My Possessive Stepmom Has Forced My Dad to End Some of His Oldest Friendships. She’s Not Going to Like What I Have Planned.

Dear Prudence It’s time for this to stop. 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 05, 20268:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Rawpixel/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 mom passed away after a battle with cancer just over 10 years ago. Last year, my dad remarried my now-stepmom, “Pam”. The problem is that Pam is a jealous, possessive bitch who has slowly but surely driven away all of my dad’s close female friends. These are people he went to high school with, and all of them are married and there is no chance he is having an affair with any of them. They and their spouses used to get together with him and my mom before she died and after she passed, they’d make an effort several times a year to catch up and would call on birthdays and holidays. Pam decided that was unacceptable and my dad acquiesced to her demands rather than deal with her wrath. Now my dad’s friends are left wondering why he’s no longer speaking with them, and more than a couple have told me they would love to hear from him again. I am disgusted that he would allow these decades-long friendships to simply vanish because of Pam’s irrational need for control. But I think I know a way to put an end to this. My husband and I are going to be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary in October, and I am considering inviting these friends (I’ve known them since childhood) to our party without telling him so Pam can’t preempt their attendance or demand my dad’s friends not be invited as a condition of her and my dad coming. Good idea? —True Friends Over Bitches Dear True Friends, I understand why you’re saddened and frustrated by this situation, but I really discourage you from using your anniversary party to try to change it. You should invite the friends despite Pam’s potential reaction if you want them there because they’re important to you. You should not invite them in an attempt to repair her dynamic with your dad, rekindle the friendships, or make a point. The fact that you started your letter describing Pam’s jealous, passive aggressive and bitchy behavior rather than explaining why it’s truly important to you to make your father’s friends part of your celebration tells me that it’s probably best to leave them off the list and focus instead on your own marriage. I assume it’s one in which you are allowed to speak to people of the opposite sex, and that’s definitely something to celebrate! 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 in a very strange place with a close friend of mine. We have been friends for over 20 years and have supported each other through thick and thin. I recently moved to Hawaii from Minnesota for an exciting new career and am living my dream life. That was when things became very strained with us. He and I have been best friends since we were young and always had each other’s backs. After the move, he started to become very competitive with me. Whenever I share something about my new life, like learning to surf or traveling to Japan, he will either change the topic to be about something he did recently that he thought was better or ignore me altogether, acting very disengaged or even what I would consider to be competitive. I am not a competitive person and can’t understand this change in my friend. I’ve been fortunate to have a very exciting and different kind of life, but never thought my life was better than someone else’s. He seems shut off from me and sometimes even is a bit aggressive. Lastly, I’ve discovered that he has hidden from me that he never finished college, but he pretends to have done so, especially when I talk about my college days. I shared my thoughts with other friends and they think he might be envious of where I am now in life. I’m starting to wonder now if we are really friends at all.. I feel distant from him and uncomfortable even talking with him on the phone. Should I even bother trying to work to keep this friendship? —What Just Happened? Dear Just Happened, Twenty years is a long time, and long friendships do sometimes have to survive periods in which one person is more of a jerk than usual. Don’t give up right away. Your friend is acting very strangely and I wouldn’t want to talk to someone who behaved that way either, so I understand the temptation to pull back. But you should have a conversation with him before you let the friendship die. If nothing else, knowing that you tried to address your dynamic before ghosting him will mean your conscience is clear if you two do grow apart. Resist the urge to ask “Are you jealous of me? Because it seems like you’re always trying to one-up me” even though you and I and your friends agree that that’s what appears to be going on. Instead, approach him gently (being careful not to sound condescending because that will probably make him defensive) about how he’s doing. Something like “I’ve noticed you haven’t been your normal happy-go-lucky self lately, and I just want to check in on you and see if you are OK or if there’s anything going on that you want to talk about.” If he doesn’t open up, wait until he makes one of his aggressive