Dear Sars,

My problem is my mother. We seem to have a love/hate relationship. We have never been close, as she had me when she was 15 and spent my childhood trying to pretend she didn’t have a daughter. The only time it was cool to have a daughter is when people asked if we were sisters and that thrilled her to no end. Also, I have a younger brother and this never seemed to apply to him.

I live in Texas and most of my immediate family lives in Oklahoma. (Explains the young pregnancy, huh?) Anyway, anytime something happens to a member of my family, I am the last to know.For example, my grandfather went into a diabetic shock last year and they were pretty much reading him his last rites. After a week in ICU, the doctor tells my mom and grandma they should tell everyone to say their goodbyes. Finally they call me and let me know. Thanks. My cousins and sister-in-law were very vocal about my mother not letting me know (to me) and have since tried to keep me a little more current about such events. I did confront my mother and she apologized and everything is good, ’til next time.

Next time comes along and my grandma is in the hospital with pneumonia. Yep, no phone call. A couple of days later my cousin and my daughter call to let me know. My question is this: Do I confront her again? Obviously she has some issue with me and I don’t have a clue. She never calls me. Period, if we talk, I call her and I have now gotten to the point I refuse to do so. Am I expecting too much?

They do have phones in OK

Dear Phone,

You’re not expecting too much in theory; in practice, though, your mother obviously can’t live up to even the most basic expectations of courtesy and making you feel like a part of the family, so it’s time to stop thinking that she’ll ever figure it out.

Not that it doesn’t suck, because it does, but your mother has made it clear that she’s really not interested in staying in touch with you or making sure you’re up to date on family situations, and you need to accept that and so that it doesn’t disappoint you all over again every time.

Ask your cousins or other family members to keep you posted on stuff like your grandparents’ illnesses, and just leave your mother alone.Hoping she’ll act right, trying to get her to act right — it’s not worth the pain.

Dear Sars,

I am planning a solo trip to New York, all financed solely by me. Okay. Problem: at the time of the supposed trip, I will be 18 years old. Other problem: I am female.

Now, I myself of course do not view these facts as problems, but some friends and family members do. I understand and appreciate their concerns — I am proposing to jet 3,000 miles across the country (I live in California), away from any help or support they can give me, to a city that they have never seen, and don’t understand. All of us have had it drilled into our skulls that New York City is a dangerous place, and I know that it’s not a good idea to go walking alone down a dark alleyway at three in the morning, but come on. It’s not like there’s a psycho on every corner waiting to jump the next Californian that strolls innocently by, right? I think the “danger” of the city has been greatly exaggerated, and that a lone tourist can have a perfectly safe, fun time there.

Most of my friends, being my age, of course think that it’ll be fine, that my family is worrying much too much, and that I should go ahead and go. Most of my family members, with the exception of a grandparent and an aunt, are against it, because New York is a Big Bad Scary Place. They have said that they won’t stop me if I choose to go, but strongly advise against it. I need an opinion from someone who is not close to me, and hasn’t lived on the opposite end of the country from the Big Apple all her life. My question is this: Sars, as a person who has lived alone in the Big City and knows all about it, is a solo trip to New York for me advisable? Or will I be eaten alive?

And on a more practical note, if I go, should I stay in the local hostel booked ten random people to a room for six days and five nights, or slash the trip in half and spring for an actual, honest-to-goodness, single-occupancy hotel room?

Thanks for listening,
Wannabe Traveler

Dear Wannabe,

It’s just not that dangerous here.Yeah, if you go to dangerous neighborhoods and engage in risky behavior, it’s dangerous, but if you use common sense — walking briskly, not going to ATMs or poorly-lit/quiet areas at night — you’ll be fine.Can I guarantee that nothing bad is going to happen to you?No.I can’t guarantee nothing bad is going to happen to me.It’s a big city and life is random.But this is not Gomorrah.

With that said, I would get a hotel room unless someone you know personally can recommend a safe, clean hostel.New York is quite safe, but it’s also sometimes a bit of sensory overload if you’ve never been here before, and I think you’ll want your own space to come back to at the end of the day.

