The Vine: August 21, 2002
Dear Sars,
I am a very lucky girl and I know I have far fewer problems than the people who normally ask for advice, but I have a decision to make and I don’t know what to do, so I’d appreciate any thoughts you might have.
First, some background: When I graduated from university this past spring, I bought a condo, and my parents co-signed on my mortgage. This condo was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — it’s the perfect size for me, in a perfect location, at about half usual going rate for this type of property — so I put most of my savings into the down payment and my parents kindly helped me seize this opportunity by co-signing as my graduation gift.
I am quite capable of paying the mortgage off myself in under ten years — I have no debts and a good government job that was waiting for me when I graduated — but the bank wanted a co-signer because I was still in school at the time. My parents and I signed an agreement that I will be solely responsible for all payments, and that if they do have to pay into the mortgage, it will be considered a loan that I will have to repay to them with interest.
Now for the problem part: My fiancé and I want him to move into the condo with me, and my parents won’t stand for it. We’ve been together for about four years and have been talking about moving in for quite a while. We’ve agreed that we will live together for at least one year before getting married, and now seems like the perfect opportunity.
However, my parents are opposed to people living together before marriage, and they insist that since they co-signed my mortgage, they should have a say about who, if anyone, lives in my condo. My parents have always tried to control my life — I refused to have them help me pay my tuition for this very reason — but I foolishly never thought they’d apply the same tactic here, since I’m the one who is paying the mortgage and the co-signature was supposed to be a gift.
In addition to the usual benefits of living together — the happiness of being together every day, the joy of having someone to come home to and make dinner with, the comfort of not having to live all alone in the big city — living here would reduce my fiancé’s daily commute by about 90 minutes in each direction and make him eligible for my employment benefits, such as health insurance (which he currently doesn’t have) and tuition supplements. I don’t think it would be fair to prevent him from enjoying these benefits and a shorter commute just because my parents are very strict.
While getting married right away might resolve this problem, we want some time to enjoy just being engaged, and my fiancé wants to finish school and get his first full-time job before getting married (I’d want the same thing in his place). Besides, we want to get married on our terms, not because we feel pushed into it prematurely.
I don’t want to anger my parents after they were kind enough to help me get my dream condo, but at the same time I feel like since I’m paying for everything, it should be my decision. Are my parents being unreasonable? Or am I just a spoiled unappreciative brat? Is the happiness of myself and the one I love worth angering the people who enabled us to have this happiness?
Quoi faire?
Dear Quoi,
My first instinct is to tell you to tell your parents to get bent. When parents premise “gifts” and “help” on your adhering to their rules after you’ve reached the age of majority, it smacks of petty manipulation and control to me. It’s one thing if they help you with the mortgage and ask in return that you don’t decorate a certain way, although that’s probably annoying; telling you how to live is something else entirely.
But I don’t know the legalities here, and you should try to look into that at your bank, but without raising any flags over there. Go over the contracts and mortgage papers again; see how much power the co-signatory exerts, whether the co-signatory can withdraw, et cetera. Find out how exactly your parents could punish you financially for not toeing the line before you do anything.
If they can’t influence the mortgage beyond taking responsibility for it, tell them you wish they felt differently, but your boy’s moving in, and they can like it or not, you don’t care. If they do wield some clout over the real estate, you should consider selling the condo and getting out of it.
I know, I know. It’s perfect, great location, blah. But it’s not worth it. The “gift” they gave you is getting to pull the strings on you still; it’s a “gift” they gave to themselves, and it’ll keep on giving as long as you stay there and have to clear stuff like this with them.
Something else to keep in mind: Sometimes, people lay down laws like this because they believe you won’t answer the challenge — you won’t pick up the glove and dare them to do something they can’t go back from. I have a feeling that’s what’s happening here; your parents think you won’t defy them, because doing so could get messy. Arm yourself with the facts about who controls the property should they decide to make trouble, and call their bluff.
Sars,
Okay, I have a problem, and since you’ve been helpful in the past, I thought I’d throw this out at you and see what happens. I’m not so sure I have a clear question in mind to ask you, but I think that if I try typing this all out, I’ll probably feel better in the end, seeing as how I have no one that I can dump this on in real life.
