Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)
Got a burning question for Prudie? She’ll be online here on Slate to chat with readers each Monday at noon. Submit your questions and comments here before or during the live discussion.
Dear Prudence,
My mother passed away when I was 12 years old and my father followed just a few years later. My dad had two brothers, Uncle A and Uncle B. He was close to Uncle A, but estranged from Uncle B. Uncle A and his wife took in my younger brother and me, and despite the early tragedy, we are both pretty OK, well-functioning people. My uncle and aunt were just about the only family we had, and a few years ago, when I was in my early 20s, Uncle A passed away. Before he died, he let me in on a family secret. The reason for the estrangement with Uncle B was because he molested my brother when my brother was just 2 years old. My mother walked in when it was happening, and my parents’ disagreement about what to do led to their divorce. My parents ended up doing nothing except for not talking to Uncle B anymore. I didn’t tell my brother what I found out because I didn’t think any good would come of it. Now it’s a few years and a few twists of fate later, and my brother and Uncle B are in the same narrow, sparsely populated field of work. My brother has befriended Uncle B and sings his praises. Uncle B has introduced him to higher level people, he’s invested in my brother’s business, and my brother thinks of him as his “guardian angel.” Except that he molested my brother when he was a toddler! I think my mother’s death at age 45 from a stroke was caused in part by the stress of what happened. My brother is always on me about “letting go of Dad’s bitter legacy” and getting to know Uncle B. What am I supposed to do here?
—Haunted
Dear Haunted,
This secret knowledge is a tremendous burden. You need a way to lighten this load, but it is not clear whether sharing this story of Uncle B with your brother will bring you relief, or simply spread the weight onto both of you. I spoke to Jenny Coleman, help services program director at Stop It Now, a sexual-abuse prevention organization. She said there were so many potential implications in any action you take, or don’t take, that she said the best course for you is to find a counselor with expertise in child sexual abuse and talk this out. There are a lot of variables here—how close you and your brother are, the fact that the only witness to the abuse is dead, the importance your brother places on your reconciliation with this uncle—that she says the best way to arrive at an answer is exploring all this with a trained professional in a confidential space. I concur and I hope you take that step.
But I’m also going to offer my own reaction, which is that I see more harm than good in telling your brother at this moment. You two have very little family. Your brother has found both professional and personal support in reconnecting with your uncle. Let’s assume your mother indeed saw something monstrous take place. You just don’t know if your uncle has been a serial perpetrator who has never been caught, or if he got help and hasn’t reoffended. But given the distance of the events and that your mother is no longer alive to corroborate, there’s not much you can do to act on what you were told. Take comfort, at least, that your adult brother is no longer in danger from your uncle. If you are willing—and this is something to discuss with a therapist—I also think it might be helpful to go to dinner with your brother and uncle. You can get your own sense of the man, and find out if anything in his current biography (maybe he volunteers at a day care center!) alarms you. If your uncle brings up the estrangement and blames your father, then he has opened the door to the past and you can consider whether to provide a clarification for the cause of the breach. I’d be most concerned if down the road your brother has children who would be available to Uncle B. That would change the calculus of their relationship and you would be compelled to tell your brother what you were told. But I think you will be more credible to your brother if you have demonstrated a willingness to get to know your uncle and have acknowledged what he has meant to your brother in recent years. Secrets can be toxic for those who keep them, so even if you don’t tell your brother, a good therapist will make you feel you aren’t carrying this one alone.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence,
My teenage son has a smartphone and I have an app that allows us to track where he is. The other night he said he was going to a movie with friends at a local mall. As my wife and I were going to bed, she wondered if he was on his way home. I discovered he was on the opposite end of town. It wasn’t anywhere dangerous, but he had to take the freeway to get there, outside our comfort zone for his driving. He did get home safely. When my wife and I were teens there were no cellphones and we did crazy stupid dangerous things our parents never knew about. Our son is a very good kid who gets excellent grades. After we learned that he had lied to us we debated what to do and decided to call him out. He was remorseful, but he was also angry that we were spying on him. We told him that if he turns the app off he’ll lose the phone. He wanted to know why he can’t have the same freedom we did when we were young? We didn’t punish him, we just told him we wanted the truth moving forward. He’s going to be a senior this year, and we know we’re going to have to loosen the reins a bit. Of course at this point, we can’t really believe him when he says he’s going to a movie. What do you think? If the technology is there, is it good to track where your kids are?