Dear Sars,

I met “Julie” when I transferred to her high school our sophomore
year, and once she got over the fact that I was immediately placed
first chair alto saxophone in Jazz Band (this still comes up
occasionally, but in a laughing “wasn’t that stupid to get upset
about?” way, not an “I STILL can’t believe that, beeyotch” way), we
became best friends.Ten years later, we’re still close friends, we
hang out whenever we’re living in the same state, we visit when we’re
not, I was a bridesmaid at her wedding, blah blah the-usual-cakes.
But I’ve noticed that, ever since her initial engagement, she’s…kind
of been acting like a selfish jerk.

During the engagement and the
wedding, I just wrote it off — by bridezilla standards she was pretty
mild, really, and, well — if I were ever to get married, hey, I could
easily say, “Nope, you had me do X, Y, and Z for you, I don’t want to
hear any shit about the flowers” or whatever.But, you know, she’s
been married for almost a year now, and I would really like to find a
way to remind her that it is possible to be, you know, thoughtful
where other people are concerned.I mean, she used to be.But
lately it doesn’t seem like she takes anyone into consideration beyond
herself.As she amply demonstrated with assorted shenanigans this
weekend.

Since she got married, she and her husband have moved out to Natchez,
MS, where she is miserably unhappy.She’s also fending off an
extremely bizarre and intrusive mother-in-law, who calls her daily and
asks waaaaaaaaaaaay personal questions, and that she’s having trouble
dealing with.So earlier this week I get a phone call from her,
telling me how unhappy she is and how she just wants to come home to
Baton Rouge, and basically asks if she can invite herself over to stay
with my mother and I for the weekend and do girly things.We don’t
have anything going on, and the house is reasonably clean, so we say
“of course” and we cement plans for her to come and stay Friday
through Sunday evening.I spend a chunk of the week making the guest
room and guest bath extra nice, and buy special things to cook for
dinner while she’s here, ask her what movies she’d like to go out and
see, et cetera.

Well, she gets here on Friday and immediately announces that she can’t
eat the feta and spinach stuffed salmon pockets that I cooked because
she doesn’t eat fish (which I didn’t realize, so I felt like a jerk).
I said, “Okay, well, I can do a London broil really quickly,” she says,
“No, you can do it later,” and drags me off to shop for an ottoman.I
had no idea that ottoman shopping was on the weekend agenda, but
didn’t see any harm in popping out, especially since she was being
kind of oddly insistent.I thought we’d be out briefly but she kept
us out for hours, so my poor mom, who came home early to see her
(they are also close, and when Julie said she was coming down we had
kind of planned on all three of us doing a lot together), kind of
wound up sitting around and waiting for us, and not eating dinner
either.

While we were out, Julie grabbed some fast food stuff that my
mother and I can’t eat and bitched for about half an hour about the
traffic (well, our population just doubled and we’re not set up to
handle it, what good does railing about it ad nauseam do — especially
when I already warned her about it?) before she finally agreed to head
back to the house.Then we all watched a movie on the couch, and
giggled and chatted, and we made plans to go out to an actual movie
theater the next night, and I thought that everything was going to
smooth out and the start of the weekend was just a blip…not so much.

The next day, Julie announced that she wanted to continue the ottoman
hunt, as she had not yet found anything for under fifty bucks.I said
okay, but told her that I needed to eat something first (I feel really
sick if I don’t eat pretty regularly — she declined eating anything
with me), and would she mind if I tried to get hold of my mom at
work first, just to make sure she wasn’t planning to come home extra
early to hang out with us.Especially since I thought that we had
kind of hurt her feelings the night before.To which I got a big
sigh, a “Fine,” and Julie sitting with her arms crossed, staring at
the floor rather sullenly while I slapped some pre-washed salad onto a
plate, dumped vinegar and oil on it, shoveled it down as quickly as I
could, and called my mom to let her know what we were up to and to
make sure that she didn’t wind up wasting any of her time.

We left,
it was miserable, she didn’t believe me when I told her about the new
traffic hot spots so we wound up spending over an hour extra in the
car, we never found a damned ottoman that she thought was cheap
enough, and she got kind of pissed when I took some time to try to
replace my red hightops while we were at the mall (although she
claimed that it was just because the mall was so crowded — again, we
have a lot of extra people here now, a lot of them hang out at the
mall because it’s big and air-conditioned, they have enough problems
right now, why get all pissed because they’re there?).

