My Girlfriend Has a Bizarre “Deal” With Her Ex. Please Tell Me This Is Ridiculous.

Dear Prudence We have had to cancel vacations twice because of it. 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 19, 20266:00 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 girlfriend has had only one other boyfriend besides me. They got a puppy together, and after they broke up (he cheated, and she moved here for work), they have continued a bizarre custody schedule over the dog. My girlfriend will drive 150 miles one way to get her turn with the dog, despite renting a one-bedroom condo. She has a flexible work schedule, but the dog is big and needs to go out at least four times a day. Her ex uses and abuses this schedule to fit his own life. We have had to cancel vacations twice because he suddenly “needs” to be elsewhere and asks if she can take the dog. When we first got together, I figured that the pattern wouldn’t hold—I thought one would take the dog and the other would move on. It has been a year, and nothing has happened. I love my girlfriend. She is smart, sweet, and sexy. I have never clicked like this with someone. She has had a lot of trauma, including losing her mom and sisters when she was a teen, her dad moving back overseas, and losing a pregnancy, which is when they got the puppy. This is very much her “baby,” but it isn’t her baby. I offered to look for us to get a place with a real backyard and seek legal counsel about getting custody of the dog. Her ex never pays any of the vet bills and never drives for the dog—just her. She just freezes up and says she will think about it. Nothing changes. I don’t want to break up with her, but this is nuts. Help? —Dog Body Dear Dog Body, “I figured the pattern wouldn’t hold” is an understandable but not very wise way to approach the things you dislike about someone when you first start dating. The best approach is to assume that all the patterns you see in your partner’s life will hold unless you see convincing evidence to the contrary. In this case, it sounds like you’ve proposed a solution that could solve the dog problem, and the fact that your girlfriend acted weird about it is very telling. I’m sure you’ve had the same thoughts I’m having: Does she want to remain connected to her ex? Is there a reason she really wants the in-person contact with him to continue? Are they exchanging more than a leash when they see each other for handoffs? Are they going to get back together to create the stable home their “baby” deserves? Of course, these types of questions are not super productive or healthy to think about. We just don’t know the answers. However, we do know that you are in a relationship with someone who is very, very busy because of her beloved dog. We do know that her dog is her first priority. And we do know that she will cancel a vacation with you to meet the dog’s needs. Replace “dog” with “work,” “marathons,” “her community service obligations,” or anything else, and the result is the same. Your girlfriend doesn’t have room in her life (and doesn’t seem to want to make room) to have the relationship you want. You don’t want to break up with her, so your other options are to decide to deal with this dynamic because she’s so smart, sweet, and sexy, or to get a demanding, time-consuming commitment of your own so you don’t miss her as much when she’s unavailable. Which, for the foreseeable future, will be a lot. 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 recently used one of those DNA test kits and was shocked to learn that the man whom I thought was my father isn’t my biological dad. Thanks to the company’s website, I found out that I have two half-siblings. Further checking revealed that the man who is my biological dad was married at the time I was conceived, so by all appearances, it was an affair on both sides. I’m unsure how to move forward. Should I confront my mom? Tell my dad and my younger half-brother? Seek out the family I didn’t know I had until a few weeks ago? —Genetically Gobsmacked Dear Genetically Gobsmacked, The only concrete advice I can give is to wait. Don’t rush this. I hate to be unhelpful, but the response to all your other questions about what to do is “it depends.” It depends on what you want, on how you feel, and on how prepared you are to deal with the best and worst possible outcomes of speaking the truth about what you know. Do you have a close relationship with your dad? Your mom? How do they typically handle conflict or unwelcome information? How’s your mental health and emotional stability? Do you have a therapist? Can you cope with the tension and anger that might surface if the truth comes out? If your parents are still together, would you hate to see your parents’ marriage fall apart, or do you think they’d be better off apart and hope this could be the thing that finally motivates them to divorce? Do you yearn for a connection with the family you didn’t know until a few weeks ago? Were you angry when you received this information? Curious? Excited? What kind of support do you have in place if the shit hits the fan? You have the right to do whatever you want, and the fact pattern that led to this moment is not at all your fault. You aren’t responsible for how your parents react, and it won’t be what you deserve if your biological dad and half-siblings give you a chilly response. But the reality is that even though you’re totally innocent and have truth on your side, going public with the news of the DNA test could lead to a lot of really unpleasant stuff. You have to decide whether it’s worth the risk, and you can take as long as you need to do that. 