—I’ve Got an App
Dear App,
The other day I was talking to my teenager about what it was like for me to be a teenager in the 1970s; I might as well have been talking about the 1870s. She found it hard to fathom that when my friends and I went out the door our parents had no idea where we were, that when we were in a car, we were beyond the reach of any parents’ supervision. Now parents are their own private NSA, able to track their kids’ movements in real-time. Sure, I find it infinitely reassuring that I can reach my daughter on her cellphone, but it’s not just my technophobia that keeps me from downloading that app you have. She and her friends keep vampire hours, but I don’t monitor where she is because I need to practice letting her go, and she needs to learn to make her way in the world. I’m not defending your son’s lying. But you acknowledge your own mildly reprobate youth, so you can imagine the thrill for him of being on the forbidden side of town, of successfully navigating the highway at night. You are right to drive the point home (about his driving home) that you have to be able to trust each other. So sit down with him and draw up some rules for the coming year. Say that you’re keeping the app on for now, and if you find he’s lied to you, there will be consequences. But you know that he’s a senior and things are changing, so if he is straight with you, by October you will turn off the tracking.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence,
My sister and I were born just 15 months apart. We get along swimmingly—so well, in fact, that we’ve lived in the same apartment building for years and see each other nearly every day. We exchange babysitting duties and are supportive of each other, practically and emotionally. We live in a really expensive area and buying a house is out of reach unless we move far away from our jobs, our parents (who help care for our children), and the kids’ schools. We are considering buying a house together, with our husbands. It was actually my husband’s idea and my sister’s husband is equally enthusiastic. My husband has found a big house with enough bedrooms, a yard for the kids, and it has two living rooms, so we could each have our own space. We have fantasies of sharing child care and cooking and hanging out after the kids go to bed. Are we nuts? Nearly everyone else seems to think so. I know there are lots of things to think about: Who pays for what, who does chores, how much we can parent one another’s children, what happens when someone wants to move (or, heaven forbid, dies or divorces). But I think the good outweighs the bad. What do you think?
—Two Families, One Mortgage
Dear Two,
To me it sounds like hell; I also think you should do it. Your two families have been essentially been living in a compound (with a bunch of other tenants around as extras) and have done your practical and emotional due diligence. Families living together were the norm for the vast expanse of human history. True, once people got the means to say farewell, they fled. But just because most people can’t imagine returning to such an arrangement voluntarily, doesn’t mean it won’t be a great for you. Since it’s summer, if your two families have never actually shared quarters—cooking in the same kitchen, maintaining common living areas—I recommend you take a vacation together in a rental house just to double-check what happens when you can’t close your front door on each other. But if you’ve already done this, then before you put a bid in on the house, the four of you have to have a lawyer draw up a document spelling out what happens in the case of the kind of contingencies you raise—from divorce, to moving away for a job. All of you also need to have some very blunt conversations about everything from privacy, to being able to entertain your own friends without always having the other couple there, to disciplining each other’s children. If after that it feels like a go, I hope your bid is successful and that you fill us in on your adventures being throwback pioneers.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence,
I have been friends with “Lucy” since college, and now we are both 60. Until this year, our friendship consisted mainly of monthly long-distance phone calls and one or two yearly weekends together with our spouses. We have been there for each other through life’s ups and downs, including her cancer and the death of my child. Six months ago, her husband retired and they moved not just to our town, but to our condo building. At first, it was wonderful having her so close. However, I never noticed before how wrapped up in herself she can be. Now that we are spending part of each day and one or two evenings a week together, I am starting to go crazy. Every conversation comes back to her, her, her. She is constantly one-upping me. She does it with friends I’ve introduced her to and it’s embarrassing. The four of us wanted to spend our retirement years together, so there is no way to politely distance ourselves. Is there any way to have a heart-to-heart about this without ruining our friendship or hurting her? If I did bring it up as kindly as possible, do you think a 60-year-old tiger can change its stripes? Or, am I destined to spend my retirement years listening to Lucy?
—It’s Not Me, It’s You
Dear You,
This is more like it! Here we have the nightmare scenario of signing up to be with your nearest and dearest on a daily basis. You’re not loving Lucy, and for good reason. It turns out this friend is like vanilla extract—delightful in small doses, repulsive in large. I agree with you that no matter how gently you bring this up, she will likely not take it well. I also agree that it’s wise not to expect a personality change at this late date. But there is no reason your retirement years have to be subsumed by her endless chatter about her favorite subject. Go out for coffee with her and tell her what she’s meant to you over the years and how happy you are that she and Desi moved to your building. But because you have known each other for so long and been through so much, you feel you are able to be direct with her. Say that there are many times when you feel the conversation is hijacked and you end up listening to a monologue. Tell her you know there are things about you that she surely finds annoying, but this particular trait of hers is affecting your ability to feel you’re in a mutual relationship. Tell her this is hard for you to say and you know it’s hard for her to hear, but it’s important. Then see what happens. If she is able to reflect and say she knows she has this tendency and she appreciates your guts in bringing it up, then you may have a breakthrough. If that happens, you and she need to have to signal (“Lucy, it’s my turn”) so that she can practice curbing her tongue. But if she reacts badly and starts freezing you out, well, that will make it awkward to run into her at the mailboxes, but on some level it will be a relief.
—Prudie
Discuss this column with Emily Yoffe on her Facebook page.
More Dear Prudence Columns
“Blastocyst From the Past: My birth mother spent her whole life hiding my existence. Should I spoil the secret?”
“Things That Make You Go Hmmm …: I’d like to give my new love the hardly used vibrator of my deceased wife. That cool?”
“The Littlest Member: My tiny package is wrecking my love life.”
“Echoes From the Past: My brother molested me when we were kids. Should I help him fight new sex-abuse charges?”
More Dear Prudence Chat Transcripts
“Ex-change of Vows: In a live chat, Prudie counsels a woman who wants her ex-husband to officiate at her second wedding.“
“Close Encounters of No Kind: In a live chat, Prudie counsels a woman whose boyfriend won’t have sex with her because of her STD.”
“My Husband’s Mistress: In a live chat, Prudie counsels a woman whose husband is devastated that his lover has died—and expects her to comfort him.”
“Tight Straits: In a live chat, Prudie offers advice on a husband who likes to cross-dress—but only for the treadmill.”
Check out Dear Prudence’s book recommendations in the Slate Store.
