Sars,

I’d like to suggest to It’s My Own Fault that she contact a credit
counselor at her local Consumer Credit Counseling Service.They are
funded in part by the United Way, and they can put her in a debt
repayment program and help her plan a budget.I would check out this
option before applying for any type of loan.

Been There

Dear Sars:

First of all, please tell Guilty Conscience that I am very sorry for her
loss, and that I know how inadequate those words really can be.

Nine years ago, when I was 27 and he was 28, I lost my best friend and soulmate in a stupid motor vehicle accident.People immediately started trying
to fix me up with any man not nailed down (hell, one of his “friends” hit on
me two days after the funeral, for pity’s sake), and you were absolutely
right to tell Guilty Conscience not to be pushed into anything.Somehow,
“society” believes that just because you are young or not married when you
suffer the loss of a partner, all that you really need to be all better
again is to “get back out there” and “not to dwell on it.”If this attitude
isn’t patronizing enough, there’s more subtext.Guilty Conscience is also
experiencing the people’s fear and loathing of the young and grieving.I
haven’t figured out whether it’s because your sad-eyed presence reminds folks
that the spectre of death is lurking around every corner, or whether the
women just think you’re going to steal their husband or boyfriend, but it’s
there and it happens.(Let’s not even get into all of the additional crap
about how a woman’s happiness and self-worth is based only on having a man —
any man, ’cause that just makes me sulk.)

What I learned is that you have go through this at your own pace, and you
can’t plan what that pace will be.I never really thought of myself as a
particularly emotional or dramatic person, but I needed to cry every day for
about six months (and most days for over a year). I needed to fill two
journals with maudlin (and very badly written) rants to the powers that be
about why and how and who.I needed to give myself a really weird and bad
haircut.I needed to go through those stages of loss you hear about but
never really understand ’til they hit you upside the head.I needed to get
to the point that spending time with C.’s parents didn’t put me in a
two-week black-hole-type depression.

Guilty Conscience needs to be somewhat selfish and greedy and take the time
she needs to get through this loss in her own head.She has no obligation
to make other people comfortable with her sadness or her suddenly single
status.Once you’ve found a person who is such a great fit in your life
that you honestly picture spending the next sixty or so years in his constant
company, you can’t just replace him like you would a worn out pair of socks.
Losing that person is going to make you sad, and you’re allowed to feel
sad for awhile without anyone forcing anti-depressants down your throat.

One thing that I can promise Guilty Conscience is that she will know when
she is ready.Stuff will happen naturally without the need for any pushing
from anyone.Because I had already experienced that ineffable, indefinable
quality that makes for a lasting, strong relationship, I knew how to find it
again when I started dating.I have had positive experiences in my
relationships since, without as much anxious navel-gazing as I used to
experience before C.

You will be okay, Guilty — don’t be afraid to find where okay is, or of how long
it takes to get there for yourself on your own terms. Furthermore, if this
new guy is as great as you have described, he’s probably going to be willing
to give you the time and space to get through this before you have to decide
whether you want a long-term relationship with him.I couldn’t be trusted
to pick out a non-weird outfit when I was at my worst.I shudder to think
of what would have happened if I’d made a major decision.Frankly, if the new
guy moves on before you’re ready to deal with him, it just wasn’t meant to
happen.Do what you have to do — and feel better when you can!

Just my two cents, in lots of five-cent words.

M.J.

P.S. Did I mention that having a loving cat to hug really, really helps
sometimes?Off-topic, but true.

Hello,

I have a moral problem I would like someone else’s
opinion on. This isn’t the most exciting problem you’ve
ever dealt with, so I’m sorry it’s a bit long.

Someone I’m friendly with at school came to me a
couple of days before a large assignment was due,
asked how I was doing in the course and if I would
help him with the assignment.
It turned out that he hadn’t really been doing the
assignments in this assignment-based course, and he had to
start doing so with high marks or fail the class. He
said that he needed at least a specific mark on this
assignment.

