Good morning! We’re doing the thing today!
To ask a question, patrons can post to this thread and anyone can reach me on Twitter (@CAwkward, #AwkwardFriday). Submissions close at noon Chicago time, at which point I’ll answer as many as I can between then and 1pm.
Comments are open! So many great questions! Thanks everyone.
Behind a cut for controlling and emotionally abusive behavior. Read More
Dear Captain,
This won’t be the most dire question you receive today, but I’m writing in the hope that you can help me with scripts, advice, and encouragement as I convince my wonderful family that the sky won’t fall if I’m unavailable to them for an hour or so each day.
In a lot of ways, I’m very lucky. Privileged, in fact. I have a husband (he/him) I love, two teenagers (a she and a him) that I also love, and a menagerie of adorable animals who are oh so lovable. I have a full-time job. I also have a book contract! I’m writing about something I’m passionate about, and I’m really enjoying the research, the writing, and the editing as I try on new ideas, write things down, and then edit obsessively to get things just right.
However, whenever I shut myself into my messy little home office to get some work done, all hell breaks loose.
Things will be going along swimmingly at home, and then I’ll say those fatal words: “I’m writing now. Please don’t come in unless there’s blood, fire, or vomit on the floor.” The door closes, I fire up my computer, and then:
Daughter: Can I go to Friend’s house?
Me: Ask your dad.
Daughter: He’s meditating.
Son: Mom, can you come here? It’s important! (Spoiler: It’s never important.)
Daughter: I told Friend2 we could drive her to Friend1’s house.
Husband: A SPORTSBALL PLAYER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF WAS TRADED TO A TEAM YOU DON’T FOLLOW!
Me: I thought you were meditating?
Son: Mom! The dog’s doing something adorable! Come see!
Daughter (via DM): Mom whats for dinner?
Me (via DM): I thought you were going to Friend1’s house
Daughter (via DM): No, she and Friends 2-5 are coming here.
Daughter (via DM): Dad couldn’t drive me so I said they could all come here
Son: Mom! What’s for dinner?
(Enter two cats. One of them takes up residence on my lap; the other, on my keyboard.)
Husband: THAT GUY WE SAW IN THAT THING BACK IN 1997 IS ON SVU!
Editor (via DM): So how’s the book going?
Me: Jesus, take the wheel.
Captain, I have tried it all. I’ve tried closing the door (the doors in my house don’t lock, alas). I’ve tried putting signs on the door. I’ve tried responding with a vague “Mmm-hmmm,” I’ve tried yelling (“WHERE’S THE FIRE?”), I’ve tried talking at dinner about my need for JUST ONE LOUSY HOUR OF SOLITUDE. And I love my family, but if the only time I’m able to get work done is at 8 a.m. Saturday when everyone else is asleep (the rest of my family is apparently part-vampire because no one goes to bed before midnight), I’ll never meet my deadline.
So, from one creative type with a family including floofy animals to another: How do I stake out and claim the time I need to do this thing that I really, really want (and, not for nothing, am contractually obligated) to do?
Many thanks,
The Crowd in the Room of My Own (she/her)
Dear Captain Awkward,
My husband (“Mike”) has been married before, but he and his first wife (“Sarah”) divorced many years before I (she/her pronouns) met him. Mike has never given me any reason to be jealous of Sarah, and for the first several years of our marriage I made a point of being friendly with her. As might be expected of two women who married the same man, she and I have similar personalities in some ways, so it wasn’t difficult to hang out with her. And besides, it seemed like the right thing to do for my husband to foster friendly relations with someone with whom he was partnered for many years. They never had any children, so really this wasn’t very complicated, especially as Sarah was as gracious and cordial to me as I was to her. She and I even got together without Mike there sometimes. (In case it matters, I should say that we never discussed how she and Mike broke up or the details of either of our marriages with him.)
But then something weird happened. Last year I found myself in an unhappy professional situation, and Sarah offered to recommend me to her employer. I enthusiastically accepted her offer. While this would have been a new field for me, the company sounded like a nice place to work and had a mission with which I felt comfortable aligning myself. At her request, I gave Sarah my resume and then revised it slightly on her suggestion. A while later she ran into Mike downtown and told him I would be receiving a call from someone at her company and that they would ask me my salary requirements. Although under company rules she was not supposed to reveal it, she confided her salary in Mike so as to give me an idea of what the company paid.
I got really excited and discussed with family what I should ask for. I settled on a number that was about 2/3 of what Sarah had said her salary was (for a position with responsibilities that would grow to be like hers). The salary I wanted to ask for was well within the range of what I have earned in previous positions, but when Sarah heard my number she said it was too much, since I didn’t have a background in this field. I pointed out that I had other professional experience that would serve me well in this field and expected to work long hours that would justify premium pay. But I also asked her what I should say instead — like, if there were a magic number that I should be considering if I really wanted this(?), but she refused to say. And then . . . I never got a call from her company.
