Dear Prudence

Tragic Flaw

Prudie counsels a letter writer whose boyfriend lied about how his brother died.

Danny M. Lavery
Danny M. Lavery

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Sam Breach.

Mallory Ortberg, aka Dear Prudence, is online weekly to chat live with readers. An edited transcript of the chat is below. (Sign up below to get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week. Read Prudie’s Slate columns here. Send questions to Prudence at prudence@slate.com.)

Readers! Ask me your questions on the voicemail of the Dear Prudence podcast. Just leave a message at 401-371-DEAR (3327), and you may hear your question answered on a future episode of the show.

Q. Is this a lie I can forgive?: I’ve been dating a great guy, “Max,” for about a year. Not too long after we met (we weren’t dating then), we started talking about family, siblings, etc. I mentioned I’d had a sister who died at a young age in a car accident. He said he’d lost a brother, “John,” the same way. It bonded us in a way, and it wasn’t long after that talk that we began dating.

Over the Memorial Day weekend I went with Max to visit his family. They live in another state, and it was the first time I met them. Max’s mother was showing me some family pictures, and there were several of John. I know how hard it is for mothers to talk about their dead children, so I was as sympathetic as I could be. I mentioned my sister, and her car accident. Max’s mother looked at me kind of strangely but didn’t say much. Later I was talking to Max’s sister and again mentioned John’s death in a car accident. His sister corrected me and said it wasn’t a car accident, it was an OD. Apparently John OD’d when he was 18. This isn’t something I’d mind or find shameful. I know some addicts, and they are good people. It is the addiction that is bad. What I don’t understand is why Max lied to me. I can see lying to a stranger. I don’t like people in my personal business anymore than Max does. But why lie to a friend? And to keep the lie going with a girlfriend who is going to find out? Now I’m wondering how to bring this up to Max. I don’t think he knows his family told me the truth. How should I bring this up, and is this something I can let go?

A: If by “let go” you mean ”not mention anything to Max,” then no, you absolutely should not let this go. There’s no special way you should bring this up. Just tell him what you learned from his sister, and ask him to explain, keeping your tone nonjudgmental. Then listen to what he has to say, and share with him the questions you’ve already posed to me. If there’s a way for you two to move beyond this, it won’t be by compounding a lie with more silence and secrecy—it will require openness and honesty.

As for the question in your subject line—yes, I think this is forgivable, assuming Max is willing to be honest once you bring up the topic. It’s not ideal, and it’s not a tactic he’ll hopefully employ again in your future, but the lie he told was not self-aggrandizing or designed to hurt you. Likely it was a choice out of shame and discomfort, and if he apologizes and is willing to talk about why he lied to you, there’s an excellent chance your relationship will be all the stronger for it.

Q. Babies and why I’m not having them: So, despite being 23, the topic in some of my older friends turned once again to my refusal to have kids. Now I don’t want to have them for many reasons, mostly personal and a dislike of small children, and lack of wanting to bring a kid into a quite depressing world, but partly because of the fear of needles, postnatal depression, and a small frame making childbirth difficult. Is there any way to stop these sort of comments, or is this something I’m going to have to live with till I get to 45? Will giving the medical reasons (needles, etc.) help? Or is this a losing battle, even in this day and age?

A: I’m not sure that saying “I’m afraid of needles” will silence many people on the subject of having children, in part because (as far as I’m aware) having a child doesn’t mean that many more needles than otherwise. It is, unfortunately, a topic that a great many people seem to enjoy pressing, particularly with young women, so it’s entirely possible that you will be met with variations on this question for a long time to come. There are plenty of (relatively polite) ways to shut the line of questioning down, but I’m not sure of any strategy that keeps it from coming up periodically.

You say most of the badgering is coming from your older friends, and luckily you are allowed to be a little firmer and more honest with a friend than strangers. My guess is that the more you try to furnish justifications like fear of postpartum depression and your small frame, the more they’ll come up with flippant answers: “They have drugs for that now! Lots of women with small frames have children!” You’re not looking to be won over; you’re looking to be left alone. When you ask them to stop asking you about your decision not to have children, stress the fact that you don’t want to, which is not an argument but an orientation of the will and the heart. “I can’t prove to you that I’m never going to have any, but I’m pretty sure that if I ever do change my mind, it’s not going to be because someone else talked me into it. I don’t want to have children, and I can’t think of something worse than bringing a new life into the world without being really excited to become a parent. Let’s talk about something else.”

Q. When to bug neighbors?: I recently got into gardening and have a basil plant that I haven’t managed to kill yet. However, my husband and I will soon be out of town for a week, and my friends don’t live reasonably close (30-plus minutes) for me to conveniently drop off the plant. I live in a community where neighbors don’t really see/talk to one another (I’ve seen my neighbors maybe twice in the last 10 months). I could take the plant with us, but how strange would it be to show up to my next door neighbors with some cookies, and ask them to watch the plant for a week? Especially since the extent of our interaction has been only nodding hello to them?

A: It would be only mildly strange, and I think you should do it! You’re not asking them to look after your firstborn—a basil plant is a pretty low-maintenance commitment—and this might be the opportunity to upgrade your relationship with your neighbors from “nodding hello once in a while” to “nodding hello once in a while and also exchanging pleasantries,” thus making the world a friendlier place.