I told him that I’d explain the assignment to him, and
we spent several hours going over what to do. He
didn’t pick up on it as fast as I thought he would, and
the clock was ticking down. The assignment could be
passed in in groups of two, so in the end I pretty much
ended up doing it myself and handing it in with both
of our names because I didn’t have time to go through
everything. The next day, I went over the things I had
changed since we’d gone over it together (although all
of the input there was pretty much mine). He’d done an
easy bit of pretty much busy work, but that was about
it.

When I met him after handing in the assignment to
explain the last bit, he handed me money for helping
him, which he’d offered when asking for help (I’d said
that it wasn’t necessary). His first language isn’t
English, and maybe I’m interpreting the “help” thing
wrong, but I’m wondering if I was actually paid for
tutoring, or paid for the assignment.
Something about the way he requested help in the first
place made me think that was a possibility, and I
thought I’d made it clear that I was just going to
give him a help session; then out of frustration when
I didn’t have enough time for the help session, I said
that we were doing it together.

The concept really bothers me; although lots of people
have had group members that simply weigh them down, it
still seems very wrong for someone to pay for an
assignment. I guess it’s somewhat a matter of his
intentions. Obviously, since it seems iffy to me, I
won’t work with him in the future, but should I return
the cash? How exactly would I bring this up?

Thanks very much for any advice you have to give,
Enabler

Dear Sars,

Long-time TWoP lurker, now find myself in desperate need of a slap
around the head, so…who better than you?

I’m at college, and in first year, I met this guy (it’s always
about a guy, isn’t it?).Mutual attraction, but he had a long-distance relationship going so we decided we’d just be friends.
We became really close, best friends even.The long-distance
thing fizzled out, and eventually we started seeing each other.

Six months later it ended.Very badly.No one did anything you
could pinpoint, but we had drifted apart to the point where we
could barely manage to be in the same room.Because we’d been
best friends and then together, we had all, and I mean ALL, the same
friends (we’re even on the same college course), and we couldn’t
get away from each other.It was venom city.Particularly since
I was devastated by the break-up, but a month later he was with
someone else.I took that…badly.But we fought some and
cleared the air (I thought) so we could at least not make our
friends feel like they had to walk on eggshells around us.

Flash forward a year.I’m still single, he’s still with his new
girlfriend.The friends are comfy being friends with both of us,
and it’s six months since you had to ensure we were at opposite
ends of a room. His flatmate, who was my other best friend in first year, and who
I’ve remained close to, invites me to a party at their flat.No
big thing, I think, the ex and I have been at plenty of parties
together before.So I arrive at the party, do the social thing,
and head to the kitchen to chill out.

The ex is there.I say hi.He says, “How are you these days
anyway?”

Me: “I’m fine.”

He: “Well, I ask because I never see you anymore and when I do
you won’t talk to me and I only hear things about you secondhand
so I have no idea what the hell’s going on in your life now.”

Me: “…What???”

From there, he decides to bring up our relationship, our break-up,
and our friendship, saying everything from “You know, when we were
friends you really pushed for the relationship” to “I wouldn’t
have been with you if I didn’t think we had a chance” to “You’re
so self-obsessed, you don’t give anyone credit for having feelings”
to “I nearly drank myself to death after we broke up” to “You
intimidate the hell out of me, you always have.”I was so shocked,
I just stood there and took it.People are coming into the
kitchen to get beer (and sprinting back out again) including my
friend (his flatmate) and his girlfriend — who came in to get
him to circulate twice and he wouldn’t leave.

I eventually collect my wits and start hurling insults back at
him.He storms out of the kitchen, I storm out of the party.If
we see each other in company, we are now most definitely back at
opposite ends of the room.

I’m equal parts trying to understand it and trying to figure out
what to do.Why the hell wait until now?It’s been a long
time.If he’s still got issues about the break-up, I want to help
him out, but the whole thing just shocked the hell out of me.I
had met someone I was almost drifting into a relationship with, but
now I’m back to thinking I might wind up messing him up, or that
he’ll hate me like this ex does.I’m angry that he still has this
power over me, but he was my first love, and he despises me, and I
have to deal with him on a daily basis, so please tell me — do I
try to talk to him?Or do I keep ignoring him?I just can’t
figure out what brought this on, and how I can at least get things
back to making it easy on our friends.I’ve analysed and analysed,
but I have no clue, and my friends are all too stuck-in-the-middle
to offer impartial advice.

