Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.
Dear Prudence,
My partner and I live on the first floor of a three-family house that is split into three apartments. Two girls around our age (mid-late 20s) live on the second floor. One girl has a boyfriend who comes over frequently, and very often (probably every other day) they have screaming fights so loud that we can often hear bits of what they’re saying through the ceiling/floor (she often expresses that the boyfriend doesn’t listen, needs therapy, doesn’t do anything right). Sometimes this is followed by vigorous sex; other times it’s followed by loud sobbing. Sometimes during the fights we also hear thumps/thuds but it’s hard to tell if those noises are violent or if they’re just stomping/normal moving-around sounds that seem louder since they’re above us. It’s mildly disruptive to us, but we’re also concerned about the girl given the amount of screaming/crying/thudding.
We don’t know them personally as we moved in not long ago and are super COVID-cautious, whereas upstairs often hosts large, loud parties where someone is always coughing, so not only are they strangers but we’re not actually sure which one is in the relationship. It feels like maybe it’s not our place to be like, “hey, are you okay? We hear a lot of troubling stuff downstairs!” and I don’t want to embarrass her. Furthermore, for all we know SHE could be the problem and the one possibly throwing things around/acting unreasonably. But it’s also a LOT of yelling and it seems like a bad relationship to be in, and it also feels wrong to let it happen if something really is going wrong. What’s the right thing to do here?
— Downstairs Dilemma
Dear Downstairs Dilemma,
You’ll have to put a little work into developing a neighborly relationship with her. If you don’t have natural opportunities to chat—like when you’re in the laundry room together or while you’re both out walking your dogsyou’ll have to create one.
Step 1: Make contact: You can go the traditional route and bake something and drop it in front of the door with a note with your phone number asking her to text you when she’s done with the Tupperware (now you have a way to contact her!) Or you can go up and knock with a wifi-related query, or a request to borrow an egg, or a phone charger, or a dishwasher detergent tablet, or whatever. Again, find a way to get her number.
Step 2: Make friendly conversation: “Do you know if they’re going to collect the trash on President’s Day?” “FYI we’ll be out of town. If a box comes in and it isn’t too heavy, could you put it in front of our door? “We have leftover birthday cake, would you like some?” “If you hear a lot of noise down here, we’re hanging a painting.” etc.
Step 3: Offer support: “Hey, I hope this is not too invasive. We heard an argument last night and I just wanted to let you know that if things ever get heated and you need to take some space or need a safe place to be, our door is open and you can come down any time. Or if you need to talk, we’re here. Again, I hope I’m not overstepping—I’m sure you’ve heard us raising our voices too, it’s part of apartment living—and hopefully everything is fine. But if it ever isn’t, please use my phone number at any hour of the day or night.”
That’s all you can do!
Dear Prudence,
I don’t know how best to support my boyfriend in his relationship with his body. We’ve been together for about four years and he’s been chubby for most of that time, which he’s been comfortable and even happy with. He has worked from home since COVID began, but his company, after delaying their return to in-person work several times, finally announced that they wouldn’t be returning in person at all but instead transitioning to a fully remote workplace. This has been really difficult for my boyfriend as he hates having home and work in the same place and had been really looking forward to finally “going back to the office.”
The issue is that he’s an absent/emotional eater and grazes constantly throughout the day when he works from home. Stressed out about a project? He snacks. Anxious about a meeting? He snacks. Bored? Excited? He snacks, sometimes to the point where by the end of the workday, he’s on the couch with a food coma and too full to eat dinner. He’s always been a big snacker, but having constant access to our kitchen during the workday has exacerbated the habit by a lot. I honestly wonder if the stress of his work situation has triggered binge eating disorder or something similar, though I haven’t broached that with him.
He’s gained a lot of weight over the past couple years, and although he never expressed discomfort with his body before this, recently he’s made some comments about being frustrated by his “lack of self-control” (his words) and said some cruel, disparaging things about his current weight and how he doesn’t fit into his clothes. I think he looks great regardless and have told him as much—I have zero issue with his weight gain except that he’s upset about it. It’s really difficult to watch him struggle with this and see him so unhappy in his body when he used to be the opposite.