First, a little background. (Oh, and I should warn you, this is going to end up EXTREMELY long. Sorry in advance.) I live with two sisters, whom I’ll call H and E. H is 24, and E is 22. I am 21. I’ve lived here since last May. I moved in with them when their old roommate got married. Also, I have a sister, C, who is 16. H and E have a brother, J, who is 20 and has been dating my sister for about six months.
As an aside, E is dating a guy, L, who may propose to her this week. They’ve been together for four years. Other than the fact that L has not once had a conversation with H or J, he’s an all-right guy. But H hates him more than anything else in this world, I think. Now, keep in mind how old everyone here is.
Fast forward a few months. There was a lot of shit going on between E and H and J, and by default, my sister and I got pulled into it. It really is just a huge soap opera here. Well, it ended up with J getting mad at me because he did something really crappy to E, and I told my sister that he was a jerk for doing that (just to clear things up, he told E he would go to L’s basketball game with her, that he would call, and he didn’t, so she called him and he said “can’t talk I’m in class” and then hung up, turned around, and called my sister, who was at my apartment at the time, and he never even bothered to explain to his own SISTER why he lied to her, since he wasn’t in class at all and just didn’t want to go see L). So I told C that he was a jerk, so he made a point to come into where I work and tell me he was sorry he ever bothered me and that he would leave me alone for the rest of my life, or something stupid to that effect. Oh, I should mention that up until this point, we were pretty good friends. It made C mad, but he always came to me to tell me things, and it was through him that I actually learned a lot of stuff about my sister, since she never wanted to tell me anything before.
Okay. So after that, I was really pissed off at J AND C and I mentioned something to my MOTHER, who said to J that he’d better straighten this out because she didn’t want there to be problems between me and C. So he called one night, which was a very shitty night for me anyway, and talked to me for a long time. Then he said, “If you care about me at all, you will come over before midnight tonight.” And I told him that I felt like shit and that I wasn’t going anywhere, besides the fact that he knows I hate his apartment and the people he lives with. So then he said, “Well, you can at least call.” But I never did. The way I am, when I am upset, I cannot talk to that person until I’ve thought things through for a while. I tried to explain this before I hung up, because I knew I wouldn’t call. He wouldn’t accept that, though, so then there was this huge “rift” between us. But things were basically cool. Or so I thought.
Well, in our little conversation, he promised me that he would never again ask me to “let C spend the night with me,” i.e. cover for her while she spends the night with him. Because she just used me. She only talked to me when that’s what she wanted. Before they started dating, we were starting to get to be really good friends. Our family took a trip to Hawaii last summer, and it was great to have her to hang out with. We used to hate each other, but about the time she turned 14, we were starting to get along really well. So it hurt and all that she quit hanging out with me when she started dating J, but she’s a girl, and that’s what girls do. I’ve done it, I’ve had it done to me, it happens, life goes on.
So two weekends ago, J called me to ask if C could “spend the night with me,” and I said no. There are several reasons why I was against this. I don’t care that they’re sleeping together or whatever. That’s fine. He’s better than some of the people she’s slept with. Before, when I would cover for her, I’d say, “Call me when you get there and call me in the morning,” just so that I would have a heads-up on what was going on in case my mom or dad were to call me. But she never would. Just little things like that that made it impossible to try to cover for her. Especially because she was always oversleeping and things like that. And I work with my mom, so sometimes it would be really difficult if C was “staying with me” and then I’d have to get up the next morning to go to work and see my mom and pretend like everything was cool. “Oh yeah, C left when I left to come to work,” et cetera. On top of that, and maybe this is selfish, I never had anyone covering for me when I was 16. And I got into plenty of trouble. And maybe I’m an old fogey, but I think she needs to learn to do for herself. Does that make sense? She needs to make her own mistakes and get into trouble and learn to make judgment calls. Is that horribly mean of me? It’s just that my sister gets away with so much. I would never, for example, been able to date a 20-year-old guy when I was 16. There’s just no way. And she gets a lot of things that I never got, so yeah, maybe there is some hostility there, but I had my reasons.
Then she got caught. And grounded for two weeks. So then I came home one night and saw where J had sent me a message over AIM that said, simply, “Fuck you.” I decided that he was a juvenile and I had no reason to even respond to that. Then I woke up the next morning (or maybe it was the next), and he had sent another one that said, “I dislike you more than I can type.” So I ignored that, too. I thought it didn’t bother me.
