Help! My Wife Is Stuck on What She Thinks Is a “Missing Part” of Our Family. It’s Hurting the One We Do Have.

Dear Prudence Our sons are asking some heartbreaking questions. Advice by Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Jenée Desmond-Harris? Sept 16, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by gradyreese/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. Dear Prudence, My wife grew up with four brothers and lost her mother young. She also was never close to her stepmother, who is genuinely great but quite brutally frank when you’re speaking to her. My wife idealized the idea of the mother-daughter bond. We have two boys, who are 5 and 8, and are not going to have any more kids. The last pregnancy put my wife and son in the ICU. I got a vasectomy. Everyone is healthy now, but my wife has become obsessed with our “missing daughter.” My wife repeatedly says she wants a daughter and laments how “lucky” her brothers are for having daughters. She has been looking up surrogacy and IVF right in front of me and talking about how we could afford it with our insurance. We have fought openly over this. Worse, our boys have asked why Mom doesn’t love them anymore, and whether she wishes they were girls. My wife says she doesn’t mean it that way, but she will not see a professional to deal with her gender dissatisfaction. I grew up with a sister, and my mother and her still fight like cats and dogs. I love my wife, but this addiction to some ideal that doesn’t and will never exist is driving a wedge between us. Help! —Father of Two Dear Father of Two, When I was in college, I used to love to go listen to guest speakers in the evenings, and one particular man who I believe was a member of the surrounding community, not a student, was often at the same events. I remember him because whenever a speaker made a particularly incisive point about the Black experience, he would affirm it by yelling in this booming, deep voice from his seat at the back of the room, “THERAPY!” He definitely meant it as shorthand for “It was therapeutic to hear that,” not “someone needs therapy.” Still, whenever I think a letter represents something that would be absolutely perfect fodder for a professional, I remember him and say, “THERAPY!” to myself in his voice as I compose my response. I just did that. Your wife is having trouble dealing with the details of the hand life has dealt her, and the worst part is that it’s taking away from her enjoyment of the family she has, straining her marriage and scarring your sons. It’s not something you are likely to talk her out of. It’s always tough to send someone to therapy, especially when they believe their outlook is reasonable, don’t want to change it, and have said they don’t want to see a professional. But why don’t you suggest couples counseling with a focus on how this conflict has affected your relationship and how you can move past it? I’m hopeful that if you can get here to take that step, she’ll then be referred to individual sessions where she can unpack her past and the toll it’s taking on this era of her life. In the meantime, tap into the part of her that loves being a mother and cares about her children, and implore her to hide this feeling from your sons, even if she doesn’t think she can change it. Do whatever you can to affirm them and convince them that they’re important to both of you. But unfortunately, even entertaining the thought that their mother doesn’t love them has probably taken a toll. So, “THERAPY!” for everyone. 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, I’ve just started at this new high school, and I don’t really know too many people. It’s a charter school with only 75 students, and all classes are totally independent. So it’s nearly impossible to make friends or just talk to people, right? Well, my first day was yesterday, and there’s this total cutie in my Algebra class, and I’ve got no clue how to connect with her. We had a fire drill, and she and I were just in an empty field, just us, and she was standing 2 feet away from me for like seven minutes, but I didn’t say a single thing. I also noticed she doesn’t really look at me much, so I’m wondering how to get her attention. Maybe she doesn’t know I like girls. Can you help me get to know my hallway crush? —New Kid (she/her)Dear New Kid, There are a few different things going on here: your interest in making friends at your new school, your interest in making a romantic connection with a cutie, and your interest in making a romantic connection with a cutie who may or may not know your sexual orientation. All of these are totally normal and healthy desires. But right now, you don’t have enough information about any one person to know whether you’d like to get closer to them or what kind of closeness you’d want. So take a few steps back and forget about what this girl thinks of you and what the two of you could become, and focus instead on being curious and gathering information. Instead, give yourself the job of getting to know five people at your new school a little bit better by chatting with them and learning about them. Then, given that data, decide who you think you’d like to talk to more and spend more time with. You can say things like the following: “I just started here. Do you like this school?”“I’m new here. It’s kind of different from a regular school. Do people hang out outside of class?”“How long have you been going here?”“Did you write down the algebra homework?” (This is probably an outdated response; I’m sure it’s posted online somewhere. But you get the idea. Ask a practical question.) Or address the actual situation you’re in with conversations like: “Do you think this is a real fire or just a drill?”“How long do you think until we can go back inside?” Or just a regular old introduction: “Hey, we have algebra together, right? I’m a New Kid.” Then you can follow up with things like a compliment on what the other person is wearing, a question about their interests based on what they’re wearing or the stickers on their laptop, a mention of a show or artist you like, or a query about whether they’ve watched a particular show or movie. When they answer, ask one more follow-up question and then share something about yourself. Then check in with how you feel. Are you enjoying talking to them? Do you feel comfortable? Do you want to know more or spend more time together? Does it feel like flirting? As you get to know people and talk about experiences and cultural references, there will be opportunities to make it clear that you’re interested in girls. Of course, Hallway Crush can be one of the people you talk to. But if your measure of success is getting her to like you back before you even decide how much you like her, you’ll be setting yourself up for disappointment. If you change the goal to learning about the people around you and being open to who you might (or might not) connect with, you’ll be doing yourself—and the many other kids who inevitably wish they had more friends—a big favor. Prudie Wants to Hear From You! Readers often have great suggestions for our letter writers, occasionally disagree with a point Prudie makes, or simply want to provide some additional advice. Each week, Prudie will be replying to some of these comments and suggestions from readers, which will be featured on the site on Fridays for Slate Plus members. Write to us! Or submit a question here. Dear Prudence, My wife’s sister decided to get a puppy while she was eight months pregnant. After their son was born, she and her husband very quickly realized that they didn’t have the capacity to look after both, so we agreed to adopt this adorable, high-energy furball. A year later, they’re demanding we give him back. We actually had that conversation at the time—I know these people—and have several emails confirming that our pup is ours. Despite that, they’re still insisting that the “right thing” is to give them “their dog” back. My sister-in-law has even accused me of “stealing him,” called me a “lowlife scumbag,” and thrown something at me. My wife wants to make peace and keeps talking vaguely of “sharing him,” but I am NOT going to do that, and I feel we need to put them in time-out until they come to their senses. It’s becoming profoundly unpleasant. Do you have a script I can just repeat over and over besides the one I want to use, which is just two words ending in “off”? —Paws Off Dear Paws Off, “I’m really sorry that you regret asking us to adopt Wally, but we’re attached to him and not willing to change our agreement. If you can put a stop to the hostility and insults, you’re welcome to come visit him. If not, we should probably take a break from communicating because we’ve reached an impasse.” Classic Prudie My daughter is in her 40s and just had a baby by herself. She’s finding it difficult to adjust to single motherhood and keeps pushing more of the responsibility on me. I am 70, and caring for an infant more than a few hours at a time is difficult for me. My daughter has a nanny in the mornings and early afternoons, but if she has to work late, she calls me to come over without advance notice, sometimes four days in a week. On weekends, she drops her daughter off with no warning and gets angry if I am out of the house… Advice Dear Prudence Family Kids Parenting