I Paid for My Long-Distance Boyfriend to Come Visit. He Missed the Flight. Then the Nasty Truth Really Came Out.

Dear Prudence I can’t believe he’d do this to me. 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 29, 20268:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by 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 boyfriend and I have been together for one year and in a long-distance relationship for two months. I got a job opportunity with my company that I could not turn down, and so I moved a three-hour plane ride away. My boyfriend has a son who is still in school for five more years, so he has to stay in my former city. The plan is then that we can be together again. I have flown myself back to my old city two times already to visit my boyfriend. He was supposed to come here this past weekend for two nights, but he texted me after his plane was supposed to be in the air already to say that he had slept through his alarm. I had bought his ticket, so I was the one that had to rebook the flight. It cut his visit short by a day, which made me really upset, but I understand that accidents happen. He did come for one night, and we did have a good visit. And he was very apologetic. Except now that he is home, he has admitted what really happened. Apparently, he had been out with coworkers and gotten very drunk the night before, and that’s why he overslept. This changes everything for me! I feel like he was irresponsible and careless and that making his flight on time wasn’t important to him. He insists it was important to him and was just an accident, but I feel like he has shown me that he does not value our relationship. He cannot afford tickets to see me, so I have to pay for all of our travel. This isn’t his fault, but it does make it hard for me to believe him when he says he’s just as in it as me. Do you think I should forget about him oversleeping? Or does this seem like a red flag to you? I never even considered not staying together when I got this job, but it’s much harder than I thought it would be. —Long-Distance Girlfriend Dear Long Distance, “I feel like he has shown me that he does not value our relationship.” You get it.I don’t really have to explain anything to you, except to disagree with you about framing the problem as being about “oversleeping.” I’d say the real issue is that your boyfriend is putting in close to zero effort. It’s not enough to keep any relationship going, let alone one that is going to have to be long distance for five years. And on that note, I’d probably also argue that “does this seem like a red flag?” is the wrong question. A red flag is something that warns you about future problems. Here, there’s no warning needed. You’re living the problem. You’ve only seen this guy twice in a year, and you have questions about his character and decision-making. End it while you’re still on good terms, with an agreement that if you find yourselves in the same place in the future (and he has matured significantly), you’ll try again. Start dating in your new city, and commit to two rules going forward: 1) You’ll focus on your partners’ actions more than their words, and 2) Getting drunk and oversleeping is never a good excuse for anything. 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’m pretty sure my sister-in-law is getting catfished, and I don’t know how to tell her. My husband’s sister, “Pam,” is kind of a difficult person. She’s fun and funny, but she can be kind of volatile, and has cut my husband and his parents off for long periods of time over what I consider to be silly reasons. We see her about once a month for family dinners at his parents’ house, and I do like hanging out with her, but always have my guard up a bit. Last week, she told me about a guy she’s been “seeing” for the past several months.She said she didn’t want to say anything until she was sure it was serious, but that she wanted to tell me she was in love. She hasn’t met him in person. He supposedly owns an apartment in the most expensive neighborhood in our city, but has been traveling for work abroad for the past six months. He’s apparently a photographer who works on location all around the world, but is very private so doesn’t have a website or social media. She says they talk on the phone but are waiting to see each other in person because that’s more romantic. This is just obviously fake to me and this guy is obviously going to be asking her for money any day now. Listening to her talk about it I was so stunned I just kind of nodded and was like, wow, good for you, he sounds great. I told my husband later and he just rolled his eyes and said, “Classic Pam.” He says she’ll figure it out eventually and that trying to intervene is not the move with her, that she wouldn’t believe me and would blame me if I turned out to be right. We have dinner again next week and I’m just dreading having to pretend this is normal with her. Is my husband right, should I just leave it? It feels wrong. —He Sounds Too Good to Be True Dear Sounds Too Good, If you really liked Pam and the two of you enjoy a trusting relationship, I might suggest a marathon of MTV’s Catfished to open her eyes. But because she’s so volatile and you aren’t really close to her, your husband is right. It’s best for you to stay out of this. That shouldn’t be too hard. After all, I don’t know if you’re being asked to pretend this relationship is normal, and isn’t weeks away from a request for money followed by a visit that never happens because her boyfriend is suddenly diagnosed with cancer or involved in a tragic car accident. No one is asking you to write up a tribute to the couple. Even “he sounds great” is too much (and a lie). Just say “You seem really happy!” Dear Prudence, Last year, one of my book club friends met a woman, Sarah, who seemed in need of community, so my friend kindly invited her to our group. Sarah is a transplant, has a young child, and her husband isn’t the greatest guy. She only talks about herself, and when others speak, she hijacks the conversation. We forgave it at first because she was new, recently postpartum, and obviously lonely. Lately, it’s been exhausting to validate her and still enjoy ourselves. The rest of us have only broached this privately in the last few months, as the frustration was growing stronger than our unspoken no-gossip rule. Sarah’s presence is really affecting the vibes! It is not malicious, so confrontation feels inappropriate. When it seems like she’s struggling, I’ve reached out to her individually, but she doesn’t seem to want to engage if it’s not a group setting. How do we deal with this energy vampire? —Overbooked Dear Overbooked, I’m a little bit happy that you’ve already broken the “no gossip” rule because now I don’t have to be the one to suggest that. (It’s such a great policy for friend groups and I would be hesitant to encourage you to start talking about people behind their backs.) And I do think the whole group will need to decide on a strategy to respond to her. So, yes, I’m saying you should start a new group chat without her for this purpose. I think it may be possible to strike a balance between having empathy for her and providing the support she seems to so desperately need and protecting the kind of book club conversation that you want to have. As I read about her situation, I couldn’t help but think of the coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, and how (if you believe the defense, which I do) absolutely devastating postpartum depression and anxiety can be. To be clear, I am not suggesting that you need to let Sarah dominate and ruin every book club meeting to keep her from harming herself or others. I’m just feeling particularly sensitive to the difficult time she might be having and how much the right kind of support could help. So I think you should propose the following to the group: 15 minutes at the start of the meeting when Sarah makes it all about her and you all embrace it. Mirror her feelings about how hard her life is right now. Tell her you understand why she feels the way she does. And share the responsibility of making sure to suggest that she deserves support in the form of therapy and an exploration of whether any medication is appropriate. If anyone is willing, they would even offer to contact her and assist with making sure she’s getting the help she needs. And then, when the time is up, someone says “Let’s switch gears and make sure we have time to talk about the book.” At this point, the strategy changes from affirming Sarah and offering her support, to making sure the book club is still a book club. The tone will be kind but firm, and you should all agree to make statements like “Oh I actually wanted to hear what Kate was saying,” “Let’s make sure everyone has a chance to talk,” “We’re a little off track again, let’s get back to the book,” and “Sorry can I finish that thought, please?” She will either fall in line or decide that the group is no longer enjoyable and that she’d rather be somewhere (one on one with an attentive friend, in a therapist’s office, or in a support group) where her struggles can have more airtime. That might be a good thing. Catch up on this week’s Prudie. More Advice From Slate My wife has developed a fear of driving. So much so that she actually sold her car and we only have/use my vehicle now. The thing is that I have to take her everywhere now. If she wants to go to the mall, I am expected to cancel whatever I am doing or would like to do in order to accommodate her. Advice Dear Prudence