So my girlfriend and I got engaged a few weeks ago and apparently you have to start planning these wedding things right away or everything goes all to heck. We’d like to do it next fall.

The problem is, we don’t know what our budget is because The Girl’s parents won’t tell us how much they can afford to help us.

My side of the family is helping as much as they can, in part by offering to host the wedding at my mom’s awesome house in Western Mass. (And nobody’s rich here.) We expect to shoulder most of the cost because it’s the 21st century and I’m 31 with a steady job. But The Girl’s parents said they wanted to “at least help out” with the wedding.

The Girl has been calling them (they live across the country) to try to nail them down on how much, exactly, they might be able to help with. We think it’s fair to ask for specifics at this point. But all they say is “We’ll have to see” and crap like that.

Here’s what we figure this could mean:
– They can’t afford to help us at all and are too embarrassed to say so. (Her dad owns his own business and it’s very hard to tell how well it’s doing at any given time.)
– They’re somehow, way too subtly, trying to pressure us to have the wedding in Denver. (Which we do not want to do but we wish they’d just friggin say so if that’s what they wanted; at least then we’d know what we were fighting about.) Maybe they’re pissed off that we might do it at my mom’s house.
– They somehow don’t understand that it’s time to get specific. The Girl sometimes doesn’t express herself as well as she’d like when she’s stressed, and her mom can be on the flighty side. I could try calling her dad and talking to him myself, which I realize sounds really condescending but maybe if both of us spoke to both of them we’d get a better sense for what the hell’s going on.

I don’t think it’s that they disapprove of the union. We both lived in Denver for years together and I feel I have a strong relationship with her parents. (Considering how many times I’ve gotten drunk at the Moose Lodge and sung Elvis karaoke with them, I’d damn well better.) And if your advice is about to be “Why don’t you elope to Vegas,” I am totally with you but The Girl only plans to do this once and she wants The Whole Shebang, so it’d be nice to be able to give her as much shebang as possible.

So what do you think?

Thanks,
Only Awesome Dudes Write to Internet Advice Columns

My problem doesn’t really consist of one concise question unfortunately. It
has more to do with my situation and the resulting problems. I am an 18-year-old university student and I live at home with my mom and stepdad. I have a
brother who is 24 and lives elsewhere and two sisters who are 20 and 13.

My problem is that I feel like my family takes advantage of the fact that I
am hard-working and have a natural sense of responsibility. Think Gregor in
The Metamorphosis. I have no problem helping out around the house, but so
many times it is just me. My mother works a full-time job and is going to
nursing school. On top of this, she has frequent treatments for the two
types of cancer she is currently recovering from. My stepdad doesn’t really
participate in housework and was slowed down even more by a heart aneurysm
he had in July. He barely survived and can’t do too much. You can see we’ve
had quite a year on our hands.

My point with all of this is that my parents are busy and otherwise
uncapable of doing many things. It then falls on us three almost-adults to
fill in, in my opinion. The problem is that I am the only one that thinks
so. Months back when Mom was in the hospital recovering from various
surgeries, I was doing everything for this family: laundry, cooking, general
cleaning up. It doesn’t help that my stepfather isn’t a parent so my job
also involved helping my little sister with homework and even signing
disciplinary forms and such! It’s calmed down from that, but I still feel I
am depended on way too much, or rather much more than I should be. I have
helped Mom out with schoolwork many times and now she just expects me to do
papers for her. If she paid me, I wouldn’t mind because it would be a
“job.” I don’t even ask for a lot, but she always guilts me into doing it
for free.

I don’t blame the 13-year-old. She is young and helps when I ask her to. But
my 20-year-old sister is lazy and seems to have no sense of responsibility.
She goes to business school, but only has classes four days a week for a couple
hours. Meanwhile, I take 18 credits at my school as well as doing a
somewhat-illegal job of doing other kids’ papers for a fee.