Then Tuesday night, I went to see my parents. They asked if I had seen J and how he was doing, and I said, “I dunno cuz he hates me.” They said that of course he didn’t, and I told them about the second message. It just sort of came out. I guess it bothered me more than I thought. I am very close to my parents, and I tell them a lot of things. After C got caught, she told them a lot of things too. She told them that she and J were having sex and that they were planning on getting married. So anyway.
Yesterday, J was over here hanging out with his sisters. They were in the living room and I was in my room. He yelled down the hall, “Hey, thanks for telling your parents I said that.” And I replied, “Well, thanks for saying it in the first place.” So then H decided that we were going to make up, THAT DAY, but I had to get in the shower because I had to go to work. So when I got out, J was on the phone, and H made us talk. She told me if he was mean just to hang up on him. So, we talked for a very long time. He explained that he said those things in the heat of the moment, and that he says things and then thinks about them later. To me, this is incredibly immature. You do NOT do things like that that can’t be taken back. He kept saying, as if he couldn’t believe this, that “girls don’t forget things like that.” Like it’s supposed to be okay for him to say things like that to me just because he doesn’t think first and I should be all happy-go-lucky about it all. The gist of the conversation was that he would do ANYTHING any of his siblings might ask him to do for them (they have a brother, too, who is 18, so J said he’s covered for him before).
Basically, it comes down to this: I am a horrible sister, and by extension a horrible daughter. I feel like I can no longer talk to my parents about things, because they’ll tell C and she’ll in turn tell J. And I really don’t like the fact that he’s made me feel like I cannot talk to my own fucking parents. Also, I am a horrible roommate, just because E and I had some problems a couple of months ago. I didn’t even know that he knew about them, but I shouldn’t be surprised because nothing is ever a secret between the five of us. E and I got everything worked out, though, or so I thought, but since he brought it up, it makes me think that things weren’t worked out at all. (My problem was that I was tired of E using my stuff without asking and then not putting it back. Things like hairspray, which I could never find if E used it. Or my eyeliner pencil sharpener. Little things like that. I mean, I never even called E on this, but she took my eyeliner pencil sharpener, and when I asked if she knew where it was, she said no. Then a few weeks later, we were in her car, and it was in there! She told me it must’ve gotten stuck to her shoe. How weird is that?) Third, I am a horrible friend, because heaven forbid we not talk about every aspect of my life. That somehow it was my fault that my “best” friend moved in with the guy I was dating and it caused the guy I was dating and me not to see each other anymore. Like I was supposed to throw a hissy about it or something and demand that no, they could NOT move in together. That whole thing is another story entirely, but the long and short of it is there was a battle over this guy and I lost, only I never knew we were fighting over him in the first place.
Finally, according to J, I am an alcoholic. I haven’t even drunk that much lately, but I happen to like going out and getting smashed out of my skull, which I did Thursday night because it was the first day of my vacation and I was stressed and thought it would be good to celebrate. It’s the first time in about a month that I was seriously trashed. He just kept talking about when his parents come to my apartment to visit E and H how they always have to hide my liquor and stuff. (I really wouldn’t care if they just told their parents that it was mine. I don’t care if they tell MY parents it’s mine. We’re all over 21, those of us that live here.) So anyway…because of all of this, I feel unwelcome in my apartment and at my parents’ house and I’m not really quite sure what to do about all of it.
On top of all that, there’s the whole “J and C wanna get married” thing. He said he has a ring and everything. I think it’s a bad idea, but hell if I’m gonna say anything about it. Again, I’m an old fuddy-duddy, but when I was 16, I was convinced I was dating the guy that I was going to marry. Now, it’s the last thing I want, ever, but there’s no way I would’ve listened to anyone say that five years ago. Does that really make me a bad sister? I refuse to say one bad word against them because I honestly think, at least a little, that I am scared of J. Also, I refuse to say anything to my parents, because they’ll just turn around and tell C. Now, C is only 16, so if they get married, it will be because J made false papers, which will make the marriage fake anyway. So it’s really all a charade. But I dunno. I feel like I’m running in circles. Also, H is totally for C and J getting married, but she is totally against E and L. This hurts E’s feelings beyond belief, and I’ve tried talking to H about it, but she doesn’t want to listen. E’s point is that she and L have dated for four years; she’s 22, she is ready for this, and she is old enough to make her own decisions. As a sub-question, what should she do to try to get her sister to give her man a chance?
