The Vine: August 13, 2008
Dear Sarah,
I’ve often followed your advice, but this is the first time I’ve written in.
If you are, say, a florist, musician, or photographer, and your friend or relative asks you if you would do the flowers, sing, take photos at their wedding, and of course you happily agree, is that able to be considered as your wedding gift to the couple?
I’ve done such favours for a few relatives recently and haven’t bought “tangible” gifts yet, and I was wondering if I was being tacky.I had figured that, because I charge a bit more for my services than many people would spend on a gift, it should suffice.However, I just caught myself wondering what your take on it would be.I’m still within the 12-month gift-giving window for all these newlyweds so I can still get them some “proper” gifts without being too embarrassed (except I think it will look funny me giving a late gift to the couple who stated in their invitations, in poem form, that they really had enough stuff and cash would be appreciated more).
Do I need to go department-store shopping?
Never A Bridesmaid, Always On The Order Of Service
Dear Service,
I think you can consider it your wedding gift to the couple if it was your idea in the first place.Let’s say you’re a photographer, just for example; if you offered to take the photos for the wedding, something you’d normally charge for, and if you made it clear that it’s a gift, no, you don’t get them a second gift.
But if they asked you, it’s not a gift, strictly speaking.It’s either the couple wanting to include you in the day, albeit in a non-wedding-party way, or it’s the couple wanting to save some money by asking friends and family to do things for free.Maybe it’s a little of both; I don’t want to cast aspersions on your friends.But unless you’ve had an explicit conversation about the fact that your photography work (or whatever) is a gift, then they may not think it is, and you should proceed from the assumption that they expect an actual, separate gift.How you proceed is of course up to you; since you’ve already donated services, you may want to get them something rather modest in addition.But I would err on the side of safety and get them something else.
This may make you feel grumbly, and I don’t blame you, so in the future, it’s maybe wiser to say something along the lines of “I’d be happy to photograph your wedding — I’m so honored that you asked me, and in fact I’d love to give you that service as your gift.”If the bride or groom looks taken aback by this, explain in polite tones of regret that the service is in fact something the couple customarily pays for, and you can certainly discuss a wholesale or friends-and-family rate if they’d rather you get them something off the registry instead.
…Or something like that; it depends on what the couples ask you to do.If you do normally charge for whatever they’re asking you to do for them, this is a conversation you should start having when it comes up, because they want you to do it for free, and if you have to buy a gift too, that’s not really okay.If, on the other hand, it’s just something you’re good at, and/or they’re asking you so they can include you…I mean, bridesmaids provide service too, of a sort, but they’re still expected to buy gifts.
My point is, if the bride had written to me with the other side of the same question, I’d be telling her that she should have offered to compensate you for your time and expertise.
Hi Sars! Hope you can help me out…
My BF, “Janet,” used to be one of the happiest, most positive people I knew. In the past few years, she’s slowly become depressed, anxiety-ridden, and self-loathing. And I’m not sure how to help her.
See, she married “Josh” about seven years ago. He was the first guy she ever dated, ever kissed, ever…well, you get the idea. But he was (is) silly, nice, and they have some things in common (like an unnatural obsession with softball).
Josh also has a superiority complex, which means that he can’t hold down a job for more than a few months because he always feels he knows better than his supervisors, and voices this without any apparent concern for the consequences. For the past four years, he has been gainfully employed for a total of about eight months (not all at once, mind). The rest of the time he has either been on unemployment (bad) or just living off of Janet (worse).
And although he claims to be looking for work all day every day, I find it hard to believe he can’t find ANYTHING after more than a year of job hunting — which, I should point out, came to a total stop when Janet got him a job at her office, from which he was recently…fired, for telling off his boss (Janet’s coworker) and causing drama at her work.
So, on to Janet. After all these years of dealing with this, Janet’s solution now is to find a second job and/or attempt to squeeze a significant raise out of the non-profit company she works for. She told me that she’s given up on Josh ever being a significant contributor to their household income, and now she’s trying to find other options. Which…I mean, my head explodes every time I think of Janet busting her (already anxious) ass working two jobs while her husband sits at home “job hunting.”