I know I put myself into this situation. If I could just let the laundry
pile up and the house become a mess, I could get out of this. The problem is
that guilt is constantly weighing on my mind. It doesn’t help when both your
parents almost died in the last six months! How do you say no after that? I
just wish I knew how to get rid of all of these things that started out as
favors and have instead been added to my list of things to do. I’ve tried
talking to my lazy sister. She cries and will help out for a day. Then it is
a return to her lazy ways. I’ve tried talking to my mother, but I am trying
to handle this without involving her as she has so much on her plate. But
anyways, she doesn’t understand why I complain and has even gone so far to
call me selfish. I don’t have the financial means to move out right now and
even the dorm rooms aren’t worth the amount of debt to me.

I am not trying to play the martyr. I 100% understand my involvement in
getting myself into this. I just can’t seem to get out of it.

Sincerely,
Exhausted Daughter

I need some neighbor advice. Quick background: When my neighbor (N) moved in two years ago he put a grill on the walk-up fire escape (clearly prohibited in the lease). It’s always in the way. When it’s on his side I can’t easily get past when carrying groceries and such, on my side the smoke and smells come right in my windows, even in the winter. I’ve told N to move it. I’ve told my landlord to move it. It’s still there. I’m pretty pissed about the situation.

Now N is keeping a dog (again, prohibited in the lease). The question: Should I rat N out to the landlord? The thing is, the actual dog has never been a problem. In fact, most of the noise come from N yelling at him to come, stay, et cetera. Except for the grill issue, I have no problems with N nor the landlord. N is quiet, polite, doesn’t smoke. Landlord has always fixed maintenance problems within 24 hours. I don’t want to create any animosity between myself and N or appear as a problem tenant to Landlord. I want to tell Landlord simply because I’m angry that N is again flagrantly breaking the rules. What should I do? Any advice on the stupid grill would be more than welcome too.

Molly

After finding a wonderful man, I am engaged at the age
of 34. This makes me among the last of my friends to
get married, and things have gotten a little weird.

Some of my friends are not acting “friendly” since my
engagement party. Most of them were married in their
twenties, and quite a few of them have children now.
Admittedly, some are divorced, too. But, I’ve
attended all of their milestone events, been excited
for them, helped them plan for both weddings and
babies, and provided a dry shoulder when divorce
happened. And yet, it’s almost like they can’t be
bothered when it comes to my wedding. Shit, it isn’t
even like they can’t be bothered — it’s like they
don’t even care.

One “friend” in particular, let’s call her J, is a
master of the passive-aggressive put-down. I was once
a target for it, but when I called her on it in front
of people and embarrassed her, she stopped doing it.
Well, apparently my wedding is now an excuse for her
to start again. Her attitude towards me has become
that of an indulgent nanny who thinks I’m just
darlin’, that my talking about anything having to do
with my wedding is just the cutest thing. She
practically pats me on the head and says, “That’s
sweet, now let’s talk about grown-up things.” And
then the conversation will switch to something like
potty-training a fussy two-year-old.

Since I’ve witnessed so many milestone events with
these people, I basically have a manual of “What Not
to Do.” And I have bent over backward not to talk too
much about it, not to bore people with petty details,
not to talk about where I’m registered much less try
to debate the merits of Emeril’s cookware vs. stuff
from Williams-Sonoma… What I’ve gotten in return is
collective brattiness in the form of an attitude of
ennui. When they can bestir themselves to pretend a
nanosecond of interest, they complain about the plans
I’ve made: I’ve apparently scheduled my wedding when
they wanted to take vacations (like I knew), I’m not
having a morning-after brunch (no, sorry, groom and I
are not entertaining you some more — we want to enjoy
our nuptial morning, thank you), and, horror of
horrors, I’ve banned children from the wedding and
reception. The “friends” with children have taken
further umbrage that I’m not having Johnny-kins and
Jenny-poo as attendants…

I’ve worn pink butt bows for these people and listened
endlessly to lovely stories about episiotimies and
diaper contents — is it too much to ask that they play
audience for once in their self-absorbed little lives?
Do I call a group meeting, or just abandon them en
masse? Even my groom seems puzzled by their casual
hostility.

