Hi,

I have scoured the internet and your site for the past few hours over an etiquette dilemma that’s just fallen into my lap.

Backstory: My mom is an only child.She has three adult cousins on her dad’s side. To protect the guilty I’m just gonna call them One, Two, and Three.Three is my Godmother.

About 10 years ago, my grandmother died.She had apparently been covering up a lot of my grandfather’s health issues, including but not limited to some form of dementia or Alzheimer’s. After she passed he moved in with us, and then into assisted living (my parents weren’t comfortable with him being alone in the house). He had a myriad of health conditions including hips that were fused outside of their sockets and it was hard to walk.He would get panicky and call people.Three got sick of the calls and started prank-calling him and generally, for lack of a better word, was being a twat.

When he passed away there was a SIGNIFICANT amount of money that came to my mom and dad, and a large trust fund was set up for me.Three was pissed because she got nothing. In the years following she left my parents and myself out of events for her daughters, ranging from baptisms, graduation parties, birthdays and first communions. My parents aren’t bad guests and give very good gifts.

Well, One’s daughter is getting married in a few weeks.Originally the wedding was supposed to take place last year, around the time of my wedding.(We invited all of One, Two, and Three’s families, even though I didn’t want Three there.)My parents ran into Three’s husband and said something about the wedding.He avoided eye contact and said “who knows if this is even going to happen!”

Later my parents ran into One, Two, and Three’s father at a wake, and as they were leaving made mention of seeing him at the wedding.He laughed and said yeah.My parents spoke to me, and I stated that I had spoken to her on Facebook and she’s been posting updates about the wedding planning.My parents thought nothing of it and assumed they would be getting their invite.

Flash forward to Three weeks ago.My husband and I get our invite.Knowing what a giant pain in the ass it is when people don’t RSVP in a timely fashion, I called my parents and let them know I got it, and mailed back the RSVP that we would be attending.

My parents hadn’t gotten theirs, but assumed, maybe it had gone to their previous address or it got lost.My mother followed up with One, who stated that daughter was doing a lot of the planning with Aunt Three (daughter’s mom is dead). One stated that daughter is having a small wedding and didn’t want a lot of older people there (my parents are in their fifties, it’s not like they are octogenarians).

Herein lies the dilemma.My parents said if they were told up front before all the invites went out about the small wedding they would have been okay with it.However, they weren’t and because of this my parents are pissed.But they have stated that if I choose to go, there will be no ill will about this and they will not hold it against me.They stated that we RSVPed before all of this went down, and we’re grown-ups and can make these decisions on ourown.They also stated that if we choose not to go, they will cover for us (we are going to CA for our anniversary) and will say we missed our flight or something.

I’m not particularly close to this side of the family, as they have all sort of always been this way, believing that my grandparents owed them (and they were quite generous) but never felt they had to give anything back.I rarely see them except at weddings and funerals.

Part of me wants to go and make obnoxious comments the whole time about how completely tacky the whole thing is. Part of me wants to go so can punch Three in the face and explain to her what a fuckwad she is.Part of me wants to go just to keep the peace.Part of me wants to bail out of loyalty to my parents, and part of me says, “YAY 200 bucks I don’t have to spend on a gift!”

What do I do.I know how pissed I was when a couple of people who RSVPed didn’t show at my wedding.Do I bow out gracefully, fake a missed flight, or call and say I’d rather chew my own arm off then attend a wedding of someone who can’t figure out the etiquette?

Emily Post would cut a bitch over this!

Dear Cut,

Perhaps, but she wouldn’t do it at the wedding itself.You RSVPed in the affirmative; therefore, you should attend, if you can manage not to make the event about your grievances with Three, or with her malign influence over One’s daughter.Not that you don’t have reason to despise her, but this occasion is not the time to confront her.Nor would confronting her do much good in the first place, in my opinion; this individual believes that prank-calling an ailing senior is appropriate.You’re speaking different languages.

