I Knew My Boyfriend Was Anxious About Getting Me Pregnant. But He’s Taking It to a Bizarre Place.

Dear Prudence This is getting ridiculous. 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 03, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Prostock-Studio /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’ve been dating my boyfriend for nine months or so. I am childfree and he has one teenage daughter as a result of an accidental pregnancy. He is adamant that he doesn’t want more children, and is very worried about having another accidental pregnancy. I have an IUD and a hormonal condition that affects my fertility, so I am not worried about that, and I would not keep the baby if I were to get pregnant. Despite all of that, he still prefers to use condoms and he also pulls out. He makes sure to tie off and flush the used condoms immediately—I thought this was simply a cleanliness thing, but now I’m not so sure. Because of my IUD, I no longer get a period so he asks me to take monthly pregnancy tests. A few months ago, I asked if he had ever considered a vasectomy. He said he would like to get one and that he’s called his doctor’s office and gotten a referral, but had not heard from the vasectomy clinic yet. I’ve asked about it a few other times and he said that he’s followed up with the clinic and is still just waiting for an appointment time. Well, recently his pregnancy paranoia has gotten worse and he asked if I would use a contraceptive sponge (in addition to the condoms) and also start taking weekly pregnancy tests if he paid for and provided them. I said no, and that I would rather just refrain from intercourse until after his vasectomy because I couldn’t handle his pregnancy anxiety anymore. He said he didn’t want to wait that long. I was confused, because the wait time for a vasectomy in our area is three-to-six months and it has been close to six months since he first said he got the referral. When I pointed this out, he sheepishly admitted that he had never asked for the referral. I told him that he needs to either get the vasectomy, or get his anxiety under control (ideally both) or I am done. He accused me of forcing him to get a vasectomy he doesn’t want (he said he wanted one all this time!) and said that it’s “his body his choice.” He said that it’s abusive and coercive to give him an ultimatum that involves permanently altering his body. I would honestly be fine with him never getting a vasectomy because I feel sufficiently protected by my own birth control, but I am upset about the lying, and his anxiety over pregnancy has almost completely ruined my enjoyment of sex with him. Is there any path forward from this? Am I really a terrible person for encouraging him to get a vasectomy I thought he wanted? Believe it or not, until this issue, our relationship was really great! —Snip It Dear Snip It, You’re not a terrible person for encouraging your boyfriend to get a vasectomy, and you’re right to draw a line when it comes to catering to his paranoia and unnecessarily stacking methods of birth control. And his allegation that you’re “forcing” him to get the vasectomy he said he wanted and being abusive is definitely a bit overblown. But his response does point to a misstep you’re making. Instead of setting a totally reasonable boundary—“Nope, I’m not going to use a contraceptive sponge or do anything else to ease your anxiety about pregnancy” —you are trying to push him to do something he doesn’t want to do, leaving you feeling powerless and him feeling coerced. What you’re doing is actually controlling, even if it’s true that your approach to the underlying situation is the more reasonable one. In a piece for Simply Psychology, Anna Drescher explains the difference between boundaries (good) and control (bad) really well: Boundaries aren’t the rules we set for others; they’re the limits we set for ourselves within relationships. That means, if the other person’s behavior bothers you or pushes you to the limit, you have to take responsibility and change your response rather than trying to change the other person … Control is about wanting (and expecting) the other person to suit your ideal and forcing them to meet your needs. This can lead to resentment, rebellion, and an unhealthy relationship dynamic. You can see how “Get a vasectomy or get your anxiety under control” resembles the examples she gives in that piece of controlling statements: “You can’t speak to other men/women”; “I’ll tell you what to wear”; “If you have a different opinion to me, this isn’t going to work” and “You have to give me all your passwords.” Instead of making rules like this, Drescher suggests that you can decide whether the current relationship is working for you and proceed accordingly. For example, she writes, “if you don’t like how another person dresses, you can move on. If you don’t like their social media activity, find someone else.” I know it’s not easy to walk away from someone you love, especially when a simple outpatient procedure could seemingly solve all of your problems. But saying “This anxiety about sex has turned this relationship into something that doesn’t work for me” allows you to free yourself from this frustrating dynamic without being accused of taking away your boyfriend’s bodily autonomy—and without fighting so much that you end up preventing pregnancy by embracing abstinence. 