Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Prudence,
My brother was married and had twins who are now teenagers. He got a divorce two years ago and immediately moved in with his female coworker. I recently found out they had a baby and got married without telling us. We spend holidays, birthdays, and summers together. He still hasn’t told me personally. I can’t help but feel hurt by this. How do I approach this without ruining our relationship?
—My Brother Got Married
Dear Got Married,
I mean, this really isn’t on you. Your brother already took significant steps toward ruining your relationship by keeping a massive secret. If you two don’t talk about the fact that he has a wife and child, there’s not much there to preserve. How do you even have discussions about his life if the deepest you can go when you’re spending all summer together is “Wow, it’s humid” and “Can I use your sunscreen?”
Anyway, my guess is that he didn’t tell you because he was cheating with his coworker before he got divorced and has a lot of shame around the situation, which made him delay sharing the news of the move-in, and then the marriage, and then the baby. The secrecy just got out of hand. If you can say this and mean it, I recommend:
“So, I just learned about your baby and I want to reach out and congratulate you. I know you have been through a lot with the divorce and these last few years have been an emotional rollercoaster, so I think I understand why you haven’t shared the news about your new family. But I love and support you and would really like to meet my niece/nephew and new sister-in-law when you are ready. I hope you’re not worried that because of my connection to your ex and the twins I’ll make things weird. I promise I won’t, and if there’s anything that’s off limits to talk about just let me know.”
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Dear Prudence,
I know it sounds materialistic, but when my son got engaged to his new wife, one thing I was thrilled about was that I would finally receive good gifts. Gifts are my love language, but my son is atrocious at gift-giving (a fact my now-DIL and I have commiserated over) while my DIL gives lovely, thoughtful gifts. My dream came true for the first couple of years of their marriage, but they recently had their first baby and apparently redistributed chores to accommodate for the extra workload. Now, my son buys gifts for his side of the family, and my DIL buys gifts for hers. So, her mother receives delightful gifts while I get grocery store checkout lane gift cards! I’d like to ask that she take over gift giving again. How do I do that in the most respectful way?
—It’s the Thought That Counts, and He’s Not Thoughtful
Dear He’s Not Thoughtful,
I don’t have a problem with you being materialistic! I have a problem with you having zero expectations of the man you raised, while you’re completely comfortable making demands of a woman you met a few years ago. There’s a reasonable path to lovely gifts, and it involves leaving your busy daughter-in-law alone, and telling your son (who is, again, the person you raised!) that gift cards aren’t doing it for you.
Dear Prudence,
I (white female) held a dinner party with people who I considered to be compassionate guests. I have chosen my friends carefully and removed myself from relationships with anyone who is cruel, bigoted, or petty. I was stunned when a white woman who I thought I knew well used “big and Black” to describe a man who had threatened her, as if that was the reason she was afraid of him instead of describing his inappropriate behavior. What made matters worse was that she was seated next to a woman of mixed heritage who is often mistaken for white. I couldn’t believe that I made an error in judgment about the guest who was so casually racist. I was literally speechless. Usually, if someone says something bigoted, I make it known that I want no part in that discussion, I disagree, and I remove myself. I wanted to say something, but the woman was talking over the crowd and quickly changed to another topic before I could say how I felt. What is the best way to address the situation after the fact? I’m embarrassed and mad at myself for not standing up for what is right at the moment.
—Racist Dinner Party
Dear Dinner Party,
Oh boy. First of all, forgive yourself for not saying anything at the moment. Everyone can relate to being absolutely shocked and outraged, not saying a word (because we don’t get up every day expecting to have to confront our friends and dinner party guests), and then coming up with the perfect response while taking a shower 12 hours later.
What you need to do now is to reach out, not to the woman of color but to the white woman. Tell her you were too stunned to say anything at the moment but you were really taken aback by her “big and Black” comment, which obviously suggested that Black was something that made a person scary, which was horribly racist. If she doesn’t respond well, you’ll have to decide what kind of relationship you want to have with her going forward. If she apologizes and is mortified, great.
Once that’s handled, NOW you go to your other friend and say “I’m sure that wasn’t the first time you’ve heard a racist comment, and I don’t want to make assumptions about how you feel or dump my feelings about this on you, but I just want to say how sorry I am that it happened in my home, and how awful I feel that I didn’t confront the woman who said it in the moment. It was probably a day late and a dollar short but I did reach out to her and tell her why it was unacceptable. It’s a reminder that I need to scrutinize my friends’ beliefs more closely. Don’t feel obligated to respond if you don’t want to but of course if you want to talk or think there’s anything else I should do, let me know.”
Catch up on this week’s Prudie.
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