Help! My Sister-in-Law Has Latched on to Our Healthy Hobby. Her Expectations of Us Are Outrageous.

Dear Prudence Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so we’re diving into the Dear Prudence archives to share classic letters with our readers. Submit your own questions to Prudie here. Dear Prudence, My husband and I have been competitive distance runners for the past two years. We love competing for personal bests in formal timed races we enter, and it’s been a great activity we can do together that has helped us stay healthy. Then a few months ago, my sister-in-law took a sudden interest in running and has wedged herself into our running habit. We assumed that her interest would go the way of her previous fitness interests and fizzle out over time. (She went to Crossfit five times a week for two weeks, joined a spin gym for a month, tried aerial silks classes for a month, and then attempted P90X before selling all the DVDs on Craigslist after about three weeks.) While we’re thrilled she’s trying to find something that works for her, having her along while we’re trying to run races has been very taxing. She is extremely slow and hasn’t seemed to grasp that running is not a team sport, and is a personal best endeavor. She gets upset if we post on social media about a race and didn’t invite her (we do about one per month), and when we do invite her, she throws a fit if we don’t stay with her for the race. During the last race, my husband got so frustrated and so concerned about his overall qualifying time for an upcoming race that he lost his temper and ran ahead when she stopped to rest for the fifth time, after which she wrote a nasty post on social media about how family stays with family and how she was “betrayed today.” We have a race coming up in a few weeks, and it’s a big one for us, but we’re terrified to say anything about it online for fear that she’ll invite herself and then demand we run slowly with her. Should we just acknowledge that we’re going to hurt her feelings in the short term and wait for her to move on to something else? Is there something else we can say to her that won’t cause her to feel so hurt? —Feeling Like a Tortoise Dear Tortoise, “Jellicle, I’m glad you’re taking an interest in racing and hope you enjoy it, but we’re going to continue to run at our own pace and set our own schedule.” If that hurts her feelings, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. She is choosing to be unreasonable, and the only person she is hurting is herself. Gently encourage her to make better choices, and don’t feel responsible for her self-inflicted pain. —Danny M. Lavery From: Help! My Sister’s Fiancé Is Cheating on Her. Here’s Why I Might Not Tell Her. (August 22nd, 2017). Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Prudence, My brother’s seven years younger. He quit high school, could never keep a job, and stole from them until he was in his 20s. I got top grades in university and went to grad school. My parents helped him buy a condo about 10 years ago—and told me they couldn’t afford to also help me get into one but would someday (I was busy then paying off student loans). Since then, prices here have more than tripled, and I can’t afford to get into the market, but his condo is nearly paid off. My parents have since retired and say all their money is locked in investments.I can’t get over it. It really shouldn’t bother me—but it does, pretty much every day. I feel like a whiny, spoiled brat. How do I get over this? —Parents Helped Brother Dear Helped, At the risk of sounding like a total cliché, I think this is about more than just the condo. One of the sadder themes of this column is how often parental favoritism has painful repercussions for their children their whole lives long. However you decide to deal with this emotional sticking point—whether that be therapy, limiting your contact with your parents, or whatever else—I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that your parents are unlikely to change and that they have long favored your brother over you, and that hurts. It’s a simple, painful truth, and it’s not one that’s easy to come to terms with. Whatever your financial future looks like, it’s going to be one that comes without assistance from them. That’s a loss, to be sure, but you’ve also got things your brother doesn’t and never will. You’re self-sufficient, and you’ve built a life that doesn’t require frequent bailouts from your parents. —D.M.L. From: Help! My Girlfriend Won’t Donate to Harvey Victims Because Some of Them Voted for Trump. (August 28th, 2017). Dear Prudence, This spring I found my biological father and his family for the first time. The man I thought was my father died when I was 13, and he obviously preferred my half-brothers to me. I also didn’t get along with my stepfather when my mother remarried when I was a teenager. When I was 19, I went through some of my mother’s papers and found my real father’s name. I found him, and he and his wife were both wonderful. My father told me that he dated my mother long ago, but after she left, she lied to him about me. A DNA test confirmed we’re related, but my mother continued to lie to me after I confronted her with the truth. She finally admitted it but accused me of invading her privacy and going “behind her back.” She asked me to lie to my brothers, but I refused. I moved out. I refused to stop seeing my new family, even though my mother told me I was embarrassing her. I see my father, stepmother, and sisters regularly. It is such a relief to have them in my life. My father has offered to pay for my school, and my stepmother has invited me for the holidays—they are welcoming, warm, and kind to me. Now I don’t know how to forgive my mother. She keeps lying and saying she did what she thought was best for me and that my stepfather loved me like I was “his own.” When I tell her how cold he always was to me, she tells me I am remembering wrong. I miss my brothers, but I can’t see my mother without seeing red. She wants to play pretend again, and I won’t do it, but I don’t know what to do. —Lying Mother Dear L.M., You get to keep taking as much time and space as you need. Try to remember that you have only very recently, and at a very young age, learned a life-altering truth about your own family. If your school offers counseling services to students, take advantage of it and see a therapist. Anger is a completely appropriate response to what you’re going through, so give yourself permission to be angry for a while. If your mother pushes you to agree that she acted in your best interests, refuse. If you keep your mother at arm’s length for a while, especially if she continues to insist that your childhood was a happy one and ignore the very real hurt that she’s caused you, then you should do that without guilt or hesitation. If your brothers still live with your mother, you can let them know that you love them and miss them. Call, text, or email them—keep in touch in whichever way doesn’t require you to go through your mother. Continue to cultivate a relationship with your father and his side of the family as you make up for lost time. You don’t have to do anything right now besides focus on going to school and doing what you need to do in order to take care of yourself. —D.M.L. From: Help! I Found My Biological Father, but My Mom Wants Me to Forget Him. (August 24th, 2017). Classic Prudie My boyfriend was in a wedding recently for his good friend as a groomsman. When we first got the invite (we live together and have for 3 years) we discovered I wasn’t invited and he did not have a plus one. We’ve met this couple before and they knew we had been dating for close to four years by that point. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family