But what bemuses me even more is the realization that Janet is just accepting this fate as though it’s inevitable, and just allowing Josh to continue living like a 19-year-old college dropout staying in his parents’ basement. She’s just enabling his behaviour. I wrote her a long, blunt letter pointing this out to her and suggesting that perhaps she should try separating from him for six months and see if it finally forces him to grow up, but her reply was (as usual), “I’m just not in that place right now.”
[pulling large chunks of hair out of head]
Okay, but this isn’t about me, really. Even when I’m blunt, Janet just can’t see herself leaving Josh, or even using the threat of leaving as incentive for Josh to grow up and take responsibility for doing his part in their marriage. Janet is very protective of people she loves, to a fault, so that she’ll be miserable herself rather than hurt someone she loves. In the aforementioned letter, I told her that leaving Josh, even temporarily, would take some bravery on her part. Her reply: “Maybe staying with [Josh] is the braver thing to do.” Um…HOW?? How is staying in a situation that makes you miserable, has indeed made you a different, desperately unhappy person, brave? Because it’s brave to stay with him and keep supporting/enabling him? Is it brave to stay stuck in this rut so that you can “save” him (which, clearly, isn’t happening anyway)?
Argh, okay, now I’m just heading into Bitchville. What I’d love from you, Sars, is an objective opinion about her situation. Not what I can do, because writing you is about the last thing I can think to do besides always being there and being as supportive as I can be in the midst of my frustration. What can Janet do to improve her situation? I’m hoping maybe the objective opinion she can’t seem to convince herself to find in therapy can be found here, and regardless of whether you agree with me about the situation, I’m planning to show this to Janet just so she can see an objective viewpoint.
At some point on The Vine you discussed how hearing the same thing from an outside party (particularly a dude, which, well, we’ll make do) gets through to people in a way that hearing it from friends can’t seem to do. Be my dude, Sars. Or tell me I’m wrong, if that’s the case, ’cause at this point I’m so tangled up in the whole thing I’m not even sure which way is up myself anymore.
Thanks,
Wondering if it’d be easier to find a good place to hide his body
Dear Body,
I think “Be my dude, Sars” just joined “have met/was bitch” and “Poor Dirk, he’s GETTING A DIVORCE” on the TN Wall Of Hilarity.Excuse me while I rearrange my nut-sack…
Okay!S. Douglas Bunting, reporting for duty.Janet has low self-esteem, is probably clinically depressed, and has no perspective on Josh’s treatment of her, because he’s the only relationship she’s ever had.It’s easier for people who have had a bit more experience to compare and contrast, and also to acknowledge, even if they’re not feeling it right then, that the last break-up did not in fact end their romantic and sexual lives.Someone else did in fact come along.They were not in fact doomed to tolerate selfishness, laziness, infidelity, or whatever other cross it seemed their fate to bear.
Janet should open her own bank account if she hasn’t already, and restructure the household finances in a more equitable way.She should expect Josh to pull his weight, and if he can’t, she’s gone — and she takes her good credit and her name on the bills with her.…No?Then she needs therapy.Josh is not disabled or a minor child; treating him like he is while he chills on the couch all day is indicative of a neurosis.It’s treatable, but it’s time to treat it already.
It isn’t going to work, mind you, most likely.Josh isn’t going to toe the line, and she’s going to have to decide whether to leave.And she should leave.He’s a self-centered infant.Once she’s filed the papers and slept with a few other dudes (or gals, whatever), she’ll see that.Right now, she can’t.
Hope that helps.[belch]
Dear Sars,
I have been dating a very kind, sweet, decent man for almost two years. I am a thirty-five-year-old woman and he is nine years older. In most ways, we have a good relationship: we have a lot in common, enjoy each others’ company, and usually get along beautifully.
My (big) problem with the relationship is that we have never had sex — we’ve never even come close. Our physical relationship is entirely limited to a few good-night kisses per date. He is a very quiet, shy, passive man who has had very few previous relationships.
When we first started dating, I was very conscious of trying to giving him enough space for us to grow into a sexual relationship because he was giving me every signal that he was not ready for it (for instance, he never wanted to invite me to his house or to stay long when I invited him to mine; he only wanted to kiss goodnight in public places like parking lots, and was unresponsive to my jokes about “taking things inside,” etc.). I was wary about pressuring him into anything sexual, and I was willing to be patient.
