For the past year, I’ve been dating “Adam.”He’s a great guy – I adore him – but I’m starting to wonder about the future of our relationship.The problem is Adam’s sister “Anna.”Adam and Anna share a nice two-bedroom apartment.When asked, they explain that Adam is still paying off student loans, and Anna, a budding artist, has an erratic income, so it makes sense for them to share living expenses.All of that is true, but the fact remains that Adam and Anna are exceedingly close, probably best friends.

Please don’t misunderstand.Anna is no Angelina Jolie.In fact, she’s a really great person, and she’s always been very friendly to me.I like her a lot, so I don’t understand why I’ve become so uncomfortable with her relationship with Adam.Before this, I’ve never been the jealous type.

On the other hand, maybe I’m not being unreasonable, because on several occasions, Adam has put Anna before me.Sometimes it’s little things, like Adam declining to see a movie with me because he promised Anna he’d see it with her.He always invites me along with them, but then I feel like a third wheel.Another time, he canceled a date at the last minute because Anna was sick, and he didn’t want her to have to stay home by herself.I know it was sweet of him, but it was just a bad case of the flu!

This latest incident is the worst.One of my best friends from college is getting married.I’m going to be one of her bridesmaids, and I asked Adam to come with me to the out-of-town wedding.Adam apologized but refused.It turns out that Anna has an art show opening that same weekend, so of course her brother has to be there.I was very hurt.After all, we’re supposedly in a serious relationship, and it’s important to me that Adam be with me at my friend’s wedding.

I’ve tried to talk to Adam about all this.I want to know that I’m first in his life, that I’m not playing second fiddle to his sister, but Adam doesn’t see my point of view.He insists that he shouldn’t have to make a choice between the two of us and that it’s wrong and overly possessive of me to ask.The disagreement has become a major source of tension between us, and it’s exhausting me.I love Adam, but the resentment over his relationship with his sister is beginning to poison my feelings for him.I don’t know what to do, and my friends, who all like Adam (and Anna for that matter), haven’t been much help, so I’m looking for an outside, unbiased opinion.Am I being childish, or should I say goodbye to Adam and look for someone without such an attachment to his sister?

Thanks in advance.

Feeling like the third wheel and rather bitter about it

Dear Feeling,

Okay, let’s get the English-usage nitpick out of the way first.The expression is “fifth wheel.”The meaning of the phrase – the sense of complete superfluity – doesn’t come through if you say “third wheel,” because you could conceivably need or use a third wheel, but not so a fifth wheel.Sorry, but that’s a pet peeve of mine.

And now, to the advice.I wouldn’t call your feelings “childish” at all.When I put myself in the same situation – if I went on a book tour or something, say, and I had an appearance in New York but my brother had to meet his girlfriend’s out-of-town parents for dinner at the Plaza – well, then, my brother has dinner at the Plaza and I call him later.It’s perfectly reasonable for you to want – nay, to expect – your boyfriend to attend the wedding with you, and unless it’s Anna’s first art show, or she’s agoraphobic or dying of a brain tumor or pleading some other operatic special circumstances that would require support from the entire family, it’s not appropriate for him to put her first, and he should know that.

But he doesn’t, and he won’t learn.Adam evidently doesn’t see anything wrong with prioritizing his relationship with his sister over his relationship with you, and whether he’s “right” or not, it isn’t going to change.You could stay with him and try to suck it up, I guess, but you’ll keep fighting the same battle, and you’ll keep losing, and he’ll keep making you feel like a spoiled princess for even bringing it up, and you’ll keep resenting each other, and that’s no good.

Lay it on the line for him.You love him, but you can’t deal with the tug-of-war for his attention, and if you go to the wedding without him, you will go as a single woman.If that doesn’t get him off his duff, make good on the threat.Let him spend all his free time with Anna if it means that much to him.

[10/16/00]

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