or competitive statements again and say “Hey, the way you just responded to me is kind of what I was talking about when I said you’d been different lately. I was talking about how proud I was of how well I did in the 10k and your energy got kind of weird and you immediately changed the subject to your accomplishments, and it actually sounded a little aggressive to me. I’m fine talking about that too, but is there something I’m doing that’s getting under your skin, or something I’m doing that’s annoying you? I don’t want to feel like our relationship is adversarial.” If he’s at all honest with you, I don’t think you need to call out the college graduation lie. You can just chalk it up as a symptom of whatever he’s going through. If he insists that he’s being totally normal and nothing is wrong, you can accept that and decide to work as hard as he’s working at being a good friend—which is not very hard at all. Dear Prudence, My husband and I have had three kids these last six years. Our third was a surprise and right after our second. I currently stay home with the children and do about 90 percent of the childcare and 100 percent of the household duties. I also work a small part-time job from home for my uncle’s business. My husband goes about 10 hours a day for work. My body hasn’t bounced back to my pre-baby body yet, and I’ve gained a substantial amount in my rear end and thighs. My husband claims he loves it but when he gets angry and we have arguments, he calls me a fat ass. He tells me to “shut my fat ass up.” This has taken a severe toll on my self-esteem and our marriage. I’m so confused, before we got married, he treated me like a princess. Every year he gets meaner and meaner to just me. I’ve turned into his metaphorical punching bag. I’m not even sure losing weight will fix this. I have no one to turn to. It’s embarrassing and I’m afraid people will use it more for gossip than anything else. I don’t want my children growing up in a fractured household like I did. What can I say to him to make him stop? —Not What I Signed Up For Dear Signed Up For, This is so hard, and I’m really sorry you’re being treated this way. You’re absolutely right that losing weight won’t fix this, and I can’t emphasize enough that your husband getting meaner every year and verbally abusing you is reason to end the relationship before it escalates to physical abuse. I can’t tell for sure if you’re worried about people gossiping about the current state of your relationship, or if you’re worried that they will gossip if you split up. I’m also uncertain about what you mean when you say you don’t want your children growing up in a fractured household—does “fractured” mean divorce or are you describing a household with a lot of conflict? I’ll tell you my take: The gossip doesn’t matter either way. People are probably going to find something to gossip about whatever you do, and the fact that this may be going on is never going to be more important than the way you and your children feel every day. And I think it would be much better for them to grow up with parents who are divorced than to witness their mother being mistreated and disrespected. So I would really encourage you to walk away if there is any way (including maybe staying with a friend or relative for a while) you can do that while maintaining housing for you and your kids and having enough money to survive. If that’s not possible right away, please talk to a trusted friend or family member to support you in coming up with ideas for getting things in place so that if you really, urgently need to leave a year from now, you’re in a position to do so. In the meantime, have one good, clear conversation with your husband about his cruel comments and how they have to stop. I doubt he’ll agree to this. If I’m right, the best thing you can do short of physically leaving is to emotionally detach. This is easier said than done, but with the help of therapy (if you can access it), online communities or help lines for women dealing with emotional abuse, the support of friends, and distractions, try to bolster your own self-esteem. Convince yourself that your husband’s behavior doesn’t actually reflect anything about you, and start to see him as a troubled, sad man who lives in your house rather than someone whose opinions define how you’re doing and how you see yourself. The most encouraging thing in your letter is that he’s gone for 10 hours a day and, I assume, sleeps for much of the time he is home, so you’ll have plenty of time to focus on yourself and work on freeing yourself from his cruelty. Catch up on this week’s Prudie. More Advice From Slate My hubby and I have two wonderfully active kids—a toddler and a baby. Our lives revolve around our full-time jobs and taking care of our babies. We are exhausted but love our chaotic family. Over the past few months, my hubby’s libido has shot through the roof. He has been groping me (I have told him that I don’t like it, but to no avail) and talking a lot of dirty talk (with our babies around). Our alone time has been consumed with him jumping me. I miss just snuggling and watching movies without him constantly shoving his hands down my pants. He gets frustrated when I’m not turned on by his moves. Advice Dear Prudence