After the first seven or eight months passed with no progression, though, I brought up the subject politely but directly. I told him that I was attracted to him and interested in developing a sexual relationship with him, but tried to give him an “out” by assuring him that if he didn’t feel the same way about me — if he just wanted a dinner or activity companion — I would be disappointed but understanding, and then I would be free to move on. He assured me that he wanted the same thing I did, and I was quite hopeful, but his subsequent actions seemed to contradict his words (basically, nothing changed, and he seemed as uninterested as ever in sex with me).
After several more months (during which the hope I had been given after the conversation had slowly ebbed away), I told him again that I wanted to have sex with him, but that I was very confused by the contradiction between what he had told me he wanted versus the way he acted toward me. I also told him that his actions (or lack thereof) made me feel rejected and sad. He assured me again that he was interested in me sexually, and he apologized for the ways that his behavior failed to communicate that.
I said that since I wanted to have sex with him, and he said he wanted to have sex with me, we should make a plan to have sex, since it obviously was not just going to happen for us. He agreed in theory but was unresponsive to my attempts to make the actual plans, and his behavior again never changed. Several months after that, we had a fight in which I told him that I felt like a humiliated fool for believing his words instead of his actions every time we discussed sex. He countered that by saying that I made him feel like he couldn’t do anything right, which made me feel even more hopeless, because I feel like I have tried so hard to AVOID nagging him.
Then, recently, his elderly father became seriously ill and moved across the country to live in my boyfriend’s house while undergoing long-term treatment. This has been good in that it has reminded me again of my boyfriend’s good, caring, sweet qualities, but it has also put any hope of resolving our sex problem on hold indefinitely.
I am really attached to him and would be devastated if we broke up now. However, it has gotten to the point where just seeing him makes me feel resentful and sad because I am with someone who (through deed, though not word) seems to find me unattractive, and lately, my sexual attraction to him has shriveled in the face of what feels like his sexual indifference toward me — and because it sometimes seems like my being attracted to him will never lead anywhere. I really identified with “Unsexy”, except that unlike her boyfriend, mine has never told me he thinks I’m unsexy — he just acts as though he thinks that. It is hard not to take it personally, especially when our society is filled with the message that all men will leap at the chance to have sex with any woman at any time.
I recognize that the sexual aspect of a long-term relationship can sometimes fade away over time, and what is more important in those cases is compatibility and feeling comfortable with each other. However, what is there to do about a relationship in which the sexual component has never started? I am at a loss for what to do and really need some advice from an outside party. Thanks for any help you might be able to give.
Feeling sad
Dear Sad,
He’s never going to have sex with you.I don’t know why you would even want to at this point; if he does finally agree to strip down and do the deed, it’s going to feel incredibly weird and fraught, because he’s delayed and made excuses for TWO YEARS, and he’ll only be doing it because you pressured him.AFTER TWO YEARS.Which, apparently, he will feel free to point out, thus making you feel even worse about yourself.
And it won’t happen at his house, either, because at his house, there is one of three things: a wife; gay porn; child porn.He is either married, not into girls, or bent in some way he doesn’t want you to see, and even if none of that is the case, it doesn’t matter anyway — the relationship is fucked, because he’s refused FOR TWO YEARS to touch you, and FOR TWO YEARS you’ve tolerated it, and whatever happens now is fruit of the poisoned tree.It isn’t your fault, but you’ve let it go on much much too long, and no good can come of it now.It’s time to move on.
You both need counseling, in my opinion, but whether he gets it should no longer be any of your affair.Tell him that you care for him, but the utter lack of sexual interest, coupled with the guilt trips he laid on you for questioning it, is messed up, and you don’t want to see him anymore.Talk to someone about why you think this is the best you can do.And if the next guy you date hasn’t reached for your bra clasp by the third date, neg him too.
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette friendships sex
Service: If I asked someone to do my wedding photos, I would offer to pay. If they offered their services as a gift, I would accept it as the invaluable gift that it is (unless I knew they really couldn’t afford it, in which case I would offer to, at the very least, pay for the supplies involved).
I say this because we have family friends who did wedding photos for years (they’re not professionals, but they’re excellent amateur photographers). They did this on a “donation” basis for many friends and friends of friends, but it seems a lot of people saw the term “donation” as the equal of “free.” They eventually stopped doing wedding photos altogether. Me, I would have had a price list ready for ’em up front (unless it was a good friend or family member!).
