I have an extremely close family. We see each other daily, have a family business together, et cetera.

My sister, who is a lot older than me, got divorced two years ago from a guy who has cheated on her numerous times. We’re talking double digits. The first nine or so times, she took him back, no questions asked, and didn’t tell a soul about any of it. Fast forward to three years ago — I was living with her and her husband because of some logistics stuff, while I finished high school. I have never liked her husband at all, but he seemed to be relatively harmless (on the outside at least) and I just tried to stay out of his way. I really only came home to do chores and sleep anyway. One night he was drunk and decided I was a lousy, good for nothing freeloader, and tried to beat me up. He probably would have succeeded if my sister hadn’t punched him out first. We swore to never discuss it in front of our parents and never have to this day.

However, he kept up the asshole act ever since then, and it isn’t endearing. He has gotten at least two other women pregnant, and my sister finally divorced him, only to keep letting him back in her life because she is embarassed to be the divorced daughter. I have since moved out and am engaged to an amazing guy, but I still have to deal with my sister’s asshat husband on a daily basis, because he can’t leave her alone during the day for ten minutes without calling her and bitching her out for something.

Sars, I am really sick of the crap. They have an eight-year-old son which keeps getting jerked around with the leaving and the coming back and the “I hate you”s and the “I love you”s…it is sickening. How can I help my sister to see that she is stuck in the spiral with this guy who will get mad enough to tick HER off enough to kick him out, he goes and gets engaged or something, gets dumped because he can’t leave his ex-wife alone, but can’t stand to live with her, and comes back to start it again? This has happened three times. We tried not feeling sorry for them or listening to the bullshit last time, and this time my dad is threatening to file for custody of my nephew until his jackass father gets out of his life. Nothing is for the kid, everything is for the Asswipe, and the kid is getting quite the complex over the constant fighting. They can’t contain it to themselves, can’t get along, can’t let each other go. I’m tired of watching it and trying to explain to my nephew that this stuff isn’t okay.

How can I help? Can I help? There is no way to cut myself out, but I am in the middle of fights more often than not, and it’s getting to be on a multiple-times-a-day basis. We all see it cycling back to the bad point, but neither will listen. Should I just shut up and try to stay out of it?

Stuck in the Middle of Two

I love your site, and I think you give wonderful, practical advice. Maybe you can help me out.

I recently graduated from college, and am looking for a job to tide me over until I attend graduate school. I worked as a nanny for three years in school, and I assumed I wouldn’t have any trouble finding another position. All of the families I have worked for wrote me great letters of recommendation and agreed to serve as references. As far as I knew, I had great relationships with all of my previous employers so I was surprised when one of the agencies I was working through called and said they could not represent me because of a statement given by one of my references. Apparently, the woman had great things to say about me, but when asked if there had been any problems, she reported that I was frequently late to work. To be honest, punctuality is a pretty big problem for me. None of my previous employers ever commented on it, but I know I wasn’t always on time.

My question is, what should I do about this reference? I have a pretty good idea of who it is, and I could just leave her off the list, but I think it would look suspicious. I’m not sure she realizes how damaging her statement was, and I’d like to call and talk to her about it, but this seems like a violation of her privacy. I need to find a job soon, and I’m worried that she will continue to jeopardize my chances. I know that this situation is ultimately my fault, and I need to work on being on time. However, I think I am an excellent nanny overall and I think my previous employer agrees or she would not have promised to provide a reference in the first place.

Is there anything I can do, or should I plan on bussing tables?

Thanks a lot!

Signed,
A

This issue is sort of not even an issue anymore, but I was wondering
what your take on it would be, and if I’ve done the right thing.

I had a friend, G. G and I had been friends for about six years, and I
actually would have called him one of my best friends. G had a
girlfriend, who he’d been dating for maybe a month or so. He told me a
few times that he wasn’t super into her, but she was very into him, sent
him flowers, called him all the time, et cetera. Then one day he tells me
that he’s broken up with her, because she was “too stupid” for him.
Which struck me as a dick thing to say, but whatever. So a few weeks
later, G mentions in passing that he’s gotten back together with her. “Oh yeah?”
I toss off. “Did she study?” I was on my way out the door (and in fact
moving 500 km away the next day), everybody laughed, it got lost in
goodbyes.

Five months later, I’m coming home for Christmas, and I leave a few
messages on G’s machine suggesting that we get together, but I never
hear back from him. The next day I get an email from him informing me
that I might have noticed that he’s been avoiding me for the past five
months (in fact I hadn’t — he was never good about returning messages)
and it’s because of the comment I’d made the last time we were together.
Apparently he felt hurt and betrayed, like I’d taken something he told
me in confidence and used it against him (note that he told me about the
breakup in a group of four people, I made the comment in the same group of
four), threw in a somewhat derogatory line about my boyfriend, blah blah
blah.

I wrote back apologizing, saying it had just been meant as a joke
and never meant to hurt him, et cetera and that I was hurt that he hadn’t
been able to come to me with this earlier, as I had thought we were
better friends than that, and I hoped that he wouldn’t let this end our
friendship. He replied that all he’d wanted was an apology and of
course we were still friends, although we’d always had different views
of friendship and I had consistently belittled and put him down
throughout our relationship (the first I’d heard of this).

So, fine. I was hurt by the tone of the emails and the overreaction to
what I saw as a non-event, but figured I could get over it. I figured
that I didn’t need an apology but I wasn’t going to go chasing him down,
and the next time I saw him things would be basically business as usual.
But then he skipped our annual Christmas Eve gift exchange, and he
skipped the celebration of a mutual friend’s birthday, and now it’s been
a year since the emails and I haven’t seen or talked to him.