Then we get to my house at about four o’clock, and I’m climbing out
of the car when she says, “Oh, I’m going to go and visit with the
people at my old job — I’ll come back afterwards if I don’t hear from
my sister first.”So I was just sort of, “Um…okay.I didn’t
realize we were meeting up with your sister…” and she told me, yeah,
she was expecting to hear from her at about five o’clock, and she
peels out of the driveway before I even get three steps away from the
car.Well.Okay.Whatever.She sees her sister pretty frequently,
so I guessed that I should have expected that she was going to try to
squeeze in a little visiting time.No problem.

She shows back up at
six o’clock, I ask how her sister is, since she wasn’t with her and I
just assumed that they’d already visited or whatever, she said she
hadn’t heard from her yet, we started to discuss what movie we were
going to go and see and the possibility of just going out to a nice
restaurant first since it was getting kind of late…and then she
breaks off in mid-conversation to answer her phone, leaves the room,
comes back out with her purse and tells me that she’s off to meet her
sister, she’ll see me in awhile.And she leaves again, before I can
really say anything.

At about seven my mom calls while she’s on her way home, asking if
we’d picked a restaurant and a movie yet, and I had to tell her that
Julie had left and I didn’t know when she’d be back.We were both
feeling kind of put out at this point, and Mom suggested that we just
go ahead and pick a restaurant and a movie ourselves, and call and see
if Julie and her sister wanted to meet us at one or the other.I
call, and Julie goes, “Oh…ummm…actually Stephie and I are just
pulling into a restaurant to get something to eat now.And actually,
I might be by later to get my stuff, because it turns out that her
roommate is out of town…”Personally, I kind of found myself
wondering just when she was planning on letting the two other people
who had plans with her know that she was going to bail on them, but I
kept it to myself and cheerfully asked Julie if she remembered where
we kept the spare key, because Mom and I were still going to see a
movie after we went out for dinner and we probably wouldn’t be there.
She sounded really put out about that, I guess she expected us to stay
at home and wait for her…she was definitely NOT happy when I told
her which flowerpot to look under if we weren’t still there when she
showed up.

So we come back at about eleven, and her stuff is cleaned out, and
there’s no note or anything, and she apparently left town today but we
never got a call to say goodbye or even thank you.We eventually gave
up on hearing from her and went out to do fun things together
(although we did keep the cell phone on), because we didn’t think we
should put everything on hold and have NO fun while waiting to see if
Julie was planning to grace us with her presence.By now she is
undoubtedly home, and we are undeniably feeling a bit miffed.I mean,
we were both really looking forward to seeing her — it doesn’t happen
that often anymore — and we had cleared time, and made special plans
and everything.And not even saying goodbye to us before she headed
out of town…it just seems like a snub.I really don’t like being
snubbed, particularly on top of being dicked around all weekend.And,
you know…not so much best friend behavior.At least, not in my
opinion.

Her behavior did all-around suck, right?Or am I being really anal
and overreacting because I feel really put out and disappointed?And
if it did suck…what’s the best way to let her know?I really can’t
think of a way to kind of tell her that I think she was a total ass
this weekend, and a rude one to boot, and that I would appreciate her
not being either in the future without sounding prissy, bitchy, or
insufferable.I’m holding off on giving her a call right now because
I don’t want to be overly snide.I don’t really want to start any
fights or drama about it — it happened, I thought it was uncool, I’d
like to avoid any future repeats.

I know, I know, friendships have a lifespan…but I’d like to at
least find a polite way to let Julie know that her behavior isn’t
acceptable (assuming, again, that I’m not being really anal and
overreacting and in fact being an asshole myself) and maybe give her a
chance to act like less of an asshole who does not deserve to have any
of my home-cooked meals or fancy bubble bath.

Oh Christ, I swore that I was going to be short and to the point and I
wrote a frickin’ novella.Why do so many of the people who write to
you have verbal diarrhea and why have I become one of them?

Sincerely,

When People Go Out Of Their Way To Wine, Dine, And Entertain Me I’m
Generally Appreciative And Quite Nice To Them — And I Send A Thank
You Note, Too

Dear On Monogrammed Martyr Stationery, No Doubt,

I really don’t even know where to start.Look, Julie invited herself to your house.Where I come from, if you have a close enough friendship with another person that she can call you and be like, “I gotta come over, I’m going nuts here,” then you also have a close enough friendship to tell her, “I didn’t know you had plans with your sister — I thought you were hanging with me and Mom tonight,” or “We didn’t eat yet — I’d have appreciated a call if you were going to go ahead with dinner.”Or, you know, “Julie, is there a problem?You’re giving me attitude, and I don’t get where it’s coming from.”Because she’s a guest in your home and you’ve known her since high school.