If you don’t think you can hold your tongue/temper, or you feel that One’s comments about the rationale for not inviting your parents make it impossible for you to attend in good faith, then you should feign a last-minute illness — or better yet, withdraw your RSVP now, without specifying why.”I’m terribly sorry; I will no longer be able to attend.”I don’t generally recommend going back on an RSVP, because it’s a pain in the ass for the host, but what’s to be gained from your presence, by anyone?You don’t like them; they apparently have no respect for you or your parents; you’d be happier doing something else, and they’d probably rather invite some-one else, so in this case, I’d send a short, vague note stating that you can’t make it after all.

Going to the wedding and picking a fight will accomplish nothing, except to bring you down to their level. Either go, keep your mouth shut, leave as early as you politely can, and vow not to spend any more social time with these people; or bail, but if you bail, do it now.Doing it now gives them time to fill your places; it also sends a message, and while that message likely won’t get through, it’s better than fisticuffs.

Dear Sarah,

I only came across this Vine entry from 2004 today (the Lonely with Kittens one), but I wish I’d read it at the start of this year. My story’s pretty close that one, except without the married, but with four-plus years of long distance relationship, and the long-distance aspect being about to come to a close. So much for my dreams of living in that country — something I’d first been trying to get excited about, and finally truly was excited about to the core.

I have been having a field day reading through old Vines, and I think I might need your advice. It’s not about a specific situation, not anymore anyway, but suffice to say I have had a rough year and I need a bit of help coming to terms with it (having your boyfriend of four years replace you without warning that there was ever anything wrong, but taking six weeks and some cheating, while berating you for not trusting him to just hang with this female now-girlfriend, to do it, and add a bit of attempted suicide by your sister, and welcome to Suckfest 2009).

I’ve had a bit of luck since, and I am trying really hard to make the best of, well, life in general. I decided to take a hike, literally, and go traveling for a while, and met a really lovely boy who I ended up traveling with and going out with for about two months of pretty much spending all day every day together. It was very un-flingy and very relationshippy even though it only lasted a short time, and the closeness freaked me out at first but was a huge comfort eventually.

Given that my relationship before that, the one that ended so horribly, was long-distance for long stretches of time and ended just before we could finally be together, and given that this boy was also not from my country, about to go off to college (I’ve just finished) and much younger than me, and given that ultimately, we were probably each other’s medicine for that time, but not wholly compatible, we are now “friends.”

I say “friends” because I am sentimental as hell and seem to continue to need him to like me in a very unhealthy way, even though I don’t actually want to be in a relationship with him. Sort of. At the time, and I know this damn well but it is easy to forget when I’m feeling all lonely and unloved, there were things he did that would make me all cagey or annoyed. I’m not even that attracted to him in 2D.

What I am trying to say is — he is a great guy, which is why I fell for him big time in 3D, but the relationship was not perfect and he is probably not the one for me. I know this. There will be other guys who’ll be that lovely to me, I’m not crying myself to sleep at night because I can’t have him. That said, he was so sweet to me, Sars, and he took such great care to mend a fractured heart that I miss that. Still not quite The Problem, though.

You see, while he treated me like a queen while we were together (talk about a lovely eye-opener: “Wait, you mean boyfriends can be this lovely, even if you’re a mess?!”), he is kind of shitty at keeping in touch now that we are no longer in the same place. This is what I’m writing to you about.

The relationship is obviously a thing of the past. My lingering mushy feelings have been discussed between the two of us, and he’s been nice but clear about it, the topic’s done, we know that friends is the only rational option here. As time goes by (we’re talking months here), he is keeping in touch less and less, and it stings. He’s not AWOL, he will generally respond if I start an IM conversation, he will comment on Facebook occasionally… He’s not blowing me off, but he’s not showing any initiative either. I have trouble not taking it personally, however, since it immediately triggers “See! Abandonment yet again! Weighed and found too light!” and then I feel like shit. This is not something I want to continue doing.