@S – Dexter only THINKS he has no emotions. Watch the show some more… (I LOVE “Dexter” :) ).
Body – We all know what Janet COULD do to straighten out her situation: make it clear to Josh that she can’t handle things anymore as they are, and they need to change. Then change things with or without him. And I agree with those who said she really needs professional help, because I think she needs that kind of help to get her life going again and sort things out internally and externally.
Unfortunately, only Janet CAN do anything to help herself, and she isn’t ready to do that. She may never be ready to do that. You’ve been blunt and straightforward with her because you care about her, but nothing’s come of it. I hope seeing it from an outside source like Sars helps, but in the end, Janet is the one who has to come to the realization that either she’s going to carry Josh around with her for the rest of her life (condemning herself to the permanent role of Mary Poppins, although we all know Mary would have kicked Josh from here to London and back again) or she’s going to start taking steps to reclaim her life.
I hope things work out for her. I hate to see situations like this … we and our friends deserve to be happy!
Holy flurking Schmidt, this Vine is close to home for me. Last year I was both Janet AND Sad. I’d been in a relationship with a guy for 10 years (!) who had the same chip on his shoulder and superiority complex that Josh had…he lived off me in NYC, both of us living off my tiny grad student stipend, because he insisted he wanted to be an investment banker and wouldn’t settle for any other job (in fairness, he’d worked in that field in London and for “whatever reason” couldn’t get a position in New York). After the first 5 years of the relationship, he suddenly got religion and decided he didn’t want to have sex with me until we were married…um, ok, what about the first 5 years? Thanks a lot. He made me feel completely unattractive, but I still felt like I had to take care of him and make him love me, like I could change his mind. It is hard to explain, but I simultaneously felt like he was too good for me and that I was too good for him. It is a bizarre scenario. Eventually we both got jobs in a new city and moved in together for the last 3 years of the relationship, but it deteriorated totally. I caught him looking at really nasty S&M porn when he was supposed to be job hunting. I caught him cheating on me with other girls, using a fake name, texting them, meeting them in the city to hang out. Eventually it just got to a point that I knew it was over…he was home for a 10-day visit from an extended assignment overseas and didn’t make time to see me until day 8. When I finally did get to see him, he told me that he wasn’t attracted to me — basically, quarterback didn’t want to date the fat girl (I’m a size 14 — so not Top Model material, but seriously?!). That was the breaking point. I literally pushed him out of my house and my life for good, and I have never looked back. Seriously — that was more than a year ago, and I have honestly never been happier. My life is a minimum 500% better than it was back then. I have achieved things I never thought were possible since we broke up, and I realize it is because he was totally holding me back and pushing me down emotionally to such a degree that I had no energy left to live.
The thing was, for the 10 years we were together, my close friends were tormented because they knew that he was totally wrong for me, but they also knew if they said anything, I would stop speaking to them. Thank goodness they stuck by me. Body/Melanie and Sad, all I can say is that there will be a day that Janet and you will wake up and decide not to up with it anymore. I was really worried when I finally kicked this jerk to the curb that my friends would come at me with the I Told You So of the century…instead, they were incredibly supportive and loving, so much so that I can’t think about it without getting choked up. Body/Melanie, seriously, try your hardest not to nag her. She knows deep down that it’s wrong and it is never going to work (trust me on that). Just stick by her so she knows that when it’s time to come out of this nightmare, you’ll be there with warm milk and a cookie. And no “I Told You So”s! She knows. Trust me on that. Even if you think she believes it will work out, she knows on some level that it will not. All you can do is wait for her to realize that she can make it without this d-bag, and give her the support she needs once she does realize it.
Aw, Sad. I’m sad for you.
While I completely understand that it would be painful to break up with your boyfriend after this long time, I agree with Sarah – you need to end it.
He may love you, but not in the way that you need. He is only your friend.
Regardless of his reasons why; gay, bent, past abuse, whatever – he has issues and needs to work it out before he can be in a relationship with anyone.
Re: giving money *in addition to* a wedding gift – this is commonplace on Long Island (NY), where I went to college and grad school and lived for a few years beyond school too.
