I have a cat-related question, and thought you might be able to help.

I recently moved into a new house with four complete strangers. Surprisingly, that’s not the problem. We all get along quite well. The problem is that one of the people that moved out left behind a cat. At first we were led to believe that he was going to come back for said cat after he had settled into his new place. Recently, another housemate who also just moved in spoke with the initial cat owner, who told her that the cat in fact belonged “to the house” and not to him, and since he moved out of the house, the cat was no longer his responsibility. Now, I don’t really have a huge problem with this, despite that I think the guy is something of an irresponsible jerk, because I like cats as much as the next person, and the place is big enough that allergens are easy to contain.

The problem is, that the cat doesn’t groom itself. I’ve had plenty of cat experience in my day, but I’ve never seen a cat this dirty. It’s greasy and constantly shedding, which makes me not want to touch it ever, yet it is so desperate for affection that I am regularly guilt-tripped into petting it. This would be an enjoyable experience if the thing was clean, but it’s not, and it really bugs me. Do you think this is a vet-worthy problem, or should I just accept the fact that I’m stuck with a dirty cat?

Mars

I have been reading The Vine for awhile now and have not seen a problem
like mine; I was hoping to get your input. The issue is my sister. She’s
four years younger than me (I’m 24 and she’s 20) and she was recently
diagnosed with bipolar disorder after years of suffering with depression
and anxiety issues. To say that we do not get along is an understatement.
We do not live in the same city, but I go home to see my family quite
frequently and she is always there, even though she is enrolled at a
university an hour away.

I try to be understanding about her disease and empathize with the fact that she has issues and problems that I
will never have to deal with, including trying to find the correct doses of
the drugs and dealing with the side effects. However, I feel that she uses
these problems as an excuse for everything. She can’t hold down even the
most basic of jobs because she has a serious issue with people in authority
positions and an attitude problem. She doesn’t really have friends,
which in my opinion is due to the fact that she’s difficult to get along
with and very hard on other people.

When it comes to our relationship, I
think she resents me because I have a good life — I don’t have any mental
illness, and I live in a cool city and have a lot of friends. Aside from
the luck in the gene pool, when I moved here, I worked really hard to make
new friends and have the kind of life I wanted; it wasn’t just handed to
me.

I have seen her several times in the last few months, and each time I
find myself so irritated with her. She criticizes people who are my
friends, brings up the worst possible topics of conversation (she’ll make
judgmental remarks about members of our extended family when she has no
idea what she’s talking about), and generally drives me crazy. My mom says
that she acts differently around me than everyone else (more obnoxious), but
I don’t know how to change that.

If I had it my way, I would just avoid her, but that’s impossible. Any advice? I hate feeling like the devil for
disliking my sister, but I don’t know how we will ever see eye to eye, on
anything. This has also started to affect my parents, who are sick of
listening to it but don’t have any idea how to fix it. Please let me know
what you think.

Thanks!
Mean Sister

I’m having a problem at work with one of our associates — he works
for another company, but quite closely with the one where I am
employed.

A couple of days ago he made a downright nasty comment in regard
to my appearance, very loudly, in front of half a dozen of my
coworkers. I’ve had the flu for over a week and was feeling
crappy enough without hearing snide comments from the penis
gallery.

I was too angry to give a retort, knowing that if I said what I
wanted to say, it would cause negative repercussions for me. I
did the mature thing (I think) by walking away without
acknowledging his comment. Now the more I think about it, the
more it bothers me. I feel like I’m encouraging frat-boy behavior
by not sticking up for myself.

The company I work for is small and privately owned, so there is
no corporate handbook. There is also a strong “boys’ club”
atmosphere. I know that if I told my supervisor what happened, it
would only become a topic of gossip and no one would tell that
jerk to pipe down. Even worse, I fear my boss would pat me on the
head and tell me I was making an issue out of nothing.

So I’m at a loss. Should I just let it go?

Angry After The Fact

I’m a divorced mom of two, now in a relationship and living with
a gentleman named Rich who was a very good friend. When Rich and I met, he had been legally separated for a
year but still in the process of leaving his ex, selling their house, et cetera.
She’s in the Army and was deployed rather suddenly overseas, so he allowed
her to store some of her stuff at the house. She came back
to the States about six months ago, and Rich made arrangements to have a
mutual friend pick up the fifteen or so boxes he had for her. Unfortunately, they
also included a box of mine with her belongings. Nothing valuable was in
there, but there were several pages of an old address book, some old files
and old letters, and some copies of some emails Rich had sent me when we’d
first met.