So my question is, what can I do to support him? We already go for daily walks together, and I’ve made it clear to him that I don’t think less of him for any of this, and my (deep) attraction to him has not changed now that he’s heavier. I’ve also felt him out about finding a similar job somewhere else if working from home is detrimental for him, but he loves his job and his coworkers and has great benefits on which we both rely for insurance, so he’s loath to leave. I love him and I hate seeing him be so cruel to himself, and I want to do whatever I can to help him through this—I just don’t know how.
— Stumped in Seattle
Dear Stumped,
I can tell how much you love your boyfriend and want him to be happy. I imagine you’re hoping I’ll say something like “stop buying snacks” or “meal prep on Sundays” or “make sure he gets enough protein and fiber” or “gently encourage him to read a book instead of eating when he gets bored,” and you’re fantasizing about being able to implement that advice and save him from his misery and get your happy partner back. I just don’t think I can do it, though.
If a little encouragement and support from a loved one were a meaningful path to weight loss, believe me, we wouldn’t have a billion-dollar industry (packed with products and services that also don’t work) targeting people who are desperate to shrink their bodies. The fact that your boyfriend gained weight and is miserable as a result is all part of a larger story about how cruel our society is to fat people. And that story will not be changed by your spearheading more nightly strolls around the neighborhood.
Try to disengage from the analysis of his work schedule and its relationship to his snacking. That’s too much detail to think about when it comes to another adult’s life, even if that adult is someone you care about very much.
A sentence that stood out to me in your letter was “I love him and I hate seeing him be so cruel to himself.” You can’t change the messages the world has sent him about how putting on a few extra pounds is the worst and most shameful thing ever, and you can’t change the fact that he’s absorbed those messages. But I think where you can work to decrease his suffering by being kinder to him than he’s able to be to himself and maybe even by serving as a buffer between him and other people who will make him feel horrible about something that is not—contrary to popular belief—a moral failure.
In a 2019 essay “How to Support Your Fat Friends, as a Straight Size Person,” the author, podcaster, and activist Aubrey Gordon chronicles how painful it is to be surrounded by people who are obsessing about their diets if not directly antagonizing her about her weight—and by loved ones who don’t take seriously what she deals with, writing, “thinner friends have minimized, dismissed, and recasted events they neither witnessed nor experienced, going out of their way to explain away the harms done to me and other fat people in their lives.”
Worse, she writes, they blame her for these things. “The vast majority of thin people I know have memorized their lines, which always imply—but fall short of directly stating—that whatever befalls me as a fat person is somehow my fault. All roads lead back to me, to the problem of my body.”
Don’t be that person. Don’t talk about how fat you’ve gotten too, when you’ve only gained five pounds. Don’t be the loved one saying “I know you’re suffering and I know people are treating you poorly. What if you got a treadmill desk, wouldn’t that help?” There’s a whole internet full of tips and ideas if he wants them. If someone has to keep tabs on workday snacks and come up with ideas to minimize them, leave that up to him. But what you can offer—and what I think he probably needs most, in a world that is making him feel like he’s done something awful by gaining a little weight—is a consistent, firm reminder that he’s okay the way he is, at the size he is, and that he is not a problem.
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Dear Prudence,
My best friend of 35 years is a man (I’m a woman). We are in our mid-50s. We love each other and have for some time. We have just been waiting for the other one to say it. So, finally we have both admitted to one another we’d like to try elevating our relationship to the next level. It’s going beautifully. We enjoy each other so much and are spending our weekends together and have begun a physical relationship. We are happy. Truly are! We want to go to Texas together in the fall to a game, and he has asked me to go with to visit his family. He says he is happy and fond of where his life is going. How does this man feel about us?
— Tired of Being Hurt
Dear Tired of Being Hurt,
You’re asking “How does this man feel about us?” but what you really want to know is “Can you promise he won’t hurt me?” I can’t, and I hate that. The terrifying thing about relationships is that you can list all a person’s actions and all the things they’ve said to you and it can look extremely promising, and then they can decide they don’t love you anymore one day and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m sorry, I know that’s really dark! It’s why people say falling in love is scary. But imagining that worst case scenario, and trusting that you’ll be able to cope with it, will allow you to stop asking “How does this man feel about us” and start enjoying what sounds like (again, no guarantees here! But it does sound like it …) a pretty amazing relationship.