Q. Family feud: My dad (68) and older brother (38) have been in business together for the last 10 years or so, and while business is booming, their relationship took a nosedive within a year or two of opening and has gotten progressively worse. My brother is the hardest working person I know, and he is 99 percent responsible for the success the business has had. He describes my dad as lazy and unmotivated, and they have argument after argument about how little my dad actually works or contributes, all while earning more than everyone else at the company and getting distributions at the end of the year as a part-owner. They signed a contract a couple of years ago that my dad would sell back part of his shares, and then he refused to do so when the time arrived. My brother is at the point where he’s willing to tell my dad to F off and dissolve the business by the end of the year if something significant doesn’t change. Everything he says to my dad seems to fall on deaf ears. All I want is for my family to get along, but my relationship with my dad is very different since he’s only ever been my dad (a great one, at that), and not my business partner. For years I have kept quiet, but now I’m wondering if I should get involved before it reaches a breaking point. Should I say something to my dad?

A: Say to both your dad and your brother that you hope they can resolve their professional differences with one another and that you—unfortunately—won’t be able to mediate said differences. I’m sympathetic to your wish that everyone could just get along (I’m a middle child too), but the solution to the problem of “your brother and your father operate an emotionally failing business” is something along the lines of “your brother and your father figure out whether or not to keep going and develop a different working relationship.” The solution is not for a younger sibling with no relationship to the business in question to get involved.

I imagine that right now listening to your brother vent (presumably that’s how you’ve come to know so much of the details of their personal and professional business) seems helpful, but I think you need to scale way back. The next time either your brother or your father tries to talk to you about this, encourage them to speak to each other, and tell them there’s nothing you can do. You say you’ve “kept quiet” for years, but you don’t seem to have actually said to either your brother or your father, “If you have something to say to each other, don’t say it to me.” Say it now. Whether things explode spectacularly between them or gets slowly, painfully better is entirely up to them. You’re already more involved than you ought to be. That doesn’t mean you can’t care about their relationship, or even have an opinion, but it does mean that the only hope of improvement can come from them—not you.

Q. Re: Babies and why I’m not having them: If there’s one thing George Clooney’s marriage and babies should have taught us all, it’s to be careful about saying what we “never” want. (I have a married-with-kids ex-SO this applies to as well.) “Right now, I don’t think it’s right for me” is a nice equivocation.

A: I don’t think there’s much point in having a conversation about whether or not someone is likely to change their mind in the future about a major life issue. It’s true that a lot of people who are dead set against getting married/having children/”fill in the milestone here” do end up changing their minds. It’s also true that a lot of people don’t! (It’s also true that a lot of people who get married and have children later regret it but don’t tell anyone, because saying, “I wish I hadn’t had children” is generally considered to be an unacceptably downbeat statement.) The fact is that most of us don’t live our lives based on the assumption that we will later think differently. It’s impossible to make choices that way. Whether or not the letter writer someday changes her mind is both impossible to predict and also, frankly, irrelevant to the conversations she’s having right now. The fact that other people have sometimes said “I’m never having children” and then later gone on to have children is not relevant to her experience either—those were other people, not her.

Basically, two weird things are true of all of us: We are the final and only experts in ourselves, and we are also sometimes wrong about ourselves. You don’t have to feel the same way about a particular choice your entire life for your feelings on the subject to be meaningful or worthy of respect right now. Neither the letter writer nor her interlocutors can predict the future; what matters is that she does not want children today and her friends should assume that, should her opinion ever change, she will definitely let them know.

Q. Is this my business?: My roommate is a very dear friend whom I have known since I was 2 years old. About a year ago, she started dating another friend of mine (I introduced them). Last weekend, I found out that last year (around two weeks after they became an “exclusive” couple) my roommate’s boyfriend cheated on her with another one of our good girlfriends. They were caught after the fact by some other people at the party they were at. My roommate couldn’t be there because she was sick. Apparently, he planned to tell my roommate the next day, but the girl he cheated with convinced him not to. Besides my roommate, I am the last person in my group of friends to know about this. I don’t think I can live with her and also myself knowing that this happened while she does not. I really think she would want to know not just because she’s been cheated on, but because she considers that girl a really good friend. Would it be within my right to tell my roommate’s boyfriend that I know about what happened, I’m not going to keep his secret, and that he needs to tell her ASAP? Otherwise, I’ve watched him be a fantastic partner to her and I know how much they love each other. This hookup was really an isolated, drunken mistake. I don’t want to cause drama or insert myself into other people’s business. I just want to do right by my friend. Help?

A: That sounds like a fairly good strategy. There are times when butting out is absolutely necessary, but you live with this woman and are certain that she’d want to know—that’s a good case for speaking up. Your strategy at least gives her boyfriend the opportunity to come clean with her first. There’s no reason you should have to keep this secret now that you’ve found out.

Q. Re: Re: Babies and why I’m not having them: Just because some people say they don’t want kids and then have kids doesn’t mean that every person who says they don’t want kids will eventually want kids. Calling George Clooney’s marriage and babies a “teaching moment” is condescending.

A: Thanks for the suggestion! If the letter writer feels up to it, this might be an easier way to keep everyone updated when and if she has anything new to report.

Q. Former mentor turns frenemy: My Ph.D. supervisor was one of my job references until recently, when I asked a colleague (I finished my Ph.D. eight months ago). After a lot of struggle finding a position anywhere (let alone an academic one) I soon found a job that I liked after making that change. Last week, a mutual professional acquaintance of my Ph.D. supervisor and mine told me that she gave me bad references in the past, citing my “lack of ambition.” (The acquaintance considered me for a position last year.) I have no idea what this means, as I have always been competitive and driven in my work. Now my ex-supervisor and I are presenting at the same research conference this summer. I’m tempted to bring it up but realize I probably shouldn’t. Still, I don’t want to act like she’s the mentor and friend I thought she was. Am I right in thinking I should shut up, smile politely and not ever work with her again?

A: That sounds like an excellent strategy.

Mallory Ortberg: Remember, you don’t have to have children just because George Clooney did. You don’t have to do anything just because George Clooney does it, whether that means reproducing biologically or starring on the early seasons of ER. See you all next week.

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