Since then, I’d been getting all sorts of calls from people I haven’t heard
from in years, saying that they’ve been getting a woman calling them and
saying horrible things about me. If they’re women, she’s telling them that I’ve
plans on their husband, and if they’re male, she’s asking if I was a good fuck, how big
of a whore I am — things like that. She even gives them our current phone
number. Not that I don’t enjoy talking to my old friends, and so far no one
really believes any of it, but several of them are quite angry about
receiving calls of that nature, and rightly so. For a while I was getting
hang-ups on our phone while Rich was at work, until last month my eight-year-old
picked up the phone while I was in the bathroom, and all of this garbage was
spilled into his ears too — about how I don’t love him, how I’m going to try
to sexually molest him any day now. I came out of the bathroom just when he
called her a stupid dumbass and hung upon her. Fortunately he is too smart
to believe her, although he got talked to about answering the phone when
he’s not supposed to.

Since then, I’ve gotten two surprise visits from Child Services, based on
anonymous tips that were proven unfounded (one was I was leaving my
children home alone while out at the bars all evening, the other was that I
was selling myself out of the house). They’ve tagged my file and won’t be
investigating any more anonymous tips, but they do call when they get new
ones.

We had investigated prosecution before, but because it’s across state lines,
she’s wasn’t actually calling us, we can’t prove it’s her, on and on, it
wasn’t something we ourselves could prosecute; all of the individuals that
she called would have to prosecute her individually. Unfortunately, if they
told her not to call again, she would stop so again, it’s not really
prosecutable, and many were quite reluctant to get involved, which I can
understand. We had also chosen NOT to change our number up to that point, so
that people could call and get some sort of explanation and an apology.
However, in light of last month’s actions, we coughed up the $50 and it’s
changed now. We investigated legal recourse again at that time, and were told that if we could prove
that she was the one that called — and we can’t, because no adult talked to
her — they would contact her and inform her that if she does it again,
she will be arrested.

What she is not aware of is that I have some relatives and good friends in the Army who are very upset that this is happening, and are in
positions to harass her through the chain of command, lose paperwork,
reassign her, et cetera. Also, Rich knows some things that happened when he and she
were together that aren’t very well covered up, and could cause serious
ramifications for her (dishonorable discharge being the most serious of
them). Unfortunately, it would also mean bad things could happen to people
that were under her command at this time, who were following her orders, and
who I see as innocent parties.

I am in a moral dilemma over this. Do I allow my contacts to wreak havoc on
her and possibly risk their jobs? Do I tell them what Rich knows of her past
actions, let them investigate, and possibly damage the reputations and
lives of people who were made to participate unknowingly in illegal
activities (a dishonorable discharge makes it nigh impossible to get a
civilian job in many instances)? Do I sit tight and hope that the worst
is over now that we have a new unlisted number? On the pro side, even though
I’m a pretty easy-going and understanding person, I’ve been feeling pretty
helpless and frustrated with the lack of cooperation from the legal system,
and a small mean part of me cackles evilly at the thought of potentially
ruining her life, but I don’t think I could handle ruining two or three
other people’s lives. *sigh* Got any advice?

Jane

You have a real knack for relationship advice, and I’m hoping you can give me some perspective here.

First, a bit of background. My boyfriend and I are both sophomores in college and have been together for a year and half. Both of us commute to school, and we live about half an hour from each other. We’ve both got full schedules and haven’t had much time to spend together since the beginning of the semester. To complicate matters, I’ve been dealing with depression and social phobia since junior high, and both have gotten worse over the past year. Over the past few months, I’ve been feeling really lonely and have spent many a night on the phone with my boyfriend, complaining about how I don’t have any close friends.

Recently, my boyfriend told me that he was feeling worn down and that, basically, he was tired of me complaining about the same problems over and over without making a real effort to change things. He said that he still loves me, but feels that he needs more space and that I need to be less dependent on him. I agreed, and while we’re still together, I’m going to try not to rely on him so much and to build up my own social network. For the most part, I’m feeling good about the situation and am really making an effort to be more independent.

But there’s one thing that bothers me — I know a lot of couples who are practically joined at the hip, and sometimes I look at them and start to have doubts about my own relationship: “Why aren’t we spending more time together?” “Why doesn’t he call me up every night?” Basically what I want to know is, what’s a healthy amount of time to spend with one’s significant other? How often should you call or email? I know these things differ from one couple to the next, but on average, how much is too much, and how much is not enough?

Thanks a bunch,
Tryin’ to find a balance