I Came to Your Party, Where’s Mine?

I need some cat advice. I recently got married and now my two cats live with his two cats, and as my late Italian grandmother would say, “Thees ees ze trouble.”

I was raised on a farm and view cats as useful predators who may also cuddle with you if they are in the mood. I got both of my cats at the Humane Society. Louie was a street cat who was about two when we got him. He was freaking out in our (me and the ex-hubby’s) apartment alone, so we got Hazel. Louie calmed down immediately and became a stereotypical Noble Sitcom Single Dad ™ to Hazel. She paid him back for this by becoming a very self-assured alpha kitty and great hunter…though she weighs all of four pounds. They were close until Louie was about five and Hazel about three. Then they tolerated each other, but Hazel is standoffish with all beings other than humans she has trained to treat her properly. So. I don’t generally pick up my cats unless I NEED to move them somewhere. I discipline them with a water squirter or not at all. I am affectionate towards the cats if they approach me, and they often do. I basically treat them like well-behaved teenagers. I love ’em, but I give them their space.

Meet Hubby and his two cats. Hubby treats cats like stuffed animals or dogs, and his two cats (brothers) Rocket and Chas love it. He picks them up, bends them around, rides with them on his shoulders, holds them up to do little dances on their hind legs (all in a nice way). They are probably Blue Chartreux and maybe it is the breed but they are mellow, love people and would basically sleep in a big (they each weigh at LEAST 20 pounds) pile all over Hubby all the time if they could. They’ve been indoor kitties their whole lives and were even more overweight when he got them two years ago.

The problem: We moved from my reasonably spacious two-bedroom house and Hubby’s gigantic loft/apartment to a small two-bedroom apartment. Hazel is used to being a dominant cat who can go outside at will (we had this thing in the window of the front porch) about six months of the year and the rest of the time, roam around in my basement or upstairs. Now she’s been outmassed and outgunned by the brothers who are WAY bigger than her and work as a team.

Conflict has been pretty bad since they moved in together. What was constant chasing, hissing and fighting has mellowed somewhat. However, Louie has ended up at the bottom of the hierarchy and is VERY stressed. So stressed that when we went on honeymoon, the other cats were messing with him so much that he didn’t use the litter box and blood showed up in his stool. If there’s a more fun way to spend the day after your honeymoon than looking for hidden piles of cat poo and cleaning them up…I don’t know what it is.

The vet thinks they may have been guarding the box. This led to stress screwing up his digestion. Before, Hazel didn’t snuggle with Louie, but they’d occasionally PLAY fight…and get along in a mellow way the rest of the time. Now Louie is constantly being chased or threatened by all three of the others. He’s holing up in one of two of his “safe” spaces (places too small for the big kitties to invade) basically all the time. He’s a sweet old kitty and I hate to think of his golden years being so miserable. The only time he really feels comfortable wandering around freely is when I’m at home to stick up for him and break up fights.

Whereas at first Hazel could sort of do a dominance display and keep the brothers at bay, they’ve figured out they they can “win” against her and so they are chasing her around in a NOT playful way. I’m trying to basically break up ALL fights by getting in the middle clapping my hands loudly to shoo everyone away and generally yelling “bad cats!”

Other relevant factors: not having “enough” food seems to increase the tension (the grey cats are gluttons so they never think they have enough food and they are on a diet, so the feeling is even more so. This leads to them stealing my cats food whenever they get a chance. So everyone feels hungry), “not enough” litter boxes (we only have room for two, but we change and clean them often) does as well, and so does the lack of roaming space. We live in Minnesota so they really can’t get outside on a regular basis from October-April.

I don’t know what else to do. These cats are all at least five years old. They are not going to change much. Is there anything you can think of that will help keep the peace? I know they are never going to cuddle up in a big, happy ball together but I’d like them to be able to walk past each other in the hall without Kitty West Side Story playing out.

Hissssss! Pffft! Hhhissss!