I Can Hear Everything the “Sweet” Old Couple Fights About Next Door. I’m Mortified.

Dear Prudence I can’t stand another minute of this. 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? Aug 20, 202611:32 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by AaronAmat/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, I recently moved into a new house, and things are great with one exception: There’s a couple who lives next door who must be in their 60s, and they are forever engaging in shouting matches. Nothing violent has happened and I doubt it will—it’s just a lot of profanity and insults being traded. The crazy thing is, in public they seem like these sweet older folks who are lightyears away from what is going on in (what they think!) is private. I don’t want to cause them embarrassment, but the hours of hearing about the husband’s sexual inadequacies and how dog food is better than the wife’s cooking is becoming tiresome. Not to mention I’d like to have people over without the disruption. Would an anonymous letter be the way to go to try and make them shut up? —The Walls Are Thin Dear Walls, I can offer no guarantees that you’ll get them to shut up. And for what it’s worth, if I visited someone’s home and got to overhear the neighbors fighting, that would be second only to witnessing a first date while out to dinner when it comes to satisfying my intense nosiness. The content of their arguments could actually be pretty good dinner conversation fodder. There definitely won’t be any awkward silences! So, I don’t think you’re in the worst possible situation—and of course, closed windows, white noise, and music will do a lot to muffle things if you really find the fighting unbearable. That said, if you do want to try to make your neighbors self-conscious enough to keep it down, a letter is fine. Try this: “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but some of us in the neighborhood can hear the things you say when you raise your voices at each other” would be the right tone. Or you could passively aggressively knock on the door and fake a look of concern saying “Is everything okay?? I heard yelling and worried someone was hurt or calling for help.” 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, Once a month during the summer, my wife and I host a very casual evening backyard get-together with friends and family. We provide everything: hot dogs/buns, potato chips, and the makings for s’mores for dessert. If you want something other than the beer/pop that I have, you can BYOB. Most, if not all, the people we invite graciously ask if they can bring anything, and we always say no. Except for my wife’s sister. Despite us telling her, asking her not to, and begging her not to, she ALWAYS brings something which makes the other guests feel bad, as then they think they should have brought something too. She is always so nonchalant about it: “Oh, I made this for the neighbors, but they weren’t home so I brought it here.” It’s nice that it is so ingrained in her mind that she needs to bring something as that is good manners, but we don’t want anything! Last month she brought over some banana nut muffins. I promptly set them on top of the refrigerator, and when she inquired why they weren’t set out, I said, “We repeatedly have asked you not to bring anything, but you do, and this time you bought something with tree nuts and our neighbor’s 4-year-old is severely allergic to them.” She replied, “Well, tell me what to bring, I am not going to be a bad guest and show up empty handed.” I replied, “You are going to be more of a bad guest if you don’t follow the host’s suggestions.” Yesterday, she called and wondered when the next get-together was. We thought that was rude in itself, not waiting to be invited, and we told her it was last weekend. She was pissed! My wife told her we can no longer tolerate her absolute refusal to honor our request not to bring anything. Then she went off the rails, bringing up (seemingly) every etiquette faux-pas that we have committed in the last five years. Who is overreacting? Us with our “hard line” request for guests not to bring anything? Or my sister-in-law’s refusal to honor the host’s requests? Next month is our last get-together for the year, and I’m wondering if we should invite her and take our chance that she will bring something or not include her because “she won’t listen.” —Good Manners or Bad Manners? Dear Good Manners, Well, your family has sure managed to make a low-key fun occasion into a source of massive stress and tension! For many reasons, but most of all because I’d like you to be able to enjoy your monthly gatherings, which sound really nice, I urge you to let this go. Sure, your sister-in-law is technically in the wrong. If she wrote in, I would tell her to honor your request and show up empty handed. She’s being stubborn and rude. But … in pretty much the least harmful way humanly possible. To answer your question directly, it’s you. You are the problem. You are the one who is overreacting. I get that you’re coming from a good place! You don’t want your other guests to see your sister-in-law drop a baked good or salad on the table on the way in and feel guilty or self-conscious or cheap for coming empty handed. But I want to push back on the idea that they really care that much. I’ve heard stories of parents getting stressed about kids’ birthday parties when the invitations say “no gifts” but then some show up with presents, making those who didn’t feel like they missed something. But in that case, people are navigating the expectations of people who they may have never met, hoping to make a good impression on people they only know through their kids. In your case, we’re talking about the friends and family who make the list for your extremely casual gathering. They should have a certain level of comfort with you, and hopefully aren’t worried about failing to make a good impression or misreading social cues. If there’s