Help! I Want a Baby, But I’m Worried About Mental Health Issues That Run in My Family
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My parents are divorced due to my dad cheating on my mom with my godmother, her (then) closest friend. My mom and I walked in on them together when I was 6 years old and she had taken me out of school early due to my being sick. Seeing them was awful and the divorce was a nightmare. My mom wanted custody split evenly, but my dad missed picking me up so regularly and would so often take me back to mom’s early that eventually she got sole custody instead. It was a really difficult time in which I felt my dad didn’t love me anymore. When I was 9, my mom married “Gareth,” my stepdad. Gareth was and is incredible—everything my dad wasn’t. He showed up for all my school events, patiently looked after me during my worst, moodiest teenage behavior and a severe mental health crisis when I was 15, and all-round has been the best father figure you could wish for. He and I are close to this day, and I love that my mom has found such a great man.
I’m getting married next spring. I of course want Gareth to walk me down the aisle. He seemed overjoyed when I asked him, and he and my mom have been enthusiastically helping me and my fiancé with wedding plans—they have offered significant financial support, for which we are deeply grateful. My dad, meanwhile, has only met my partner once, and was extremely rude to him. I wouldn’t dream of accepting financial aid from my dad even if it was ever offered, incidentally. Nonetheless, I invited my dad to my wedding and asked if he would not start a fight with my mom and Gareth if we all sat at the family table together. He agreed, then asked sharply if I was doing the “father walks you down the aisle” tradition. I said yes, and that I’d asked Gareth, as the man who raised me for most of my childhood. My dad blew up, yelling at me and saying that my mom had “stolen” me from him as a child, that she had obviously manipulated me into hating him, and that if he saw Gareth walking me down the aisle, he’d walk out of the wedding.
I was genuinely taken aback as, to be honest, my dad has never come across as particularly caring about me or being involved in my life before this—he hasn’t ever visited my home and never calls me, always expecting that I will call him and make arrangements to see him. He prioritizes his latest girlfriends over me, consistently. My fiancé thinks we should disinvite him from the wedding to prevent him causing trouble, while my mom suspects that he is all talk and wouldn’t actually leave midway through as he claims. I don’t know what to do. Part of me is weirdly touched that he even cares about this, while the rest of me is furious at his actions. I need an outside viewpoint—what do you think I should do?
— Get Me Out of Here
Dear Get Me Out of Here,
“Part of me is weirdly touched that he even cares about this” is such a great insight. There’s a part of you that still really wants love from your dad, and that’s totally understandable. But your wedding is not the place to get it. This event is for people who want to celebrate you, who are happy for you, and who have played an important role in your life. Gareth is in that group and, at least for now, your father is not. “Dad, you threatened to get up and leave halfway through the wedding. I want it to be a celebratory day without any blowups or conflicts, and it doesn’t sound like you plan to enjoy yourself or be positive, so I think it’s best for everyone if you don’t attend,” is a very reasonable thing to say.
Dear Prudence Uncensored
“He definitely needs to be contrite and open-hearted here. If he can’t muster that, then sure: leave his ass at home.”
Jenée Desmond-Harris and friends discuss a letter in this week’s Dear Prudence Uncensored—only for Slate Plus members.
Dear Prudence,
I would appreciate your help with a minor issue that is becoming not-so-minor. I have a good friend (we can call her “Louise”) who I’ve known for close to 15 years. She’s recently developed a habit that’s getting on my nerves: She will send me memes, jokes, and cute videos multiple times a day, almost every day of the week except on weekends. For example, one day about two weeks ago she sent me four (!), and today by 10:30 a.m. she’d already sent me two. On top of that, it’s generally during my work hours; fortunately, I work from home—as does she, and I’m assuming she’s bored—so I’m not getting in trouble because of it, but the interruptions are annoying.
I’ve turned off as many notifications as I can, and I try not to respond unless I’m on lunch or my day is over, but she’ll send more regardless. Can you suggest a way to bring this up gently, as I need her to calm down but don’t want to hurt her feelings? It’s nice that she’s thinking about me, but once or twice a week would be fine. How many baby Yoda memes does one person need to share?