With the help of some fantastic friends, I have come to the conclusion that he and I just have different ideas of what it means to stay friends over distance. My idea is probably a little off, but I wasn’t the one to come up with the friends business in the first place, nor the “let’s go and meet up for x event in the fall!” plans. He’s always seemed an honest, genuine kind of guy, though, and I think he means these things when he says them, but given his propensity to LIVE IN THE MOMENT with capitals (and he’d have to, he’s not had a great year either and this seems to be the way he deals with it), it turns out that I might just have to take them with a grain of salt and reduce my expectations. I need to stop taking his lack of effort into keeping in touch personally. (Right? Except, then he sends me a birthday present out of the blue and I’m all…dude, I was just about to take your hint!)

Here’s where I need your help. You often talk about accepting things are a certain way even if they make no fucking sense, or adjusting expectations, or not caring what other people think. This is possibly the most abstract question ever, but how do I do that, in practical terms? How do you get over things, how do you accept things aren’t the way you thought they were and would like them to be?

There are obviously a lot of things this past year that I have had to give up. I’m not going to live in Other Country, or with Ex-Boyfriend, or be close friends with Lovely Boy. I understand that part of it is getting stuck into daily life and stopping the eternal mulling-it-over process, but how do I teach myself not to base my opinion of myself on how other people treat me? How do I learn not to assume people dislike me/think I’m not as awesome as they thought previously/am a bit of a bore? How do I accept that certain people might be asses after all, especially if I’ve liked them a lot before?

I have always been extremely sentimental, and I crave to learn how to just let things go. It’s not that I’m this uptight with every friend that’s not replied to my email within x number of days. I know people get busy, I know how to chill out. This particular situation is different because, well, 1. this guy used to tell me he loved me, and it’s OK that he doesn’t anymore but I’d like for him to at least like me, and 2. I probably built my renewed sense of security and OK-ness on him.

I have thought of therapy, but I won’t be able to for another couple of months for various reasons.

So, in short — until I can go and see someone professional, how does one bend the mind like Uri Geller does a spoon? There might be a few other questions in there, so feel free to comment as you see fit. I need a bucketful of What Would Sars Do cause I just don’t want to feel so crappy anymore.

Want To Lose Weight? Suckfest 2009 Comes In Shocking Strawberry And Vile Vanilla Flavors!

Dear Fest,

First, you have to give yourself a break.You’ve had a hard year; a lot of big things didn’t turn out like you’d hoped, or went wrong.Break-ups take time to process, it doesn’t happen overnight, and caring is not a problem in and of itself.It makes you human.So, for starters, accept that you’ll have some bad days with it, but know that those days will end.

As far as Lovely Guy specifically goes, you know, he’s going off to university and starting a whole new phase of his life.It really isn’t personal; there’s a lot going on for him right now, and he’s not going to be making as much time for people from the past.It happens.

The other issue here is that “friends” is not realistic for you right now.You have all these emotions surrounding him, many of which have nothing to do with him, and trying to figure out What He Wants or How He Feels About You is adding drama and not providing resolution.And again, you have to let yourself off the hook for getting into a rut in that regard, because that happens too, but it’s not about whether it’s “good” or “right” — it’s not working.It’s not helpful.It’s time to do something else.

And that “something else” is to suspend contact with him for 90 days.You can tell him you’re doing this because you need some time to get your head straight, or you can just do it, but it wants doing.Delete him from your phone and email, remove him from your Facebook friends, do not open any mail or packages he sends.The situation as is makes you unhappy, and the only thing in it you can change is your own behavior, so force yourself to stop taking the friendship’s temperature to gauge his approval every five minutes.It will feel unnatural and lonely, but then, so does the current set-up.This has a much better chance of letting you move on.

And the friendship may not survive.That’s okay.If it doesn’t, it’s probably to do with weird timing on both your parts; that’s okay too.Sometimes things don’t work out and it’s nobody’s fault.Other times, it is somebody’s fault but it’s for the best all around.

The thing to remember for you, I think, is that it’s hard to tell what all this means from here, because you haven’t gotten far enough past it yet — and yes, you do need to accept that certain things have turned out badly and to start moving on.But let’s distinguish between “behaving as though this is the reality, because it is” and “being blithely okay with it every second.”Should you put Lovely Boy out of your way for three months?Yes.Should you never think about him or give a shit once that three months has begun?Good luck with that.

