Hi,

A year ago, my partner and I entered into a foster/adopt situation with
a two-day-old baby with only four hours’ notice. We knew from the second
that we met her that we really, really, really wanted to adopt her but,
because she was our foster daughter, we were living with the
possibility that she could go back to her birth family if they met all
of the requirements.This meant that we didn’t know until we were
about five months into living with our daughter that she “most likely”
would get to stay with us.

In those first few weeks after she came to
us, we were all so tired, stressed, thrilled, scared and so in love
with our daughter.We alternated between telling people “no no no” to
gifts because we were heartbroken at the thought that we’d have to deal
with getting rid of stuff that reminded us of our daughter, and being so
overwhelmed at the thoughtfulness and generosity of friends and family
that we didn’t feel we could say “no” to anyone.So, similar situation
— the potential loss — as the preemies’ godfather’s sister…

In the end, I think say “yes” to giving a gift — treat it the same as
she would treat any birth/adoption/new-little-family-member addition.
The gifts that we loved the most were ones that helped to alleviate
some of the stress on the three of us; things like gift certificates to
restaurants that either deliver or have a pick-up window, gift
certificates for the dogs to go to daycare, one friend came and cleaned
our house for us, another friend did our grocery shopping and another
did all of our laundry over the weekend (and with a new baby there is a
LOT of laundry!), gift certificates to Starbucks, homemade lasagna with
garlic bread and a month of Netflix.We also got clothes — our
daughter was also a preemie and so we loved the little preemie outfits
that we still huge on her!I recommend the preemie section at Gymboree
-= it’s made for little ones under seven pounds and some really cute things
to grow into.

Hope that helps.

Grateful for gifts

Dear Grate,

It does help; thanks for writing in.

For the most part, readers with experience in this situation said that they’d rather have a gift than not — not clothes, necessarily, or a Diaper Genie, or anything they’d feel more pain at having to put away in the event that things don’t work out, but something, a token of celebration.Several people mentioned that the assumption of positivity in the gesture is what’s important here…that the new arrivals are welcome and cherished, no matter how long they might stay.That here is an element of the normal in this present wrapped in ducky paper.

As far as the specific gifts, most readers who responded seconded the idea of practical gifts to help out the whole family — blankets, pre-cooked meals, IOUs for household chores, gift certificates for hotels near the hospital, that kind of thing.

So, no overwhelming opinion one way or the other, and several people said that baby gifts were painful, and appreciated — that they symbolized both what might not be and what was in terms of the support of family and friends.

As with so many situations, there’s no one right thing to do — except to care about trying to do something right, and to do something.Thanks so much to everyone who wrote in.

Dear Sars,

How does one tell a gut instinct from raging insecurity? I am driving myself crazy with this and I really need you to kick me in the ass.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for over three years and we have lived together with him for about a year.I’m 29, he’s 35.We have a really great relationship and a lot of the time I am just overjoyed to be with him and feel very lucky to have scored such a catch.He is sweet, thoughtful, intelligent, funny, loyal, supportive, et cetera.

My problem is that I keep having these nagging fears, especially when I’m alone with my thoughts, that he’s secretly gay.It sometimes gets to the point where the only thing I can to do to quell my obsessing about whether or not this is true is to snoop on him…by looking for gay porn in his closet, checking his web browser history, email, et cetera.I never find anything and I always feel ashamed and guilty immediately afterward.

This, in a nutshell, is the history of our relationship so far: I asked him out initially.He hadn’t had a steady girlfriend for seven years (which is sort of weird) before he met me and was in no rush to get physical once we started dating (he said he felt rusty, but this also seemed weird), so it took us a couple months, but once the ball got rolling, it was really rolling.Things went fine for a while.We ran into some commitment issues later on (on his part) but were able to work through them with a lot of patience and self-reflection (on my part).As our sex life slowed to a more workaday pace about a year in I realized I had a higher sex drive than him and it caused some issues we also managed to work through, all except the one at hand which I can’t really talk to him about, as you know.He does seem to enjoy having sex with me and initiates nearly as often as I do nowadays.Also, I’ve never had the feeling he’s been unfaithful.He’s very much a homebody and never had a roving eye of any sort, really.

But that, apparently, is not good enough for me. In my mind I’ve built up a catalog of random “evidence” that I base this fear of my boyfriend being homosexual on:

-He dresses well and owns more clothes than me
-He occasionally crosses his legs (but is otherwise not effeminate at all)
-He chose to go to an all-male high school (according to him he preferred it because it was smaller than the public school choice)
-He was roommates for two years with another guy who a lot of people, my boyfriend included, have for years suspected of being deeply closeted
-He owns both My Own Private Idaho and Y Tu Mama Tambien (among a lot of other movies without homoerotic sex scenes, of course…and I haven’t seen either one, by the way)
-He has told me that other people at different times had suspected him of being gay because he so rarely had a girlfriend (now that he does, this is no longer the case)
-He works in the official “gay” neighborhood of our city and is friendly with several gay guys but not in a “best friends going on vacation together alone” type of way, just a “get beers or go to a baseball game with our respective significant others tagging along” kind of way. Also, he is a friendly person in general with a ton of friends of all stripes
-He doesn’t tend to give me many compliments on my looks, which is odd, ’cause my previous boyfriends did that all the time.He will once in a while make semi-lewd comments to me or grab my ass, however
-He works out and lifts weights
-TMI Alert: he often closes his eyes during sex and I wonder if he’s pretending I’m a guy
-Double TMI Alert: he also enjoys anal sex (pitching, not catching) occasionally

