The Vine: December 12, 2007
I’m in a bit of an awkward situation and I could use some perspective.
It’s complicated, but I’ll try to break it down. Here’s the cast of characters: the Boyfriend, the Best Friend and their respective families. I was introduced to Boyfriend by Best Friend. Her mom and his dad worked together back in the day, and they used to play together as children. In the mid-’80s, each set of parents got divorced, the kids lost touch and Boyfriend’s dad moved away. Then last year, the kids get back in touch, Boyfriend comes to a party, we hit it off, relationship is rocking my world. Seriously, it’s the most awesome and bullshit-free relationship I’ve ever witnessed. Just one small issue…
I’m really close with Best Friend’s family, especially her mom. I even lived with them for a while during an internship, so she’s like a Second Mom to me. Second Mom and Boyfriend’s dad, despite the distance, still talk regularly and see each other when he’s in town. Here’s where it gets…a bit hairy. Boyfriend and his dad don’t have a very good relationship. In fact, I don’t think they’ve spoken for a number of years. Thus far, I’ve considered it his business and let him talk about his dad if he wanted to, but never really pressed for information. I never mentioned that Second Mom talks to to his dad, because again, not my business, and he barely remembers her from his childhood anyway.
But I think Second Mom is getting uncomfortable about keeping my relationship with Boyfriend from his dad. Second Mom and I talk a lot, mainly because I live close to her and far from my actual mom, and she always asks how the relationship is going, as she has with every other boyfriend in the decade that I’ve known her. I never go into too much detail, but I tell her that things are great, he makes me happy, we went to such-and-such a concert, that kind of stuff. When Boyfriend and I got together, she told me she respected that his issues with his dad were his to deal with, and that she wouldn’t mention to his Dad that Boyfriend was dating a girl that was like a daughter to her.
Now that our relationship is getting serious, I know she feels like she’s hiding something from Boyfriend’s dad by not telling him she gets news about his son. And I feel awkward not telling Boyfriend that I occasionally hear news about his dad. It’s starting to feel like lying by omission. In the beginning, I just let it be because I didn’t think that I would feel compromised by six degrees of separation we had going on here. Now I’m afraid that I waited too long to mention it and he’ll be upset I didn’t say something earlier. Or that I’m worrying for nothing (which is a possibility, as I’m aware that I lean toward the dramatic side).
And now to the questions: Do I mention any of this to Boyfriend and allow Second Mom to do the same? Do I continue to butt out and hope that the whole thing resolves itself naturally?Am I creating drama where none exists?
I know this isn’t really a huge problem, but it’s been weighing on my mind a bit recently (since I’m lucky enough at the moment not to have any other problems to fixate on) and I’d like to know what you think.
Writing this while wearing my Degrassi Now or Never shirt
Dear Now,
Tell Boyfriend what you just told me. Read it straight from the letter if you have to, and ask that he not interrupt until you’ve finished. Tell him you hope he doesn’t feel too upset or betrayed, but you weren’t sure how to handle it, so you just…didn’t handle it until now. Then see what he says.
I can’t really predict how he’ll react, obviously; I would caution you not to put yourself in the position of promising to keep secrets from Second Mom, because your relationship with her isn’t Boyfriend’s to dictate, and if he expects her to keep information from his father, that isn’t really reasonable. You’ve told her what you’d have told any other, similar friend, so resist the urge to apologize for that. Respect Boyfriend’s feelings, in other words, but don’t agree to a soap-operatic level of secrecy if it makes you uncomfortable.
By the same token, what Second Mom does or doesn’t tell Boyfriend’s father is really her affair; you can’t control it, and shouldn’t be expected to.
Sometimes, it’s for the best that adult children and their parents don’t have contact with one another; it’s an individual decision, and if Boyfriend doesn’t want to deal with his dad, that’s fine. But he does have to put that in a context of how much aggro it causes other people — and he’s certainly welcome to continue excluding his father from his life, but that’s on him, not on you or Second Mom. Tell him what’s going on, let him vent if he needs to, but from now on, separate yourself from that relationship — which in this case not applying the “rules” of their estrangement to yourself. By trying not to get involved, you got a little more involved; in the future, leave them to it and tell Second Mom whatever you like.
Tags: boys (and girls) the fam