As a wedding guest you were expected to give a substantial gift from one of a number of registries, and in addition to that you were expected to figure out how much “your share” of the reception and food cost (no lie) and give cash in at least that amount. Yeah, so the happy couple would MAKE MONEY from the wedding. Appalling.
That’s just greedy, IMO. What I sent in reply to the invitations, more often than not, was my regrets (heh) at being unable to attend. And if I went I gave one gift, no cash. And I no longer live on Long Island (sigh of relief).
Re: Wondering – your friend will probably never leave the guy or if she does, she will then quickly hook up with someone who could be her husband’s lazy deadbeat loser twin. A good friend of mine was in a similar situation; it is very hard to watch.
As for Sad, I agree that her BF is prolly gay or twisted or…I don’t know what, but…TWO YEARS!?!?…she needs to say goodbye.
Wedding Etikit! A subject that never wears thin.
When I got married last year, one friend did our gorgeous cake, and a coworker of my husband’s who is studying photography did our pictures. In both cases we paid their expenses–it was part of the budget–and in neither did we expect another gift, although both of them generously gave us gifts anyway. And asking for money IS. NOT. COOL. Never has been, never will be.
And Sad–I gotta chime in here–the BEST case scenario is gay/impotent/asexual. The more likely explanation is he isn’t inviting you over because the house is so full of dead bodies, threatening mail, letter bombs, anthrax, ricin, kiddie porn and snuff films there’s no room for you to sit down. RUN AWAY.
And where is that divorced Derek quote, anyway?
@Melanie…did I read that right? You just moved in with a married couple while you are actively trying to break up their marriage? Really?
@eerie similiarities: Did your guy like chain mail by any chance?
Unfortunately, Body, you cannot do anything but be there. I have had a friend in destructive relationships and drawing them a picture will not help.
Sad, (for the millionth time) he’s gay. Dump his ass.
“@Melanie…did I read that right? You just moved in with a married couple while you are actively trying to break up their marriage? Really?”
Well, it sounds to me like she probably did this because her friend is busting her ass to support her deadbeat husband and probably needs all the help she can get sharing expenses. It’s very romantic to believe that marriages are two people against the world and let no man put asunder and so forth, but it certainly sounds like the friend is in desperate need of support — support for herself, not support for staying married. It’s not most important that the friend stay married; it’s most important that the friend be sane and healthy.
I agree that moving in with them is probably dumb, because she’ll just drive herself nuts, but you don’t owe loyalty to your friend’s bad marriage. Janet’s husband appears to be sponging off her, taking advantage of her, and generally treating her like crap, and it sounds like Melanie is engaged in a long process of persuading Janet that she can and should make it on her own, and while it’s true that this shows no loyalty to Josh, Josh really seems to have written his own ticket to Nobody Is Loyal To Me, USA.
What Melanie is doing is, I’d estimate, about 85 percent likely to be futile — in the sense that her interference (I say that approvingly) is unlikely to be the reason Janet finally gets out, if she does. But she seems to have nudged Janet toward therapy as a first step, and good for her. Josh can go out and get a job so he can meet his own friends, and THEY can show some loyalty to Josh.
My husband’s parents never gave us a wedding gift, but did pay for the rehearsal dinner and I’ve pondered for three years now if the rehearsal dinner was supposed to be their gift to us. Not that I was expecting a gift, it just made me curious.
I totally get where you are coming from, Linda. I think the potential for this to blow up in Melanie’s face is much greater than the potential for it to help. There’s getting involved in other people’s problems and there’s getting involved in other people’s problems. It’s not that I think this marriage deserves Janet’s respect and support, but the fact still remains that she’s actively trying to break them up, and that’s going to bring nothing but conflict to their living space. I don’t know if that’s necessarily that productive for Janet – in addition to the burden of Josh, she now has a roommate who is vocally and vociferously undermining her choice to stay with him. It’s a tricky thing, having friends who make decisions that smell, look, sound, taste, and feel completely awful. But it also sucks to be in a bad place *and* have your closest friends put their helpful involvement into efforts that essentially communicate that they think they know what’s best for you better than you do. Not very empowering.