After that she was kind of vague about what had happened, but when I finally cornered her (by sheer chance, I ran into her downtown) she said she had decided I probably wouldn’t really like the job, so she had told her colleagues not to recruit me after all. I told her she was wrong, that the job really appealed to me, and that I hoped she would correct the record with her colleagues. She grudgingly agreed to do so, but then she disappeared for a few months — as in not responding to Mike’s birthday wishes and dinner invitations. Then just recently she suddenly turned up in our email as though the whole thing had never happened. She said she had been quiet so long because of being busy at work; and asked if we wanted to go to a show with her.
My problem is that I feel humiliated by what happened. She put me in a position where I was making a case to her that I was very unhappy with what I was doing at the time (and am still doing) and would love (love!!!) to work at her company. After I confided to her that my whole career wasn’t as fulfilling as it appeared on the outside, she basically withdrew her help. She indicated she didn’t think I was worth the salary I wanted to propose, a salary that was tens of thousands of dollars less than hers. And maybe that’s true, maybe the company could find someone with superior skills who would ask for less money. On the other hand, maybe the whole thing was a set-up for her to convey to Mike and me that her s**t is far more together than mine. I feel as though she encouraged me to be vulnerable with her and then found a way to use that vulnerability to undermine me.
I should note that Sarah did something similar once before. She offered Mike and me a valuable gift and later withdrew the offer with the explanation that she had the impression I didn’t really want it. But I did want it! And I argued hard that I would love the gift, but she refused to be convinced. The incident was annoying, but since Mike believed in my sincerity I wasn’t really harmed so overlooked Sarah’s odd turnabout.
Mike says this is just kind of the way Sarah is (and one reason he divorced her), but I know he would still prefer to have all of us be friends. On the one hand, I feel guilty and petty for not being able to forgive and forget this job debacle; on the other, I feel too embarrassed by the whole episode to be able to hang out with Sarah anymore. I can’t say for sure that she set out to hurt me. It’s possible she meant to do me a favor and then realized she had promised more than she could deliver and couldn’t find a graceful way to stand down. But that’s not what she chose to indicate to Mike and me, and I’m afraid if I give her another chance to socialize with us it will ineluctably lead to more of these (passive-aggressive?) incidents. Now I just want to be done. Am I justified in saying I’m finished being friendly with the ex-wife, or should I suck it up for Mike’s sake, or is there, perhaps, a third way?
Thanks for reading this and also for all you write, which has been incredibly helpful to me in rethinking my issues with my faaaaaaamily-of-origin.
Best wishes always,
(Wife) #2
It’s time for that thing we do, where we use the search strings people typed in to find this place as if they were questions.
First, as is traditional, a song:
Lyrics here.
1 “How to encourage husband to make friends.”
The subtext runs deep with this one, does it not? Like, where is problem originating? Is husband lonely and wanting to branch out socially and doesn’t quite know how? Is the husband treating the querent like his entire social world/cruise director/people-ing facilitator? (It happens). Is the husband fine being not very social but the querent is feeling squashed or mismatched here? (It also happens.) Did he ask for help?
I guess I would say that finding Our People is a lifelong project but Our People should not themselves be our projects. If the husband wants to make some more friends, he presumably has all the same resources that other people use to meet each other (MeetUp, hobbies, pubs, churches, sports, community theater/music, trivia night, political activism, volunteering) and all the modes of communication & social media people use to get in touch with friends from other phases of life at his disposal.
If a spouse wants to be supportive of this friendmaking effort, doing what you can to make sure there is time & money & space available for what he does want to do (“Sure, we can have a couple people over for dinner this weekend!” “Sure, go have fun! I’m gonna do my own thing tonight!” “Sure, I’ll be the designated driver, text me 20 minutes out and I’ll pick you up. Can you do the same for me on Thursday?” “Go ahead and take that art class on Saturday mornings, we’ll find the money.” etc.) is a pretty good place to start. Otherwise, he’s gotta take the lead and do the work, he’s not a toddler that you arrange play dates for or a dog you drop off at doggy day care. Also, in this process, make sure you don’t neglect your own friendships & social connections. These don’t all have to be shared.
2 “He just moved closer and now I want to break up.”
It happens. It sucks. I’m telling a story about it in Chicago this Friday.
With proximity, you have information that you didn’t have before. Be compassionate, be honest, be free.
3 “Breaking up because geography.”
Sometimes that’s a really good reason.
4 “Is it selfish to break up with my boyfriend bc I want to experience other people?”
Breaking up before the “experiencing other people” part might be the best order of operations if that’s what you want to do. I’m sure that’s not an easy decision, but what if you could make decisions about what you want without calling yourself names in the process?