Forcing the heart to dance with the head is not easy, and you have no perspective right now.It’ll come.You got disappointed and cheated on, and you’ve become more concerned than you’d like to be about the approval of others.It’ll pass.But stop beating yourself up for how you’ve handled all of this, first and foremost.The rest follows that.

Hey Sars,

My question is less about the cat and more about me. For some reason, the stupid cat loves to chill with my husband during the day and plague me with his entire 18-pound bulk at night. I don’t sleep well in general, and a heavy furry thing on my legs doesn’t help.

What’s worse is that he purrs like a motorboat for no discernable reason, so loud and so long that it not only wakes me up but keeps me from falling asleep again at 3 AM. Banning him from the bedroom is not an option as he will then knock on the door and whine LOUDLY the entire night. I’ve tried.

So why I have I put up with the lack of sleep for three years? My husband adores the cat. He also sleeps like a log, so he doesn’t quite understand how hard it’s been for me. We also had a second cat, a wee little fluffball who was my cuddle buddy, so I could forgive my husband’s unhealthy attachment to the demon cat.

However, we recently got our own place and left my little girl back at my parents’ house, where she took to the indoor/outdoor lifestyle like she was born to be wild. I decided it would be cruel to enclose her in a small apartment, and one pet is cheaper than two at our new apartment.

But now that I’m without feline companionship and my husband is still sleeping through my sleepless nights, I’m at a breaking point. No pets is cheaper than one, and while I understand my husband’s attachment to the cat — the motorboat purring helped him through a traumatic event at the beginning of our co-habitation — I’m ready to send him away. The cat, not the husband.

We can’t trade him for our girl cat, as the demon has a serious personality conflict with my parents’ cat, and I have the scars on my arm to prove it. We could easily send him to my uncle’s farm (no, really), where he would also adapt to an indoor/outdoor lifestyle with several other cats and dogs. However, I’m fairly sure the demon cat would hate it. And here is my real question.

After three years, what responsibility do I have to make the cat happy? He was 6 years old when I inherited him from friends. For the first 18 months, I had job with flexible hours so the sleep thing didn’t hit as hard. I understand that having a pet is a lifetime commitment, and I hate the thought of putting the cat in a situation that is foreign to him simply to make my life easier. But it’s getting harder to catch up on sleep on the weekends, and I do feel that my happiness is more important than the cat’s.

Do I have a right to boot the cat knowing that he’ll be taken care of but possibly miserable? Or am I a horrible person who should never have cats or children for even considering it?

Needs a nap

Dear Nap,

Banning him from the bedroom is not an option as he will then knock on the door and whine LOUDLY the entire night. I’ve tried.

Try again.Get a packet of earplugs — the pricier kind rock musicians use.Explain to your husband that the lack of sleep is making you crazy, and you need him to understand that, while you love the demon cat and you appreciate their friendship, you’ve got to make a change, at least temporarily, for the sake of your sanity.Put the earplugs in, give your husband his pair, turn on a white noise machine or a fan or something, and shut the door on the cat and leave it shut, all night.

It will take a week or two for him to figure out that knocking and whining won’t work, but most cats do figure it out; you just can’t break down and open the door at 4:30 AM to shut him up, because then what the demon cat figures out is that knocking and whining do work if he does it long enough.A lot of times, what pet owners mean by “I tried to correct X behavior” is “I tried twice and it didn’t work.”You have to give it longer than that.

If you can’t tolerate his crying at the door, then shut him in the bathroom, or find some other way to retrain him, but there isn’t a straight line between “my cat has an annoying behavior” and “my cat can’t live here.”Breaking him of certain irritating habits is a short-term investment of aggro in the long-term peace of the household, and it’s part of what you sign up for when you get a pet.

You can call your vet to see if s/he has any suggestions, too — tiring him out by playing with him before bedtime; setting up a cat bed with one of your sweatshirts in it; judicious dispensation of catnip — but you haven’t given the cat a chance to learn a new way of doing things yet.

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