I would warn people against making too many judgments about Josh and what they perceive as his laziness, and Janet, and what they perceive as her enabling behavior. I’ve been on the inside of a version of this and it can be very different from the inside than it looks from the outside. For a period of about a year, my boyfriend lost three jobs in succession, each due to circumstances outside his control. (You can believe me about that or not, but it’s true.)
This was some monumental bad luck on his part, but in between jobs he was dogged in his search. Again, you can believe me about that or not. But he did everything he could to keep contributing to our household expenses, and for the two months that he wasn’t able to, he was apologetic and quite tortured, like any responsible person would be. I know we all want everybody’s relationships to have the same values that we prize in our own relationships—thus those of you who wouldn’t support a guy, even temporarily, are appalled that anyone would—but it was my choice and I’m glad I did what I did.
I’m not saying that Janet’s guy isn’t a loser—maybe he is. But mine is most definitely NOT a loser. I knew it then by how completely discontented he was being unemployed, and I know it by how relieved and comfortable he is now that he’s found good, permanent work.
I’m even going to disagree with Linda (which is insane because she’s Miss Alli and I love her, but…) and say that if Janet thinks what he’s doing is right without being bullied into it, and Josh thinks what he’s doing is right without being unrealistic about it, and they’re not begging all their friends and family for loans in the meantime, then it IS them against the world, and that IS how it should be, and anyone who wouldn’t put themselves in that position for another person probably shouldn’t be married to them. Yes, there’s a lot of conditions in there, but none of us save Janet, Josh and maybe Melanie know whether or not their marriage fits within those conditions.
I agree with everyone who says that Melanie should stick by Janet; but she shouldn’t expect Janet to prize her relationship with Melanie over her relationship with Josh (again: married) and she also shouldn’t expect Janet to prize Melanie’s opinion about how Janet should live over her own.
I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I can really only base *my* response on what I’m told. Janet didn’t write to me, nor did Josh, and everyone’s perspective in/on the situation is going to be different, but I wasn’t told Josh was diligently looking for a job. I wasn’t told Janet was okay with that.
Melanie is perhaps not the most unbiased narrator of the facts, but I for one can’t really take every possible explanation and/or agenda into account or I’d never get these things published. It’s possible this marriage works for them and Melanie’s ignorant of that, but it’s not probable, and I didn’t get any information to that effect. And, you know, Occam’s Razor. It’s not like Josh is the only remora S.O. we’ve ever seen in this column.
Sad’s letter, same thing. Is it *possible* the guy had a good reason for keeping her literally at arm’s length for two years? Sure. But it isn’t bloody likely.
Oh, and because several people asked (and I wanted to): Dirk’s divorce was the subject of 4-year-old JenV’s dinner-table discussion… while Dirk was sitting there AT the dinner table… (TY google)
@ Alikel: You know, I’ve wondered the same thing. My MIL didn’t get us a gift for our wedding, and I don’t particularly care, but it sticks out because my husband and I wanted a small ceremony without much of a reception, and she FLIPPED HER SHIT at how that was such poor etiquette and cowed us into having one (We were young and pliable then…wouldn’t happen now!). At the time, we were both painfully shy and dirt poor college students, we both hated dancing, we didn’t drink and could only afford to have the reception at a church anyway, so we envisioned a time of extreme discomfort for us and boredom for the guests. And that’s…pretty much what happened. So after guilting us about how tacky we were…she never got us a gift. And the rehearsal dinner was a tray of subs in the church basement so we could finish making/putting up decorations until two in the morning, so it’s not like that was an unbearable expense. Again, I totally don’t care who did or didn’t give us a gift, but I always wondered about her since she’s the most etiquette-focused person I know. Well, when it comes to other people’s etiquette, anyway…
@La BellaDonna: I am a singer as well (non-professional, ’cause as you say – it don’t pay!), and the 3 weddings I have attended where I wasn’t a bridesmaid, I performed at the wedding or at the reception. I didn’t get paid for any of those services, and it was also not considered ‘a gift’ by the couple. I guess I’ve got to start saying no, or “as a gift to you – sure!”
Oh and it seems that Long Island totally has Canberra beat as far as tacky “just gimme money” wedding traditions!
Remora S.O. is TOTALLY my new band name (assuming of course, I played an instrument, had musical talent ,and had friends with same….)