It’s all so horrible. I’m better today than I was yesterday, but still if I’m alone for more than 30 seconds, I start crying. I can’t concentrate on my homework. I work in a department store, and I was folding shirts today all by myself and just started crying. I’m not sure if I’m upset that I’m not really welcome in my apartment or my home or if I’m upset that I’ve essentially lost my sister.
So here’s my question(s), maybe. As an outsider, what do you think about all of this? Do I have a right to be upset? Should I move out? Moving out is not a very good option for me, but I feel like I should not be living here anymore. Also, I can’t go back to my parents’, though it would be nice; I really don’t want to live under rules anymore. Besides that, J would be there a lot. I do not want to be anywhere around him.
I am very angry at him for making me realize that I am a truly horrible person. I am also mad at him that he judged me when I would not let C “stay” with me and would not let me explain why. I am also mad that now I will call my parents every time before I go over there to see if he’s there, and I will not go if he is. I am angry that I cannot talk to my parents. I am angry that I cannot talk to my roommates. I am angry that my “best” friend does not care about me. I am angry that I can sit here and just start thinking and then I start to cry. I am angry about every single fucking aspect of this situation, and I feel stuck, but totally unwelcome. Very broadly, what should I do?
I am sorry this is so long, but it was nice to get this all out in the open. Now I have a record of how I feel and can use this letter as a basis instead of explaining or typing to people.
Thanks so very very very much,
Erin
Dear Erin,
I get that it sucks when other people talk shit about you that isn’t true, but you’ve lost sight of the important facts here, to wit: 1. The shit isn’t true, and 2. the people talking it? Dishonest, boring losers who don’t have enough to do. People believe what they want to believe, and trying to change what they believe is usually a waste of time. Do what you want. Conduct your relationship with your parents based on you and your parents, not on J and whatever bullshit you think he’s saying.
J — and by extension the situation — bothers you because you let him. Don’t let him. Start letting this shit go. Your letter is a ridiculously large amount of verbiage to have wasted on these fuckwads. Move out of that apartment, live your own life, and stop caring what these sucky babies think of you.
O Wise and Wonderful Sars —
I find myself needing advice and, as I’m too poor for therapy and lack unbiased opinions around here, I figured that you might be able to help me out.
For some time now, I’ve been dating an amazing guy who’s sweet and perfect and, basically, just about everything I’ve ever wanted in a boyfriend. All our friends remark on what a perfect couple we are, and even go so far as to drop hints about us getting engaged. There’s only one problem: I’m not sure if I love him. I want to love him, but I also don’t want to keep leading him on if it’s not meant to be.
I’ve been thinking about it long and hard, though, and I honestly can’t say that I know what love is supposed to feel like. I had a screwed-up home life when I was younger, and thanks to emotional abuse from parents, I’ve been left with issues which kept me from forming close relationships in the past, so I don’t know if that’s stopping me from understanding how I feel about my boyfriend, or if I’m just disappointed because “love” isn’t like the romantic movie ideal, or if I actually don’t love this guy. So, I guess what I’m asking here is — how do you actually tell if you’re in love with someone?
Confused
Dear Confused,
My rule of thumb for this, generally, is that if you have to ask, you aren’t.
I don’t think any hard-and-fast rules exist for telling whether you’ve fallen in love. Ask a hundred different people, you’ll get a hundred different answers. For myself, I know it when I feel it. Even the very first time I fell in love, I could tell. I’d had boyfriends before; I’d even said “I love you” to them, just trying the words on. But when the real thing came along, I recognized it pretty fast.
I don’t know how childhood abuse would affect those feelings. I don’t know you well enough even to hazard a guess as to whether you love the guy, or whether the feelings could develop if you don’t have them now — I don’t have the information required to assess that. But I do think you know it when it comes along, and if you have to have a Socratic dialogue with yourself about it or make a pros-and-cons list or anything like that, the “it” isn’t it. If that makes any sense.
I mean, just because you don’t feel it with this guy doesn’t mean that you won’t ever feel it. It just doesn’t sound like you do.
Tags: boys (and girls) the fam
