The world is on fire (in some places, quite literally), but it's a weird sort of comforting to know that wedding planning can still bring out the family bullies and control freaks like nothing else.
Category: control
#1283: “I need to resign as my friend’s son’s godmother.”
How do you back out when when someone manipulates you - successfully- into something you don't want to do? Plus, help for when you need to ghost a baby and his manipulative parents.
#1280: “Am I a terrible daughter for moving out and leaving my mom to care for my grandma?”
Hi Captain, I'm the youngest kid in a South Asian family. I've lived with my parents for four years because I have a career in the arts and have only recently started to earn enough money to pay rent and also, like, eat. I've also stayed with them this long because my frail grandma lives … Continue reading #1280: “Am I a terrible daughter for moving out and leaving my mom to care for my grandma?”
#1279: “My metamour isn’t taking social-distancing precautions and my partner is unfazed.”
Dear Captain, My partner (P) and I (both mid-30s, she/her) are happily engaged, and have been living together for a few years now. Things have been great. We’ve both had a lot of trauma to work through, and have been nothing but supportive and understanding with each other as each we’ve dealt with our own … Continue reading #1279: “My metamour isn’t taking social-distancing precautions and my partner is unfazed.”
#1278: “My partner is pushing me to start a family before I’m ready.”
Dear Captain My fiancé and I were supposed to get married this April but the wedding was postponed until May 2021 due to the pandemic. We are both in our early 30s. He’s always been keen to start a family, I’m open to having a baby but really want to be married first. This is … Continue reading #1278: “My partner is pushing me to start a family before I’m ready.”
#1277: “Abuse, agency, and the limits of advice.”
Behind a cut for mention of physical and emotional abuse of adult children by parents as well as some frustrations and victim-blaming attitudes that are common in friends and support networks of people who are embroiled in abusive situations. Abusers ruin everything, pretty much. Dear Captain Awkward, I (31, nb, he/him) have a friend who … Continue reading #1277: “Abuse, agency, and the limits of advice.”
#1271: “I went no-contact with an abusive parent who is dying now. What are the rules here?”
Content notes for alcohol addiction, emotional abuse, illness requiring hospitalization. O Captain, My Captain, My mother was always (imo) an emotionally abusive narcissist. I'm the oldest of 3 and the scapegoat. She became an alcoholic when I was 16 or 17, has been hospitalised with liver failure a number of times in the last 12 … Continue reading #1271: “I went no-contact with an abusive parent who is dying now. What are the rules here?”
Two Pleasing Updates
Who wants good news today? Letter Writer #762 and Letter Writer #1194 both have good news about making happy lives away from controlling and homophobic parents. Hi Captain! Five years ago, I wrote in and became LW 762. I thought I'd give an update. Trigger warning: my mum makes repeated threats of suicide/self harm. Eventually, … Continue reading Two Pleasing Updates
#1248: “How to set boundaries with someone who just doesn’t listen to me?”
This is another one in a series about difficult parent relationships: A dad who wants to talk on the phone for hours about only the things he wants to talk about and who reminds his daughter, when she tries to set boundaries, that he has nobody else to talk to. It's about guilt and about … Continue reading #1248: “How to set boundaries with someone who just doesn’t listen to me?”
#1247 “I went no-contact with my mother and it’s turned her into a bogeyman”: Anxiety, Anticlimax, and the Aftermath of Estrangement.
I've gotten a bunch of letters about family weirdness and estrangement and boundaries (weird, almost like there was a series of events in the last month that forced a lot of family togetherness, can't think would have caused all these old wounds to re-open at the same time? 😉 ) and I'm going to put … Continue reading #1247 “I went no-contact with my mother and it’s turned her into a bogeyman”: Anxiety, Anticlimax, and the Aftermath of Estrangement.