We won’t be playing weddings, so for a gift, crystal vase it is.
@ ferretrick: Not that I know of, but it can’t be ruled out. From what I found downloaded onto MY computer (eww, I know), he was more into chesty girls tied up and jumping on trampolines. Wish I were kidding. And I wish I could say that finding that was the last straw, but actually we stayed together for almost 2 years after that. Really astonishing to look back and realize that I put up with that sort of thing. It really is a big mindset switch from before breakup to after breakup. I think it is impossible for anyone who hasn’t been through it to understand it fully, but everyone who’s in this situation probably knows exactly what I am talking about.
Of course, it’s true that Josh could be diligently trying to get a job, or he could be depressed or have some other reason he’s not able to look right now. Normally, I am the A-1 advocate of staying out of other people’s shit unless you have one of several specific reasons not to. (I actually gave my list in a Vine letter answer back in the day, during one of the 48 Vines In 48 Hours events, I believe.)
But here, Janet seems to be responding to an enormous amount of butting in (again: I approve) without telling Melanie to butt out, and that’s very telling to me. Melanie has been aggressively sticking her nose in for quite a while, and Janet’s like, “Hmm, maybe I’ll go to therapy about it; how about we move in together?”
Janet seems to be gravitating toward Melanie’s lovingly buttinskying friendship, and that leads me to believe that Janet knows Melanie is right. If Janet had said, “Fuck you, Mel, and stay out of my shit,” then you’d be looking at something I’d be more likely to see as a “two against the world” situation — of which there can certainly be some. But here, my reason for backing Melanie in a situation where I normally wouldn’t is that Janet seems to be kind of…purring under the stroking hand of interference, and that suggests to me that maybe keeping it up is the right move.
@elayne, thanks! Man, that was recent, too… my brain is turning to Swiss cheese.
Re: Bridesmaid
Our wedding was a very Web 2.0 affair (a lot of our friends chipped in to arrange flowers, take pictures, etc.) One of my bridesmaids did all my centerpieces. Another groomsmaid, who is a professional photographer, shot our engagement photos. NEITHER of them gave gifts, and most certainly none was expected. I even paid for the photographer friend’s dress, since an engagement session from her company would have cost upwards of $500. My feeling is that if you stepped up and did me something that saved me WAY more cash than a gift would cost, you are totally off the hook. Any bride or groom who feels otherwise is a dick for expecting a gift ON TOP OF your valuable time.
Could someone link to the “have met/was bitch” post, pretty please? My searching turned up nothing. Thanks to whoever posted the link to poor divorced Dirk!
@JR. It’s in the Vine comments about the ex boyfriend and the Aging Rock star: https://tomatonation.com/?p=2262#more-2262
In one of the “whoever could that be”-list;-)
Linda, I don’t think that the Janet described is somebody who is inclined to tell her best friend to fuck off, and I think even in a lot of perfectly decent friendships somebody can make a private decision to let their friend ride a hobbyhorse. I’m also startled by Body’s very strange decision to move in with somebody she despises, and I’m thinking she needs to look at her own behavior here and not just her friend’s. Even the letter was openly about how to change Janet, but I think Body needs to make some changes as well, especially the expectation that a change in Janet should be impending, and it’s the one Body wants. This isn’t Body’s problem, it’s Janet’s (and Janet may see it as a completely different problem than Body does, if she sees it as a problem), but Body really seems intent on making it her own however she can.
And yeah, I’m speaking as somebody who’s been there and to some extent still is, with a friend who’s been married for twenty years to a guy who can’t hold a job or reliably carry out a responsibility, and who rarely makes her happy and often makes her unhappy. Yes, I think she’d be better off without him, and yes, she knows that. But it’s not my call to make, and our disagreement about the primary person in her life can’t be the biggest thing in our friendship. That doesn’t mean Janet will never leave Josh or that Body shouldn’t support her friend, just as Janet should be supporting Body. But it may mean that Janet has come to grips with the fact that she and her best friend differ about her marriage in a way that Body simply hasn’t.
This sounds to me like it’s moved from wanting the best for a friend to making her life into a project, which is bad for everybody.
I’m totally on board with everything Sars had to say, I just popped in to say
*hugs Eerie similarities*
*punches her ex BF in the nads*