Dear Sars:

I’ve never done anything like this before, but have been visiting your site since last summer and would like to get your take on this. Can’t really talk to friends or family about it, as the subject is much too heavy.

So here goes: Last October, I married the man with whom I’d had a four-year relationship.The kicker: up until the day we did it, I had doubts.About his career (now looking for work), his habits (drinks to excess), his fidelity (had a fling a year and a half into our relationship).Please understand that when we met, my self-esteem was at an all-time low.I was unemployed at the time, just out of another relationship, and felt I didn’t have a friend in the world.In him, I found someone to take care of (notice I didn’t say to take care of me).I found a lot of comfort in that.Over time, I grew up — got a good job, friends, et cetera — but I feel he has not, i.e. the drinking thing.He totally denies having any sort of problem (INSERT RED FLAG HERE) and it has gotten to the point we cannot discuss anything without arguing.

I am very afraid of what I have done.Our finances are joined, everything.We talk, he says he will do more to get on the same page as me, and then it’s back to the same old shit.He never wants to take me out, and yet one of his buddies calls and off we go.He questions everything I do — to the point of making me feel like an idiot even when I KNOW I am right about something.My hostility level has become almost unbearable — sometimes I can’t stand myself.Despite all of this, he says he loves me and that we will be together forever.If I knew that he will do right by me, I would be happy with that.I am just not so sure. I don’t want to walk away from my marriage.I do love him — he is a good person.However, if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I fear for his eternal soul.He’s very good at making promises, shitty at keeping them.I am losing faith.

Please help.I know I could go for counseling, but am not terribly comfortable with the idea.He would never go.What do I do now?

Drowning In The Sea Of Love

Dear Drowning,

“He’s a good person”?Why?No, seriously.What’s good about him?From what you tell me, he’s a cheating, self-absorbed, unemployable drunk who treats you like crap.If that’s good, I’d hate to see “bad.”

You need to go to counselling, with him or without him, and figure out why you settled for your husband, because that’s exactly what you did.You took him back after he stepped out on you, you enable his drinking…why do you do that?There’s a reason.Go to a therapist and figure it out.

You don’t have to leave your marriage, but you do have to start making clear to your husband what you will and won’t put up with.You have to sit him down and tell him in plain English that he needs to cut down on the drinking and treat you like an equal in the relationship or you will leave, and if he doesn’t do those things, make good on the threat.Because, really, what’s his motivation to change at the moment?You ask him for what you need, he blows it off, you back right down.Why should he try to straighten himself out?What’s his payoff?He knows that you’ll just let it go, that he’ll get his way in the end.Stop letting it go.It’s not helping anyway.

I know it’s scary, and I know you don’t want to give up on something you’ve spent so many years on, but if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times — you can’t change people.You can only change how you react to and handle people.Demand that your husband care enough about you to get his shit together.If he won’t or can’t, pack your shit and get out and trust yourself to deal with what comes next.

You know it’s not working.It’s time to do something about that.

My sister and I have a question for you — is “pled” or “pleaded” more correct as the past tense for “plead”?

Megan

Dear Megan,

Webster’s 10C lists both, but puts “pleaded” first.It also lists the variant spelling of “plead” for the past tense.

Garner’s take on it is that, while neither is incorrect, “pleaded” is “the best past-tense and past-participial form,” and that “[c]ommentators on usage have long said so, pouring drops of vitriol on has pled and has plead.””Pled” is considered primarily an American English form, but while British English views it as an Americanism, “pled” is not “considered quite standard in AmE [either], although it is a common variant in legal usage.”

Short answer — unless the context is a court proceeding, use “pleaded.”

Hi Sars,

I thought perhaps you could help me out with this little issue I’m having. Some background first: I’m a junior in university, in a very tight-knit program (i.e. people in my program have all the same classes every day until we graduate, except for the odd elective — and we take minimal English, so trim away at this puppy, it’s full of bad grammar). I’m the kind of person that has fifty million guyfriends, but no serious boyfriend, and personally, I’m totally fine with that. I haven’t had the time or met the right people to date much up to this point, and I guess this was more or less my first proper relationship as it lasted more than three days, which was my old record.

Sadly though, this “proper relationship” with a boy named C didn’t last much more than a month. C just wigged out; everything was peachy-keen until one day, out of the blue, he said he didn’t think this would work in the long run so he’d end it now when things were still good. It was a bit of a shock, but whatever — I dealt with it, and there are no hard feelings. That was about two months ago.

Now, it’s getting more and more bizarre. Since he is in my program, I do see him every day. Furthermore, we are both big on the extracurricular scene, and somehow ended up as executives of this undergraduate society, so we have to work together as well. I have no problems with any of this; I’m a very professional person, and I know that we make a pretty good team.

What bothers me is that he expects me to be good friends with him. Being just friends is way more than enough for me, but it just isn’t cutting it with him. It bugs him that I can’t talk freely about everything with him; I am happy enough being cordial and keeping him at arm’s length, since I feel that my life and issues are none of his business anymore. I’ve tried to progress to a “good friend,” but it just isn’t happening. I don’t think this has to do with our “history”; rather, he’s not the kind of person I generally hang around with or relate too. I’m not comfortable enough to express myself with no inhibitions around him, and he just doesn’t see that.

The other day, we had this talk, and I told him all of this. It ended because, as it’s exam season, we were both pressed for time. But he still hasn’t taken the no-we-can’t-be-good-friends thing to heart. He wants to sit and work it out. I don’t think there’s anything there to work out — we just don’t mesh, and that’s it.

So anyway, he wants to sit and work through this after exams are done. That gives me a week and a half to figure out what I should do. Should I:

a) avoid him altogether? Which is rather difficult, since we both live in the dorms here, but I’m sure I could hide in my closet until he moves home. But then I’ll have to deal with him after the summer since he’s in my program and all. And that closet is a little small…
b) try and explain it to him again? This is really tearing at me, though. I’m tired of trying to explain that it won’t work to someone who just can’t take no for an answer; we’re both bull-headed people, and I’m pretty sure it’ll get a little ugly next time we have this conversation.
c) pretend to be a good friend? I can’t really see myself doing this honestly, but maybe he’ll forget this if I downplay how I really feel and let him see what he wants.
d) do you have any other suggestions?

Additionally, do you have any insights on this guy’s motivations? I also don’t understand why he should want to be “best friends” so badly after dumping me. It doesn’t make sense; it’s like he told me to get out of his world, and then he’s slowly trying to pull me back in. I’m very confused.

Thank you in advance!

Anxious in Arizona

Dear Anxious,

Oftentimes, when people try to force a close friendship after a break-up, it’s because they want validation — proof that it’s not their fault, that they didn’t hurt you or make you too angry at them, that you still like them as people and they didn’t do anything all that wrong.I don’t know if that’s what’s going on here, but the fact that he’s so focused on “working it out” seems to point in that direction.

In any case, I’d go with d).Tell him that you’ve said all you have to say on the subject, and that you now consider it closed, period, end of story.”There’s nothing to ‘work out,’ C.We’re friends.If you continue to push for more, you’ll jeopardize what we do have.Respect my feelings and stop leaning on me, because frankly, it’s starting to creep me out.”Shut him down.

If he chooses to react poorly to that, or if he gets all “it’s all about your hang-ups, maaaaan,” well, that’s unfortunate, but I don’t see how you have anything to gain by letting the annoying State Of The Friendship discussions continue, or by feigning a closeness you don’t feel.His behavior is manipulative, off-putting, and inappropriate, and he probably wouldn’t give the full-court press to a friend he hadn’t dated, so tell him to back off and accept what you can give him, or he’ll get nothing.

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