5 “captain awkward how to dump someone”
Quick review:
6 “Hi dad mom died sex”
Whatever word association game is being played here, I want out.
7 “Mum got angry at me but idk why and she wont tell me or even talk to me.”
Check out #5, here, re: The Silent Treatment.
There’s no fair way to play this game your mom is playing, so, DON’T TRY. If she won’t tell you why she’s mad, give her a wide berth. Let her silence be a gift to you instead of the abusive burden she intends. She has choices about how to communicate with you. She is making a bad one.
8 “How to tell friends you can’t afford to go out for expensive dinners.”
“I’m on a tight budget right now and I can’t afford to eat out so much, but I’d love to spend time with you. Can we do [something cheap or free] instead?” More here and here.
9 “My grandparents hate my tattoos.”
Your grandparents are entitled to their opinions but not to be jerks about it.
You are entitled to do what you will with your own body.
Sometimes a cheerful “well, good thing it’s not your body!” response works to cut down on the comments, and sometimes the sincere discussion works, i.e. “Grandparents, given that it’s my body and the tattoos are already here and not going anywhere, what are you hoping for when you comment on them that way? Do you really want our relationship to be about these tattoos you don’t like, or could we find a way to just be kind to each other?”
10 “I’m scared my parents are gonna catch me stealing their Adderall.”
Well, yeah! Stealing another person’s prescription medication is illegal and wrong. It’s dangerous for you. It’s bad for them – your parents have that prescription for a reason, and if you’re stealing their pills they aren’t getting the medication they need. If you need evaluated for ADHD and to possibly be on your own medication, then ask your parents to help you do that. But stop stealing their drugs, please!
11 “Am I a selfish bitch for wanting more money?”
What if you could name the things you wanted without calling yourself mean names?
12 “Hinting that you want to get invited to someone’s house.”
Hinting doesn’t work. Try inviting these people to your house if you want to spend time with them, and if it really is about being inviting to something in particular just say it: “Next time you’re all playing badminton while wearing fancy hats, if you have room for me I’d love to join you.” Then withdraw. You’ve said your thing.
13 “Best response to someone who is seeking for a relationship from you.”
Hands down, the truth about what you want is probably best.
14 “Are grandmas always right about your gender?”
Not if their ideas about your gender conflict with what you know to be true about yourself!
15 “Why is my mom mad at me for taking a better job?”
IDK, but she’s not the one who has to work there, so your opinion is probably the important one here.
16 “How do you get your husband to set boundaries with his parents?”
He may or may not ever learn to do this and you can’t control that. So, you set boundaries with him, and with yourself. Basically “Husband, your relationship with your parents is yours to manage, but this is what I need from you to be happy and okay, so if your parents cross certain lines, I’m going to speak up and/or absent myself and let you deal with it.”
17 “My boyfriend is always counseling me.”
“Hey dude, if I want a therapist I’ll hire one.”
“Hey dude, if you want to be a therapist so bad, go be one!”
“Hey dude, even if you were a therapist, you couldn’t be my therapist, so stop.”
“Stop.”
18 “Best friend wants to be roommates but she’s too messy.”
Tell her “Friend, I love you so much, but I don’t want to cross those streams. I think we would stress each other out a lot if we lived together.” It doesn’t have to be a judgment on her, just, people will be happier living with people with similar definitions of clean when they are signing up to share housing. Knowing this about yourself is a good thing, decide accordingly.
19 “How to friendzone a guy you led on.”
First step, RETHINK EVERYTHING ABOUT HOW YOU ARE DESCRIBING THIS. If we rewrite your whole question to “I wasn’t sure how I felt about this person, so I flirted with them, but now I’m pretty sure I just want to be friends, how do I let them know” we remove all the sexist assumptions that you owed your friend a certain outcome here.
Maybe try “I know we’ve been talking/flirting/kind of considering getting involved romantically, but I’m only interested in being friends.”
Then, stop flirting (it’s the kind thing to do), and give the person a little space to process and decide if they want to be friends, too. You are not being mean when you do this, you are giving them true information that will help them make a good decision about what to do next. Friendship is not a consolation prize or a holding pen where we herd the people we don’t want to make out with, it’s its own valuable thing.
20 “What should I tell him I’m doing this weekend.”
A) Whatcha doing this weekend and B) Is it something you want him to know?
It’s the difference between “Oh, I’m busy with this and that, you know” and “I’ve got family coming into town, here is our detailed itinerary of fun!” and “I didn’t schedule anything in particular, why do you ask?” and “I’m going to the art museum on Friday, wanna join?” All are perfectly acceptable answers.
21 “Best response to ‘what are you looking for’ on Tinder.”
What are you looking for?
What if instead of trying to find something that would be widely & generally appealing, you just got really specific about what you would actually like to do with a couple of free hours in the company of a new person?