I guess I’m asking if I did the right thing in apologizing and deciding
to let it go but not going out of my way to chase him down and actually
see or talk to him, and also if my comment seems, to you, like a huge
friendship-ending deal or if he just went all asshat on me for no reason
and I’m better off without him.

Thanks for any advice you can come up with,
I thought it was a pretty funny line.

I have a friend who’s fighting depression, anxiety and several other problems. This latest bout (which has lasted the better part of a year) has been particularly bad, both for him and for his friends. Some of them have bailed out of his life, and others refuse to deal with him on “bad days.”

I have stayed with him, both because he’s a great guy (on a “normal” day, he’s considerate, intelligent, fun, and really witty), and because I see how much his former friends have hurt him. Almost everything he says about his feelings centers around how lonely he is. However, there’s only so much I can do, and those former friends have told me they simply don’t want to deal any more with his moodiness, his passive-aggressive, attention-seeking behavior at social events, his frequent freak-outs at work to the point where his job is in jeopardy, and his blog entries about how he’s considered suicide as the only way to “prove” his misery.

I spend as much time with him as I can (which, with a job, a husband and a small child, is not so much, but it’s all I can spare). I’ve suggested a couple of clubs and groups to meet people (which he attends, though he’s never really connected with anyone there). He’s seeing a therapist. His insurance assigns his doctor and won’t cover psychiatrists, making the cost of alternate treatment prohibitive. And yet, I feel something else needs to happen, because being the only friend he turns to when things get bad is starting to strain my ability to tolerate him. I catch myself more and more getting angry at his attitude, and wishing I could avoid him when he calls, IMs, or comes over with his “crisis of the week.”

Reminding myself that he doesn’t want to be this way is wearing thin. As is trying to remember that the most important thing for him is for friends and family to just BE there. Is there some way I can better help him without driving myself up a wall? Or how can I at least keep myself from reaching the point where I, like his former friends, hate being around him and want to drop him from my life?

Thank you so much for any advice you might have,
Pulling Out My Hair Before It Can Even Turn Grey

Well, this isn’t a grammar problem, nor is it about boys, but I thought you’d be the best person to write it. Not only are you a kick-ass chica, but you’re a vegetarian, which is important in this case. Let me explain…

The first time I wrote this letter, it ended up at three pages in Microsoft Word. To save you a little time, I’ve tried to shorten it into a “W5” format.

Who: Situation involves myself, Brian (my fiancé of two years), and his mother (wait! It’s not about his mother and I not getting along, I swear). Mother-in-law-to-be and I just don’t jibe…we don’t NOT get along, but we have nothing in common and conversation is strained, at best.
When: Christmas Eve
Where: The soon-to-be in-laws’ house.
Why: Who knows? Either the fiancé’s mother hates me or I had bad karma coming my way.
What: Here’s the deal. I’ve been vegan for six years, vegetarian for about ten years now. Everyone who knows me knows this. Fiancé’s mother certainly knows this, as it’s pointed out at every family dinner. Fiancé even printed a list of things I can (and can’t) eat, laminated it, and brings it to their house before every Christmas dinner, so we can try to avoid the mashed potato disaster. (Soon-to-be Mother-in-law tells me she’s making completely vegan mashed potatoes for me, so I’ll “actually eat something” she’s prepared. I walk into the kitchen just as she’s adding the chicken broth to the potatoes. Yup, y’know, vegans, the ones who eschew eggs and dairy, but not chicken broth.)

Anyways, the specifics of this have been discussed so many times, fiancé and I have a memorized spiel for me that can be summed up, “If you grow it, I can eat it. If not, it’s off-limits.” When a family dinner comes around, I either cook and bring my own food, or eat beforehand. Neither of which makes me feel like a very good houseguest.

So finally, the incident in question. Christmas Eve, we head over to Brian’s parents’ house. I’d been somewhat sick, so wasn’t hungry at all and didn’t prepare food for myself. When we get there, Brian’s mum is quite excited — seems she’s prepared something I can eat, an antipasto. Brian and I ask all the regular questions: “Are you sure there’s no meat?”, “It’s all veggies?”, “Not even chicken stock or bacon fat or something?” No, she answers, it’s all veggies and tomato sauce. So we dig in with the (also vegan) crackers, but after a few bites, I’ve had enough. Then, fiancé’s mother walks in the room and says, “Oh, you do eat fish, right? Because there’s tuna in there.”

Unfortunately, I made it to the bathroom in time and wasn’t able to puke all over her new, expensive couch. FISH IS NOT A VEGETABLE. I’ve gotten over the initial anger, as the mashed potato disaster should have taught me never to trust her, even when she’s been grilled as to the origins of all the ingredients. I’m no longer mad and I’m doing everything I can to convince myself I did NOT see a smirk on her face when she asked that question.

The guilt is killing me, Sars. I know I shouldn’t feel this bad. She swore to me there was no meat, and I couldn’t tell from looking at it, and all those things, but I just feel awful. I’ve donated all my Christmas money to the local animal shelter — and I still feel bad. I’ve spent extra time coddling my hell-on-wheels cat, buying him treats, cuddling him and giving out belly rubs — still don’t feel better. Fiancé is mad as hell at his mother, and though he’s been a total sweetheart to my depressed self, I can tell he’s at his wits end trying to make me feel better. He’s sworn off all meat and joined me in donating money to local shelters, but I still don’t feel better.

I know this seems like a silly thing to be worrying about, at a time when there’s such big sadness in the world, but I need to stop hurting. Is there anything you recommend?

Signed,
Give Little Joe and Hobey extra hugs for me, will ya?