Dear Prudence

Take a Chill Pill

My wife is always tired and grumpy. How do I get her back on antidepressants?

Danny M. Lavery
Danny M. Lavery

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Sam Breach.

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Dear Prudence,
My wife got off antidepressants when she got pregnant. Now the baby is 2, and she’s miserable. She thinks it just comes with having a young child—always being tired, grumpy, and negative. I think she would do better getting back on them. She doesn’t want to because she gets headaches if she misses a dose. I would think the easy solution would be to not miss a dose. Our quality of life is terrible; we don’t have any positive experiences together at all. Should I broach the subject? Or would it be gaslighting?

—Antidepressants Needed

Telling your wife she seems unhappy and that you’d like to talk about how to improve things isn’t gaslighting, it’s a conversation. Your goal is not just to get your wife back on her medication, but to find out how she is feeling, and what she needs, if anything, to treat her depression. I don’t know if the headaches are the only reason she hasn’t resumed her antidepressant regimen, or if they were simply the first side effect she could think of when you last broached the subject. Perhaps she feels better and more herself now, even crabby and tired, than she did while she was on her medication. Perhaps she’d love to get back on them but is genuinely afraid of the withdrawal symptoms and knows maintaining a strict medication regimen while chasing a toddler will be a challenge. Perhaps you’re being intolerant of what is really just a parent’s normal struggles. I don’t know! You have every right to tell her (kindly!) that you’re unhappy and that she seems unhappy as well, and that you’d like to make some changes; you don’t have the right to tell her that the only solution is for her to resume her antidepressants.

* * *

Dear Prudence,
My family immigrated to the U.S. when I was young. My mom is almost 80, never learned English, and doesn’t drive. My dad did everything for her until he died last year. I am now her driver, translator, therapist, and companion. I am coming apart dealing with her. She is completely dependent on me. We also have a language barrier, since English is my first language and I only speak her language minimally. She calls me several times a day, and I take her to all her appointments and run her errands with her. I realize that she’s lonely and needs someone to talk to. A retirement community would be great for her, but she wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone there. What do I do? I’m becoming resentful, because I feel she was not much of a mother to me growing up, and now I’m burdened with being everything to her. She drains me to the point that I dread seeing or speaking to her.

—Mommy Issues

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term “caregiver burnout,” but I think you’ve reached it. While your mother is unlikely to develop a newfound sense of independence at 80 years old if she’s made it this far depending on others, you do have more options than just being her primary caregiver for the rest of her life no matter the toll it takes on you. If it’s possible, lean on family and friends to occasionally pinch-hit for you when it comes to taking your mother to the doctor, so you don’t feel like you’re the only option she has. There are also numerous immigrant-specific retirement communities in this country, and it’s possible your mother would be able to find friends and support from other people who speak her language. Even a primarily English-speaking retirement community would, at the least, put her in closer contact with service providers and health professionals so you wouldn’t have to spend as much time driving her around. Given that you don’t speak her language well, it’s not as if she’d be losing a rich source of communication by moving into assisted living someday.

You’re not a renewable resource, and you can’t be everything to your mother. If you don’t pick up the phone every single time she calls, you’re not a bad person. Prioritize your own sense of well-being and figure out what you are and aren’t capable of doing for her. If you’re this frustrated now, imagine how much worse things will be if you continue to grin and bear it for the next five years.

* * *

Dear Prudence,
I hired a short-term freelance worker (who is a few years older than me) for a job, and boy does he get ripe toward the end of the day—so bad that I feel like I can still smell him hours after we’ve said goodbye. The job only requires him to interact with other freelancers and minimal client contact for a few days. My friend says I need to enlist a man to pull him aside and let him know he needs new deodorant, man-to-man. Is it even more awkward if I ask another freelancer to have this talk, or can I do it myself in a way that doesn’t make this dude feel terrible?

—Stinky Freelancer

Please don’t ask one of your other freelancers to tell this man he smells bad. That is so far outside of the scope of the terms of their temporary employment with you, I’m a little troubled you would even consider it. Do not abuse your status as manager in order to avoid discomfort, and do not ask your freelancers to confront other freelancers. They’re not your colleagues; they’re your employees. You’ll have to decide if his contract is short-term enough that it’s worth suffering in silence, or if you’re going to have to have a frank, uncomfortable conversation about personal hygiene at the office.

* * *

Dear Prudence,
I was adopted as a baby and was never told anything about my birth parents, except that they were unmarried and couldn’t take care of me. My adoptive parents divorced when I was 5. I would consider them my caretakers, not parents. I now live several states away from them and rarely see them. Here, most people would say that I should find my birth parents. But I don’t want to find them. Part of this is fear: I already have two parents who are indifferent to me. I don’t want it confirmed that my birth parents are, too.

It might be nice to meet my birth parents, but I don’t really want a relationship with them. When I’ve told people this, they think I am strange. But I am happy with my life as it is. I have close friends and have had several fulfilling romantic relationships, even though my last boyfriend ended things because he said I didn’t really know what family is since I’m not in touch with my own. Does every adoptive child need to discover their heritage?