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 have a bit of a heartthrob mystery on my hands. There’s this guy, who is, objectively, an 11/10. I’m 5’7”, and I practically have to look up to talk to him. The strange part? He keeps looking at me in the hallways, making eye contact, and smiling or smirking. Recently, he even went to sit with his friends at the table directly behind mine and kept looking over at me. Meanwhile, our friends have started yelling our names together at lunch and calling him “my man.” Someone even joked that if he likes me, I’ll become his wife. I never asked anyone to investigate him, but a friend apparently asked, and he said he doesn’t know who I am. So … what exactly am I supposed to make of all this? Is he flirting, curious, or am I completely losing it? —The Hallway Heartthrob Dear Heartthrob, I’m trying to figure out whether you’re in high school or college, and I’m going to go for high school based on the part about your friends yelling your names together, which is hilarious. And ridiculous. I’m sure this whole situation has you feeling all giddy and makes going to class every day a lot more fun. There’s nothing like a crush. I’m sorry to say I think it’s equally possible that he’s very interested in you (and, for some reason, lied when asked about it) or that he has a friendly face and makes a lot of eye contact. Either way, you’re not losing it. And you can move forward despite the confusion and uncertainty. Here’s how: The next time he’s smiling at you in the hallway, say to him “Hi! I’m [Your name]. I see you everywhere but I don’t think we’ve actually met.” Or translate that to how a teenager would say it, but you know what I mean. Then pay attention to his reaction and, just as importantly, how you feel when you’re talking to him rather than just admitting his extreme height. If he’s as interested as you are, he’ll take the opportunity to take your relationship from flirtatious glances to chatting, or sharing an inside joke, or pretending that you are both tired of how everyone is talking about how you might get married one day, or even exchanging numbers or Instagrams or Snapchats or whatever. Remember, you don’t need to immediately get a complete answer about how he feels about you or what it means when he smirks in your direction, but you can try to get to know him better and see how it feels. Want more Prudie? Slate Plus members get an additional column each week. Sign up for Slate Plus now. Dear Prudence, My mom is doing the only thing I ever dreamed of for her, but I’m angry about it. She was an alcoholic my entire life, but she turned over a new leaf when my oldest brother had kids. He told her she couldn’t see them, and it motivated her to get and stay sober. She’s been sober for nine years now, and I have kids of my own. She is a wonderful grandma—silly, kind, responsible. I should be happy, but I’m finding myself so angry. Why were grandkids enough to get her sober, but never the multiple CPS calls in my childhood? My brothers don’t feel the same way, they’re just grateful she’s sober. I feel jealous and angry whenever my kids see her, because she treats them so well and makes it seem easy. How do I deal with this? I don’t want to ruin their relationship, but I’m so upset every time. —Angry Daughter Dear Angry Daughter, I can see another side of this, which is that your mom was ready to meet your brother’s demand to get sober because it lined up with when she would have been ready to get sober regardless. We don’t know exactly what else was going on with her, if there were other factors that made her want to stop drinking, if she read or heard something that really hit home for her, if she finally found a 12-step meeting that made her feel she could live life without alcohol. I completely understand why you were hurt, but I would frame it more as “I’m hurt that my mother was an alcoholic my entire life” than “I’m hurt that she finally got sober for my brother and his kids.” Even if she’d stopped drinking in response to an ultimatum from you instead of him, you would still have tons of pain to contend with. And it’s not really that she treats her grandchildren well that feels like a betrayal, it’s that she didn’t treat you that well when you were their age. I think it would be healthier for you to focus on what you endured (which is enough on its own!). I suspect it feels scarier and more overwhelming to think about that deep wound itself than what she’s doing today and why it’s unfair. But it’s worth it, because if you can heal from it (a therapist would be very helpful here), you will probably get to a point where you can be legitimately happy that your kids have in a grandmother what you never had in a mother. Classic Prudie My fiancé and I are in the early stages of planning a black-tie optional wedding in late fall/early winter. I know my parents graciously want to pay for most of the wedding; however, my fiancé and I are in a position that we are happy to contribute, as we are in our mid-30s and established in our careers and finances. Most of our friends have younger children, and we know they will welcome a kid-free night they can get dressed up for. My mom is very supportive that we want a kid-free wedding, with the exception of my fiancé’s niece who will be a flower girl and then be tucked in for the reception. I know my mother also wants to keep the guest list pretty exclusive, which aligns with the intimate vibe my fiancé and I are envisioning. I told my mom I was not interested in inviting my 13-year-old special needs cousin “Abby.” Advice Dear Prudence