So, um, yeah.HELP!

Sucker-Punched

I’m usually pretty good at dealing with difficult people, but this time I’m at a loss. I
was hoping you could dispense some of your sage advice in my direction.

I am about to marry a man with whose mother I have difficulty dealing in relation
to two separate issues. Issue number one: Whenever Fiancé and I are in the
midst of making a decision, whether it be choosing a home, hiring a wedding
caterer, or working abroad, Mumsie leaps in with about a thousand and two
suggestions, many of which are clearly inappropriate or ridiculous (“wouldn’t it be
cheaper if you had your reception under a bunch of tarps [you know, the blue
plastic camping ones?] strung between trees in the backyard, or have it in your
dad’s shed [used for housing a ride-on lawn mower] instead of renting a
traditional wedding tent?”). Huh? It’s a wedding, not a sheep-shearing contest.
I’ve gotta say that, since we’ll be paying for most of the wedding ourselves
anyway, I find this sort of comment puzzling at best and insensitive at worst. She’s
made similar, weird comments in relation to our living arrangements — like the time
she suggested that, instead of purchasing our own house, we should go in with
her in purchasing a big house where we could all live together. “We” being her,
her partner, her partner’s 32-year-old daughter, me (also in my thirties) and Fiancé.
Dude, I haven’t lived with my own, awesome mother for ten years; why would I, as
a newlywed, want to purchase a joint house in order to live with my new husband’s
parents and their stepchildren?

I realise Mumsie probably doesn’t intend to upset me, but I find her inability to
simply respect our choices without having to put her two weird cents in irritating. By
making such inappropriate and numerous suggestions, it really feels to me like
she’s not listening to us, or considering how we feel about these things (which is
pretty important, considering it’s our wedding and our place to live that’s the topic
of the conversation), or able to recognise that we are grown adults capable of
making our own reasoned decisions. And yes, sometimes that means without
help or consultation from parents. Gasp.

I’m pretty sure that’s just how she operates…full steam ahead and off in her own
world of truly bizarre paradigms. I know it’s not up to me to change her, but what
she does and says really rile me and I don’t want her upsetting behaviour to affect
my relationship with Fiancé. Should I say something? How can I respond to her
torrent of sometimes genuinely strange suggestions without seeming dismissive
of her ideas? I mean, generally each and every one of her suggestions is
something we’ve already considered and discarded, or is so far off the wall it
doesn’t even bear thinking about, so I’d really be saying no to all of them.
Repeatedly.

My second problem is actually in relation to the wedding. I’m from a different
country, and all my family is back in my home country. We’re having the ceremony
and a reception (reception #1) where I live now (and where Fiancé and his family
live), and a second reception (reception #2) a couple of months later back home.
Most of my back-home family and friends cannot make it, as it’s a $3000 plane
fare. Fiancé’s parents know this, but haven’t once indicated that they are
interested in attending or even knowing the details of reception #2, or really in
anything other than their role in the ceremony and reception #1 (in relation to
which they have been quite active, and have complained that we are “leaving
them out” of the planning). Further, they’ve never shown an interest in how my
family feels about the ceremony or reception #1, or even asked what my
family’s role is, how many of my family and friends might be able to attend, or
whether my mother might have a view on the ceremony or reception. It seems like
they think that the ceremony and reception #1 is “their wedding,” and that the
second reception is the one for my family and therefore isn’t their concern. That
feels really bizarre and pretty cold to me, like they don’t particularly care about the
participation of my family and therefore, by extrapolation, me.In fact, the whole
tone of their conversation about the wedding seems to be in relation to the fact
that “their son is getting married.” Meanwhile, my mother took the time to write
welcoming letters to each of them saying how eager she was to meet them and
to meet Fiancé when my family comes over for the ceremony.

Fiancé also sees their comprehensive disinterest in my family and reception #2
as a bit weird as well. How do we express to them that their complete lack of
interest is hurtful? Do we bother telling them? Do I let Fiancé tell them? Do we say
something together?

I’ve got to have these people as in-laws for the rest of my life. I don’t want to
bugger it up.

Sincerely,
Incidental bride