— Meme in Peace
Dear Meme in Peace,
A handful of videos or memes a day between close friends sounds solidly within normal range for life in 2023. But if you don’t like it, you don’t like it, and that’s totally fine. This is a situation in which it’s better to decide how you’ll respond than to try to dictate how someone else behaves. After all, your friend isn’t showing up banging on your door forcing you to look at the latest TikTok. You were on the right track with turning off notifications. If you’re truly busy, just don’t look at your phone and you won’t see them until you’re in a position to respond. Then you can scroll through at your leisure on Saturday and pick one to acknowledge, saying “Sorry I’m slow to see these and can’t keep up with everything you send because I have notifications off during the weekdays so I don’t get interrupted. But this one was hilarious!”
Give Prudie a Hand in “We’re Prudence”
Sometimes even Prudence needs a little help. This week’s tricky situation is below. Join the conversation about it on Twitter with Jenée @jdesmondharris, and then look back for the final answer here on Friday.
Dear Prudence,
I got labeled aggressive by one of my friends. I’ve always known that I intimidate people, but I never really thought it was because of my personality. I always thought it was either because of my body type, my athletic ability, or my education. Recently, I lost touch with a friend of mine. That’s not completely uncommon for me when I get busy at work. I ran into her over the weekend. She was nice and friendly, but definitely got uncomfortable when a friend came up and mentioned a party she was having. It was clear she didn’t want me to go, and I brought that up. Long story short, she accused me of having an “aggressive” personality. She didn’t mean I was mean, she meant that I get really excited about things, am confident in my opinions, and am sometimes very loud.
That is all absolutely true and I have no plans on changing that, but my problem is, I think this may be why I no longer have any close friends. I’ve always thought of myself as a social chameleon, preferring to match the vibe of the other person, unless I’m talking about something I’m passionate about. I don’t usually talk about those things unless the person I’m talking to has the same interest. I am naturally a very lighthearted person and I always thought that people saw that instead of my size or my resume. A few years ago, I found out there was a boy I liked in high school who was intimidated by my athletic ability, and for years I’ve seen people act weird when I tell them where I graduated from college, but I always thought that didn’t matter because of my personality. Now I’m wondering if that’s true. Even in college, I had very few friends, even among athletes who wouldn’t be intimidated by me. I really want to find some close friends again. Do you have any advice on how I can avoid intimidating people while not hiding who I am?
— Aggressively Friendly
Dear Prudence,
My almost four-year marriage is in dire straits due to my wife’s obsession with her teen daughter from a previous relationship. I say “her” daughter because my wife doesn’t want me to have anything to do with her parenting or time with her daughter. The daughter is my wife’s priority and doesn’t think the marriage should take precedence over her relationship with her daughter. The daughter no longer likes me and tries to always be with my wife so I can have no time with her. My wife seems to relish in this. If I come into a room they are in, they stop their talking and laughing together until I leave, and then it resumes. If I confront my wife about it, she says it’s all in my head, and I really should let it go. When I come into her home, my wife refuses to even greet or acknowledge me. I say “her” home because she completely left me out of the recent homebuying process. It was her and the daughter’s involvement. Most of my stuff is in storage because I am not allowed to fill the house with any of it yet the daughter can. No pictures of us or our wedding are allowed, yet pictures of the daughter are all around the house. My wife’s office is a shrine to her daughter. There is no affection or intimacies anymore. She yells at me if she even converses with me. She comes to bed late and says nothing and falls asleep. Lately I’ve given up and just slept on the couch. She told me the other day that I need to change to be someone she deserves. The problem is, I don’t know what that means or why she’s saying it as I’m still the same person I was when we married. I’m at my wits’ end and don’t know where to go from here.
— Lost, Alone, and Frustrated
Dear Frustrated,
No, no, no. Your marriage is not in dire straits due to your wife’s obsession with her teenage daughter from a previous relationship. It’s in dire straits due to your wife having extreme contempt for you, and due to whatever happened to cause her to say you need to change to be someone she deserves. I can’t say at all whether she randomly started hating you or whether you did something to get her to this awful place, but it’s time to start looking at that clearly (hopefully with the help of a therapist!). Leave the kid out of it, and consider that it may be time to leave yourself.
Classic Prudie
A friend of a friend contacted me about six months ago asking for money. He was in a tough place and was reaching out to anyone who had previously donated to a GoFundMe he had set up a few months earlier. I gave a little and didn’t think much of it. Since then, he’s continually messaged me for money, and the requests have started coming more often…
Correction, March 16, 2023: This column originally misspelled Aubrey Gordon’s first name.