AND finally…
-I have a history of developing crushes on gay guys before I realize they’re gay, though, to my knowledge, I’ve never dated a guy who actually ended up switching teams

Anyway, I am constantly torturing myself by convincing myself my boyfriend is gay, then a day later or so I’ll turn around and think what a freak I am for even thinking that.He obviously wants and chooses to be with me, a female.Then there’ll be an article in the paper about men on the “down low” and the vicious cycle starts again.

See, I am well aware that I’m not the most secure person in the world and I sometimes wonder if all this stems from not believing such a great guy could happen to me. I’ve had this same fear about past boyfriends as well but not to this degree.Also, I’m prone to anxiety in general and have an inkling that if it wasn’t this I was obsessing about it would be something else.For instance, if he’s hanging out with an old female friend of his I’ll feel jealous about that and for the duration of their visit I’ll be convinced he’s a raging heterosexual who will most certainly find this girl a lot more attractive than me.

Do all the signs point to my boyfriend being gay and me being in denial or do they point to me being batshit crazy and about to sabotage our relationship? Just when I think I know what the answer is I manage to convince myself otherwise.

It Figures That Lance Bass Was My Favorite N*Syncer

Dear He Just Broke Up With Reichen…For Your Boyfriend,

…Okay, not really.And you know it.Most of this list describes the Biscuit, actually, and whatever insecurities I had about that guy, thinking he preferred the company of men wasn’t one of them; on the flip side, I can think of maybe one of my gay friends who cares about clothes really at all.None of these bullet points is conclusive evidence about anything except itself.

I think you’re right on that, if it weren’t this — if your boyfriend were less, whatever, “metro” and more of a traditionally masculine grubby he-man — you’d find some other reason to worry that he’s fixing to leave you, and that’s the bottom line.I don’t think you’re batshit crazy, but this isn’t rational behavior, either, and you should get to the root of it, namely that this is probably a control issue.I mean, think about why this possibility is the worst-case scenario; think about why you aren’t worried about something else, but about this.If he’s gay, there’s really nothing you can do about that; you can’t “fix” the relationship the way you could if the problem were something else.Right?It’s completely out of your hands to reverse or resolve?

There’s a difference between committing to a relationship, and working on it, and doing everything you can to make sure it works out; and feeling on some level like it definitely isn’t going to work out, and taking the temperature of it on that basis all the time, and looking for trouble.Not wanting to lose your boyfriend is one thing; looking for the signs of his inevitable departure is another.The latter is not helpful to the relationship and it’s not peaceful for you.Think about taking a few counseling sessions to unravel what’s really going on here, because for real, I have no more evidence that your boyfriend is gay now than I did before I read your letter.And neither do you.

I wish I had a question about boys or cats, instead I’ve got one about apartment etiquette.

I live in a nice part of what’s generally considered a scuzzy area.The apartment itself is great.But there’s a problem…I’ve come home from week-long vacations to a smashed window. Twice. (One was just an accident/vandalism, but the other was an actual break-in.)

I’m moving in a few months, and since the landlord lives out of town he wants me to show the apartment to prospective tenants.I wouldn’t have a problem with this except for being unsure how to mention the whole safety issue.The building security has been improved since then, but it obviously feels like something I should warn them about.I don’t want to just blurt out, “Hide your valuables if you’re going away!” — what would you recommend?

Thanks!

Movin’ On Up

Dear Movin’,

Certainly, if asked directly, you should tell the truth.If prospective renters want to know whether you’ve had any break-ins, I would tell them what you just told me; I wouldn’t feel right about not saying anything.

Whether you volunteer the information is up to you; prospective renters are responsible for knowing the reputation of the area before they move in, and for taking precautions before they go away on vacations, and if it was just stuff that was taken — nobody was home, nobody got hurt — I wouldn’t say you’re morally obligated to bring it up.If you don’t want to get in dutch with the landlord for telling tales out of school, you could always pointedly mention the security improvements and see if they catch their snap.

But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying something, regardless of who broaches the topic.In your position, I’d feel better about having said something, and in a prospective renter’s position, I’d want to know — but if I moved into an apartment and then got broken into, I can’t say it would even occur to me to be like, “Well, the previous tenant might have mentioned this.”I’d just be like, “Fucking dick burglars.”

And now, a related public-service announcement: y’all, get renter’s insurance.You will probably never need it, knock wood, but if God forbid there’s a break-in or a fire, you’ll at least have some coverage.Many companies let you adjust your premium based on what you have at home and how important it is to you — I took a pretty high split, because I work at home, but it doesn’t have to be a budget-breaker, and the closer you live to a firehouse, the better a deal you can get.

Just something to think about.

[12/13/06]

Share!