But no, it’s all “o woe is me I made this dish she couldn’t eat, BUT THAT’S FINE, REALLY, NO PROBLEM” — give me a break, please.You want credit for all the cooking you did, but you didn’t know, or ask, about her dietary restrictions, which…I mean, what do you want me to say?You can’t speak frankly to this woman, apparently.You just lie down with “welcome” painted on your back and let her wipe her feet on you.

I’m not saying Julie wasn’t rude; she was.But I don’t think she’d have been nearly as out of line if she’d sensed at any time that you weren’t going to take it.You did in fact write a novella in support of the fact that you’re the wronged party here; the problem is that you did not speak up once for yourself.You just kept on with the “whatever you want” this and the “…okay then” that, even when she announced that she was staying somewhere else with basically no notice.You took it.You’ve taught her how to treat you.

Yes, there is “a way” to tell her she behaved badly.You call her up and you tell her that she behaved badly — that she was snitty, that she wasted your time and blew you off, that she hurt your feelings and treated you like crap and you don’t appreciate it.

There is also “a way” to avoid this kind of thing happening in the future: 1) speak forthrightly about the plans you envision for the weekend beforehand, and discuss/compromise on them with your guests; and 2) tell your guests if they’re treating you like a fleabag motel.

Hey Sars,

Writing in with an unfortunate dilemma. I have been with the same guy
for almost six years now, living together the whole time. The
beginning of our relationship frankly sucked — he had been dating
someone else, he broke up with her to be with me and was heartbroken
and depressed about it for about a year, then just as that depression
was lifting he was plunged into another one by the loss of his job.
Which lasted another year.

When he was depressed, he was petty and mean. He never got violent,
but he was snippy and unpleasant sometimes, full-on mean other times,
and could not restrain himself from snapping at me and other people
for tiny transgressions. He spent literally days glued to his computer
screen playing games and surfing. Anybody who interrupted him at all
(asking him what time it was, et cetera) would get nastily snapped at. He
was like this about 65% of the time pretty much the whole first three
years we were together. I have no idea why I put up with it. Probably
because of the other 35% of the time, when he was sweet and nice. I
finally got fed up with the whole thing, resolved to leave, and spent
a couple months away. When I returned, he had turned shit around,
apologized profusely, and resolved never to let things go there again.

And now, almost two years after he has turned shit around, he’s still
okay. He manages his depression extremely well, is kind and
considerate, fairly social, and is in extremely good shape. He has
healthy hobbies and interests. He’s the boyfriend I always dreamed of
him being. I am quite close with his family, and consider him family,
and I have a hard time thinking of my life without him. He
acknowledges that I helped him through one of the most difficult times
of his life.

The problem? I think the full impact of the resentment for the first
three years has finally, finally hit me head-on. I am angry at him for
treating me the way he did, and I am having great difficulty forgiving
him for it. I am also having serious trouble understanding why I
stayed with him through that. It makes me sick to look back at that
time and see how unhappy I was, and how little I did to change it.
We’ve talked about it, I’ve told him all of this, and it doesn’t seem
to have done any good.

I am wondering if I would even recognize it if things turned bad
again. I believe that he has truly turned over a new leaf, and two
years of experience tells me it is so, but I have become so paranoid
about his depression returning that every tiny thing he says that
isn’t 100% sweetness makes me storm into the other room and begin
mentally separating our possessions. I am fantasizing about leaving him
very frequently. But I fear I would be leaving a good thing behind for
reasons that have nothing to do with the present. It would feel like
abandoning a family member, because he is one to me now.

And also, another matter: I miss being single. I like being single. A
lot. Always have. And this may sound strange, but the idea of never
being single again, ever, makes me unbelievably sad, like I am missing
out on real life. Then again, maybe I’m romanticizing a part of my
life when I wasn’t in a relationship. But oh, to be able to come home
and flop on the bed and be alone for as long as I want to be…I
think about this almost constantly. And then my sweet, attentive
loving boyfriend comes home and I feel horrible.

Am I crazy for thinking about leaving? I don’t want to give up on a
good thing, but then again, I don’t want to miss out on a life I
create for myself.

