My Husband Just Did the Worst Thing You Can Do as a Wedding Guest. I’m Furious.

Dear Prudence The unhappy couple won’t even speak to us now. 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 06, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Ljupco/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 husband got wasted at the wedding of a friend, grabbed the mic from the DJ, and made a “bride-is-a-whore” joke about her. Now she and her husband are furious and refuse to speak to us. Is there anything we can do to make amends? —Married to a Moron Dear Married, How did this become a “we” issue? You didn’t do anything! Your husband is the one who owes an apology, and if your friend is blaming you for his actions, you two must not be very close. Unless this is part of a pattern of behavior every time he drinks, I don’t think any response is required on your part. (Although of course, “I am so mortified by what Bret did. I’m so sorry his awful judgment and juvenile sense of humor took away from your beautiful wedding, and of course nobody believes what he said. It really reflects more on him than it does on you” would be a nice thing to say if it’s not too late!). If alcohol-related outbursts are a theme, you should advocate for him to get some help. Hopefully the newlyweds will be first on his list when he enters a 12-step program and makes amends. Or maybe second because you—his wife who has put up with his antics and seen relationships ruined because of them—should be first. 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, My wife and I are expecting our first baby in a few months (it’s a boy), and it’s become clear that we have extremely clashing tastes in baby names. I find the names she likes to be derivative. She finds the names I like to be pretentious. We cannot even agree on any compromise options as we seem to have completely different philosophies on how to name this child. How do we solve this impasse? —The Names She Picked Sucked Dear Names, I’ve been there! The names I loved for my daughter were all things like Daisy and Willow and Winter and Sage and a host of other botanical-inspired options that I thought were really sweet and whimsical and my husband thought sounded like “someone who doesn’t shower a lot.” Meanwhile he came to me with options that felt like they came directly from the ‘90s and then proposed a tribute to some recently-discovered ancestor of his who died at age 2. Out of respect for the family, I won’t share the suggestion, which I felt could have been pretty or ugly depending on the mood you were in when you heard it, but our only association with it was tragedy! Come on! Anyway, we finally landed on Lani because although it is not a reference to anything in nature and probably wasn’t popular among people who attended the original Woodstock like most of my faves, it felt like it had the cuteness and lightness I wanted. At the same time, the fact that it was inspired by my law school professor, the late civil rights attorney and legal scholar Lani Guinier, gave it some of the gravity and meaning he wanted. That isn’t exactly a roadmap to identifying something that you and your husband will agree on, but I do think the general approach of verbally throwing out many options, quickly abandoning them if they get a “hell no” from the other person, and coming up with more choices helped. It’s sort of a numbers game. This is time sensitive, and you don’t want to waste precious pregnancy weeks advocating for something the other person hates. So the goal has to be to keep things moving and consider as many options as possible, increasing the chances that you’ll identify one that you both like. To motivate yourselves to come to an agreement, decide what you’ll do if your water breaks and you still haven’t made a choice: For example, name the child after the first male doctor or nurse you see when you walk into the hospital, use a random number generator to select a page in the baby name book and pick the first one that appears there, or let a toddler in your extended family make the selection. Hopefully you won’t really want to do that, and you’ll each be a little more open to compromise. But if the worst happens, at least you’ll have a really good story. Want more Prudie? Slate Plus members get an additional column each week. Sign up for Slate Plus now. Dear Prudence, My husband has been sick for a super long time this year. I’ve been front-loading most of the care in our household, and I want to take a weekend to myself. I just want to go camping alone. He hates this idea and thinks it’s dangerous. How do I say this is not a question, it’s a statement, to him? —Not Naked Nor Afraid Dear Not Naked, It goes without saying that you’re an adult and can do what you want, regardless of your husband’s feelings about it. So definitely keep “This is not a question, it’s a statement” in your back pocket. But don’t pull it out unless your next conversation about your trip isn’t productive. Yes, there does need to be another conversation. Given that you are in a loving relationship and have just invested a long period of time into caring for this man, you should try to resolve your disagreement in a way that isn’t super adversarial and doesn’t cause a major fissure. After all, it would be nice if you two could get along and enjoy life together when and if he feels better. Do you have a sense of what’s really behind his opposition to the camping trip? He says it’s concerns about your safety, but could it really be something else, like his own fear of being left at home without your help, or even jealousy that he’s not well enough to accompany you? It would be helpful to know, because if what he’s saying is actually covering for something totally different that he’s feeling, no amount of sharing your location or packing bear spray or promising to take other precautions will help. You could try to investigate that with a script like this: “I was thinking about your concerns about my camping trip, and I can see why you might be worried about my safety, so I’m going to look into all the best practices for solo campers. But I was also wondering about your feelings about being here at home while I’m gone. Would that be tough for you at all in terms of daily life, or the emotional side of things? It’s been a rough year with your health, and I’m just curious about what you’re thinking.” If he opens up about any struggles or stressors, you could suggest solutions (a visit from a friend or family member while you’re gone, maybe?). If he insists he’s really just worried that you’ll be eaten by wild animal or fall off a cliff while hiking or get murdered by a serial killer, acknowledge that these risks exist but explain that, as with the risks involved in all of your other activities, like driving a car, you will make smart choices to minimize them. Read some articles and Reddit threads about tips for solo campers together, explain how you will choose a safe campsite, arrive before dark, and implement all the other tips. And agree on a check-in schedule. If he’s at all reasonable, these things should ease his mind. If he remains adamant that you shouldn’t go simply because of his feelings, you’ll have reached a true impasse and that will be the time to remind him that you haven’t actually asked for his permission. Classic Prudie My husband and I have a 2-year-old and a 5-month-old. We have a wedding coming up (my cousin, whom I like but am not especially close to) and I’m torn about whether or not we should make the six-hour drive with our kids. As it’s a kid-free wedding, we’d need to find a local sitter, plus I’m breastfeeding (and struggling to figure out the logistics of keeping the baby fed while we’re gone as well as pumping during the wedding). The trip would also be expensive. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Dear Prudence