—Don’t Want to Find My Family

I think you already know what you are going to do or not do, and are looking simply for reassurance that there is nothing wrong with you for having no interest in your birth family. I am delighted to assist: There is nothing wrong with you. If some of your friends think you’re strange for not seeking out your birth parents, perhaps they should cultivate more vivid imaginations. It’s true that you cite fear as a reason you don’t want to look for them, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most important one. Fear is sometimes a useful tool, and it doesn’t sound to me like you’re currently being ruled by it. You’ve had a difficult and painful experience with family and have managed to achieve a good deal of happiness and peace by living independently from yours. Don’t feel as if you have to disturb that peace in order to fulfill other people’s ideas of what a family looks like.

* * *

Dear Prudence,
A while ago, I found out my husband was cheating on me, and we separated. In the meantime, I fell in love with a friend, and he said he wanted to get married. The other night, the friend came over and, for the first time, we had a sexual encounter. The next day I told him that I thought it had happened too soon. He was ecstatic about the encounter and angry that I felt bad. Since then, we haven’t talked about it, and he hasn’t asked me how I’m doing. The situation is complicated, to be fair, because I’m not yet divorced and I still see my husband a lot, so this guy and I aren’t able to date for real. But suddenly I’m starting to feeling like a high school girl who just “doesn’t get it” instead of a 42-year-old woman. He’s acting like things are normal, but why wouldn’t he ask me how I’m doing after I said I was struggling? Am I just changing one bad guy for another?

—Jerk Exchange

Yes.

* * *

Dear Prudence,
My sis-in-law is in her mid-30s and has lost custody of her kids. She has been with so many abusive guys that I can’t even keep up. One of them almost killed her last summer. She’s had issues with drinking and drugs, has been in and out of jail for DUI and a probation violation, can’t keep a job, has no license and no place to call her own, and is depressed.

She finally got a job working for a friend of the family who helped her get on the right track and made sure she saw her P.O. and paid her fines. Things were going great. Then she got into an argument with the friend, was kicked out of their home, lost her job, and went back to the man who almost killed her last summer. She promised to be at my baby shower and I even offered her money to help me around the house. She never showed up. My husband and I are pretty much done with her, since she promises so much but never delivers. I don’t think she should be at the hospital when my son is born. She’ll just be another flaky person he doesn’t need in his life. I don’t want to regret that decision. But I also don’t know if she’s sober either.

—Need to Sober Up Sister-In-Law

There are two issues here, I think. One is whether your sister would be a safe, stable presence at your son’s birth. The answer there is quite clearly no. I think you’re right not to invite her. The other is whether your sister is a flaky person you “don’t need.” There, I disagree with you. It seems to me that your sister is a deeply troubled addict stuck in a cycle of domestic violence, which is not the same thing as being flaky. She is not trying to let you down because she’s selfish or indifferent. She’s an active alcoholic in an enormous amount of pain who has little to no control over her life. It sounds like she returned to her abusive ex not because she doesn’t care about her own safety but because she had, quite literally, nowhere else to go.

This doesn’t mean you’re obligated to bail her out or to allow her unfettered access to your life (it’s perfectly reasonable to request she not spend time with your children unless she’s sober), but it does mean that you should at least try to view her with compassion. While you don’t seem to be under any delusion you can “fix” her, I hope you can find it within yourself to let her know that if she ever needs help leaving her boyfriend and getting treatment for her addictions, you’ll be there to support her getting her life back.

* * *

Dear Prudence,
I get together pretty regularly with a group of four friends for dinner. I value these friendships and am glad that we see each other and catch up regularly. However, there is one friend who will often agree to the plans that we’ve made and then bail at the last minute, usually offering a flimsy excuse. It’s disappointing, especially when we have made special plans so that she can make it. We also rely on each person to bring a part of the meal, so when she cancels we have to do without or the host has to provide what she was supposed to bring. I’m not sure how to handle this. Bring it up? Let it go?

—Unreliable Friend

Take the hint and stop inviting her. She doesn’t want to attend these dinners and you don’t want to go through the motions of pretending she’s going to show up. The answer to both of your problems is one and the same.

* * *

Dear Prudence,
I don’t use Facebook for much more than keeping up with family members, but recently noticed I had a message from a summer camp friend from when I was 13 (I’m almost 30). We were close as kids, and became Facebook friends at some point, but haven’t communicated since. He and I now live in the same city, and he wants to meet up. I bear no animus toward this person—how could I?—but I have no desire to rekindle a friendship I’ve let lay fallow for nearly two decades. I know he’s seen that I’ve read the message: Do I need to reply?

—Reconnecting Against My Will

You do not! Just because someone wants to talk to you does not mean you are obligated to talk to him; just because someone wants to rekindle a childhood friendship with you does not mean you are compelled to go out for coffee and ask if he remembers that one counselor who got stuck on the ropes course. Your willing participation is a necessary condition for friendship. Let the message and the relationship lay where they are.

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