Don’t wanna hurt nobody, but I’m hurtin’

Dear Hurt,

Well, you’ve got two separate issues here — so I’m going to lead with two cliches and then hopefully say something useful.Ready?Okay.First, the past is in the past.Second, the grass is always greener on the other side.

I think the problem here is that the first cliche is informing the second.Your boyfriend is a different partner now from what he was in the past, but that doesn’t change the fact that he took you for granted and you tolerated it.The thing is, though, that nothing is going to change that fact.It happened; it’s over; nothing you can do.We’ve all made our mistakes in that regard and sat around what-iffing our decisions to death, so it’s normal, but it’s not particularly productive, and you have to find a way to forgive him — and yourself — and leave it behind.You’d do some things differently if you could; wouldn’t we all.You can’t.

I think that, now, this reluctance to declare that period of your relationship “bygones” and focus on what’s in front of you is either creating or feeding off some kind of anxiety or dissatisfaction in the present.I can’t really say which is the chicken and which the egg, but there’s some elemental unhappiness or need not being filled that is bringing all this anger up now.Seeing a therapist for a few sessions might help you to untangle it, and to figure out what you’ve learned from that bad period and what you can learn from this one.

Again, you can’t change the past.But you can look at it, identify patterns, figure out why you respond to certain things and situations in certain ways.That bears doing now.Try to puzzle out why, now that you’ve got what you ostensibly wanted years ago, you don’t want it as much now — why you’re restless and angry.Until you figure it that answer, your life is going to make you keep asking the question.

Dear Sars,

I have a problem and you seem to give out the best advice.Please let me know what you think before I go insane and kill my husband.

I’ve been married for two years now.Husband and I are generally goopy-mushy completely in love, so much so that it would sicken me if I didn’t adore him so much.

And now for the but — we’re having problems relating as a couple.

Which means, I’m not getting laid nearly as much as I would like.I’m the GIRL.I didn’t think I would have to fight to get his pants off!Why is this happening to me?

To make matters worse, I’ve discovered a secret directory of porn that seems to grow every day, which leads me to believe he likes touch himself more than he likes to touch me.I haven’t told him about the porn directory I found.Twice I’ve found lubricant beside the computer and felt completely humiliated because the nights before I had attempted to get something going and he had rejected me.

Before I found the lubricant, I’d asked him about his dwindling sex drive because it wasn’t always like this.His answer was, “I’m just not a very sexual person.I don’t have a high sex drive.”

I’ve told him I wouldn’t have a problem with him masturbating if he was touching me as well.We’ve had the discussion that I would like it if we had sex more often.I’ve told him that it hurts me to think that he’d rather look at porn than look at me.We’ve had long talks about this and every time he says he’ll try not to zone out in front of the PS2 or smoke weed or whatever it is that kills his drive for me, and urges him towards “Buxxxom Blondes Blowing Bob” — I end up cold in bed, awake and goddamnit, so horny I’m about to hump his leg.I ask him if he wants me to dress up (no), experiment with places/positions/techniques (no), lose weight (no).I ask him what he wants for a fantasy, because I’ll do anything for him, and he says that he doesn’t have any.

So should I just invest in a vibrator?I honestly have no idea how to continue.I love him oh so much but I’m at a loss.I want him, he’s my husband.Shouldn’t he want me too?

Utterly Confused

Dear Utterly,

You need to bottom-line this shit for him, pronto.”I found your porn stash; I found lubricant next to the computer, both times right after I’d tried to seduce you and you blew me off.You’re rejecting me in bed, it hurts my feelings, your use of porn is ruining our shared sex life, and we need to deal with it.”

Speak frankly; get angry.Make some demands.Up until now, you’ve been willing to do anything to improve the situation, and he’s been all, “No, I’m good,” and continuing to whack off at his computer.Not acceptable.I’ve said many times that using porn within a relationship is fine as long as it’s not negatively affecting the sex you have with each other, but that plainly isn’t the case here, and it’s time for you to tell him so and to start requiring him to make some effort here — namely, to ditch the X-rated cache and go to counseling.

This is not “goopy-mushy completely in love.”This is him hiding his behavior and not speaking honestly about his needs (and leaving the lubricant by the computer, which…either he’s an idiot, or he wants you to catch him, but either way, come on, dude), and you blaming yourself and not feeling like you can speak honestly to him about how this makes you feel.

Start talking about this.Start fighting about this.There’s no chance it’s going to get any better if you don’t start telling each other some hard truths.

[11/17/05]

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