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 ex and I are in a huge fight over where our two girls are going to school. Both are extremely bright and talented. Both are learning a third language and can play musical instruments. The public school system where we live is a failure. Their elementary school had great and dedicated teachers, but when our oldest hit middle school, that was gone. There were no music or gifted programs. The only foreign language offered was Spanish, and only for eighth graders, unless it was English as a second language. Our oldest was bored out of her mind and treated as a babysitter and tutor by her teacher. She started to deliberately fail because she saw no point in trying. We pulled her out, and my parents and brother helped me with tuition for an all-girls school. She is now at the top of her class and looking at acceptance toward a STEM-track college program at 16. Her sister has graduated from elementary but my parents have retired, and my brother is expecting a baby. I can’t afford the second tuition on my own. My ex doesn’t pay a dime. There are some charter schools with great reputations and better school districts in other areas. I am willing to relocate and take on more custody, but my ex is digging her heels in. She hates the very idea of charter schools and does not give up 50/50 custody. I told her she is risking ruining our daughter’s future. We have already been through this with our oldest. I don’t want to wait and watch my second daughter flounder like our first did. And I don’t want to go to court over this, but she is fighting me tooth and nail. Time is running out. What should I do? —School Fight Dear School Fight, I was recently lurking in a Facebook group for local moms, and decided, as one does, to read every single comment on a post that had nothing to do with me or my current parenting concerns. A mother had appealed to the community for advice because her young child was registered for a summer camp and she was suddenly worried: Would the counselors, many of whom were teens, keep a close enough eye on the group while walking from the park to the pool? Would they fully commit to taking precautions to prevent sunburn? Were they prepared to help shy campers make friends? How could she be sure that these people who weren’t teachers or even full-time childcare providers were prepared to meet the needs of all the kids, and her kids in particular? She got a lot of reassurance about licensing and safety protocols and heartwarming anecdotes about fun summer memories and lasting friendships, and I imagined that was somewhat comforting. But the comment that stuck with me was from a member of the group who took a different angle: Instead of arguing in defense of the camp’s qualifications or kids’ resilience, she urged the original poster to think about it differently and to focus on what she could do to prepare her own child to be safe and happy at camp: Make sure he knows the importance of staying with the group during field trips. Discuss why he needs to keep his hat on in the midday sun. Practice what he might say to kids he hasn’t met to spark friendship. Go over how to approach an adult and what to say if he’s sick, hurt, sad, or needs help. Brainstorm what he might like to eat and make sure he can open everything in his lunchbox without help. Things happen, the veteran mom said. There are no guarantees that every counselor will be totally professional or that all the other campers will be nice. So rather than seeking endless reassurances about the environment, it’s smarter (and more empowering) to manage what you can: your own child and his readiness to have the best experience possible. I would suggest a similar approach when it comes to your child and the possibility that you won’t be able to change your ex’s mind or the mind of a family court judge, and she might really have to attend public school. You say your older daughter checked out because that work was too easy for her and the teachers didn’t engage her enough, but this is by no means the only option. Plenty of extremely bright kids thrive in public schools, schools without gifted programs, and schools that have limited resources. So talk to your kid about what she might do to make the best of the experience. It sounds like she’ll probably eventually be qualified to supplement her schedule with classes from the local community college. Between that and clubs, extracurriculars, and the ability to pick up a book and read if she finishes her test an hour before everyone else, I really do think there is a way for her to have a fulfilling experience. And she may as well make it a goal to become valedictorian someday! She can start thinking about the colleges she’d like to attend and what she can do to stand out in their eyes, while demonstrating initiative and leadership. This experience might actually end up preparing her for her future better than a school that provides everything you want for her. Then, when she does leave home, you’ll feel great knowing that you’ve raised a kid who doesn’t need a perfectly curated environment to thrive. More Advice From Slate I have been in a relationship for 19 years (we have two kids now in their teens), and I decided at the beginning of the year to end it, after years of escalating verbal abuse, belittlement, and general nastiness. “Frank” agreed to move out in July, but he still comes to my apartment on work days by agreement, to work out of the home office. Advice Dating and Relationships Dear Prudence