really a reason to believe that any of them are so sensitive that your sister-in-law’s contribution means they have fallen short or committed a breach of etiquette, you should address it directly. Try something like this to the cookout group chat: “Just sending this text to reiterate that your presence is enough and we don’t need or want you to bring anything on Sunday! Carla has been super stubborn and refuses to honor this request, and I just wanted to make sure that none of you noticed that she forced a watermelon on us and felt that you needed to do the same. I left her off the guest list last time, which was probably an overreaction (I’ve invited her back for next time), but my big concern was that I didn’t want her to start a trend because I just want these get-togethers to be really easy for everyone. Anyway, can’t wait to see you!” Yes, you read that correctly. Assuming her rant about all of your faux pas didn’t include any low blows or offend you beyond repair, you should admit that your response was way too much, and let your sister-in-law come back. Just ask her to bring ice! Want more Prudie? Slate Plus members get an additional column each week. Sign up for Slate Plus now. Dear Prudence, I recently started a job at an office that is big on “family culture,” which translates as all the mommies getting special treatment and treating the rest of us poor peons as gift giving machines. In the past months, there have been three baby showers, two gender reveals, a grandbaby shower, and pressure to sign up for meal trains. All of this is done on company time where we get volunteers that we need to bring food, gifts, or cough up cash. I was fine signing a card or two, but some of these coworkers don’t even know my name. I have student debt, a car loan, and struggling to keep on top of my own work, let alone the upcoming dump when the maternity leave kicks in. It doesn’t help that my manager is chirpy with a chip on her shoulder about people who are queer or don’t want kids. She has already zeroed in on me, asking intrusive questions, and getting on me not automatically picking up the slack for everyone else. I need to have oral surgery and will be out for three days. I scheduled months in advance with approval. The day of I get ready to leave, my manager says I need to stay because three members called out because their kids were sick. I said that was rough but I need to go and I would be on heavy medication and wouldn’t be able to work. Her smile looked like she bit into a lemon. She has since made comments about the company being a “village,” and we all need to be “team players” and lift up each other. I just want to do my job and go home. I want to eat my lunch in peace and not in my car because the break room has been taken over yet again for a party. And the kicker, none of these have been the first kid, but the second or even the fourth. I am fine with people having kids, but I am not paying them in Uber Eats gift cards when I am still eating ramen. I need this job, but I am dreading the upcoming holidays. How do I navigate this? —Just Want to Work Dear Just Want to Work, My advice depends on whether, a) you work for a large company where your manager is one unreasonable person, or b) you work for a small company where your manager is powerful and representative of the entire culture. If it’s the former, it’s definitely worth having a conversation with someone in HR or a superior to your manager about your experience (which you should illustrate by thoroughly documenting every incident) with being subjected to your manager’s negative comments about queer people, being discouraged from taking scheduled sick leave, and being asked at the last minute to do tasks that are outside of your job description and make it difficult to prioritize your other important work. Notice that nowhere in that sentence did I mention people having children or not having children, birthday parties, baby showers, or pressure to participate in meal trains. The “like a family” side of this is annoying and possibly makes the company a bad fit for you. But you’re not being forced to participate in any of the celebrations, so you really don’t have grounds to complain. Instead, focus on the objectively unprofessional behaviors, some of which (especially the homophobic comments) should raise red flags about the workplace being on the wrong side of the law and lead to some changes. If it’s the latter—if it appears that your workplace is a lawless and unprofessional place where no one is playing by the rules—still document everything but also just make plans to get out. You’re unlikely to be able to do anything to make your manager a better or more reasonable boss, and I worry that sticking up for yourself could lead to your firing. While you may have the moral and legal high ground, I don’t imagine it would be great for your lifestyle or bank account to get fired and have to litigate who was in the wrong (even if you’re sure it wasn’t you). As far as making it through the holidays and the forced celebrations, don’t complain out loud and certainly don’t let your opinions about whether people on their third kid deserve a meal train be known. Limit your objections to time and money-related ones: “Sorry, it’s not in my budget to contribute” and “I’ll love to come, but I need to finish something by the end of the day” are reasonable things to say—and if you say them enough, people will stop bugging you to participate. Classic Prudie My husband “Shane” (28M) and I (29F) have been together for 11 years, married for four. We have lived in different states due to our jobs for all four years. We realized that our marriage wasn’t working and decided to separate amicably. Our friend, “Erin”, is getting married seven months from now, and we are both in the wedding party. The problem? Erin is already very stressed about the wedding planning and Shane doesn’t want to add to her stress by announcing our divorce. Advice Dear Prudence