Access-Map_Proof-2.pdf

The food market outside (side away from the river) is pretty good for all sorts of requirements, and you can also bring food from home, or there are lots of cafes on the riverfront.

Other things to bear in mind:

1. Please make sure you respect people’s personal space and their choices about distancing.
2. We have all had a terrible time for the last four years. Sharing your struggles is okay and is part of what the group is for, but we need to be careful not to overwhelm each other or have the conversation be entirely negative. Where I usually draw the line here is that personal struggles are fine to talk about but political rants are discouraged, but I may have to move this line on the day when I see how things go. Don’t worry, I will tell you!
3. Probably lots of us have forgotten how to be around people (most likely me as well), so here is permission to walk away if you need space. Also a reminder that we will all react differently, so be careful to give others space if they need.

Please RSVP if you’re coming so I know whether or not we have enough people. If there’s no uptake I will cancel a couple of days before.

kate DOT towner AT gmail DOT com