22 “Can you pay someone in blood?”
No. Ew.
Wait. What did you buy on Vampire eBay?
Halp, Captain.
I’m a 36 y/o (pronoun indifferent, she/her is fine) in need of advice or maybe just encouragement/permission.
So, the reader’s digest version is that I’ve pretty much always identified as bisexual, but am realizing that i really want to be with women. So, i guess I’m thinking that I’m actually more like a full on lesbian rather than bi? The wrinkle with this is that i’m coming up on my ten year anniversary to my husband, who is a Good Dude.
Here’s the long version. In high school I realized I liked girls. I came out as bi to my parents and my friends, but, really, I was focused on girls, and my friends from that period would probably have described me as a lesbian. When i pictured the future, I pictured it with a woman. I presented as pretty butch, even experimented with binders and things, although i’ve never really struggled with any sort of gender dysphoria, just sometimes clothes fit better without boobs. Or so I tell myself, but maybe that’s something else I need to explore.
Anyway, a couple of heartbreaks and dating false starts with women found me in college and desperately lonely. I had better luck getting romantic attention from men, so i shrugged, said, “well, I did say bi-sexual, didn’t I?” and started looking to men as romantic partners. I started dating a guy in my art program in college, and found that we had a lot in common, were great friends, and had the same values and goals and stuff. We weren’t a perfect match, but who is, right? I’ve always struggled with making friends, and here’s this great awesome friend, who I totally love. Then, of course, life happened. Realistically, I was probably about to break things off, but then Hurricane Katrina. I was living in New Orleans with my parents, we lost our house, i lost my job and ended up resettling in central louisiana for a profoundly miserable year. Eventually, i moved to Illinois and in with my boyfriend who had since graduated and gotten a job teaching art. What else was I gonna do, right?
First year living together was rough, but things got better and we got our routine down. It’s a routine that involves me doing a lot of the emotional labor of the relationship, which probably does add a layer to my discontent. Anyway, eventually we got married, and i had doubts throughout the engagement, but i’ve always been pretty conflict averse and just didn’t know how to exit. Also, I tend to get stubborn and don’t like to be wrong, and I’m definitely carrying some weird vicarious baggage from my mom’s unhappy marriage and divorce (I wasn’t even born! May parents have been happily married my whole life! How did i get this hangup about how I would definitely never marry the wrong person and repeat my mother’s mistakes. As I write this I now realize that I have some unexplored issues about my mom. Thanks, sobriety).
So now, here we are, nearly ten years later, and we just bought our house a little over a year ago (which was a huge step for us and something we’ve put a lot of work into together). In many ways, we are closer than we’ve ever been, we have become better about being honest with each other and about our mental health concerns, and I can honestly say my husband is the best friend i’ve ever had, and has positively impacted my life in many many ways, and in a lot of ways, i’m happier than i’ve been in years, like, ever in my adult life, maybe.
But:
I finally confronted my problems with alcohol last year and am going on for eight months of sobriety. Now that i’m not numbing myself, the ways i’ve changed and accommodated myself to fit this relationship have been kind of a gut-punch for me. My queerness has become kind of a secret (not through any pressure from him, it just feels weird to be advertising all the other people i’m potentially attracted to when i’m married, and i live in a conservative enough community that i don’t want to put him in the position of explaining my sexuality if i’m too “out”). I also have the typical bi-girl in a hetero relationship feeling like i’m appropriating a label if i proclaim my love for the ladies too vocally. I have a lot of guilt about being able to pass as straight and feel like that excludes me from the lgbt+ community, which was a big part of my life in high school/college.
Bound up in all of this, is that i live quite a distance from my parents in New Orleans, and clearly, if we split, I could move back to Louisiana and be closer to my parents who are beginning to have some age-related health issues. Also, let’s be honest, if I want to be gay, New Orleans is a pretty good spot for it. Sometimes I think about asking my husband to move back to Louisiana with me, or at least closer, because he has occasionally said things that would imply a willingness to entertain the idea (he’s a plant nerd and the long growing season and weird bugs appeal to us both), but when I picture including him in that life change, it makes me cringe, which is, I guess, a pretty good indication of what I want to change.
So, i’m not miserable. I have a good life and a good partner. Leaving would kind of screw him over (i’m the primary breadwinner, he’s struggling with some depression, he’s on my insurance, blah blah shitty us healthcare system, plus, now we have this house to deal with). We bought our dream home together and he’s put so much work into it. We have a mini-farm full of tiny little fruit trees that he planted for me! We go on weightlifting dates and car shows together! He watches terrible 90s anime with me! He grows the spiciest peppers evar! He’s dealing with some stuff right now, things will get better!
But, he’s allergic to cats and crowds, he doesn’t like the smell of eggs, we never have sex and when we do it’s pretty lackluster. We are terrible at talking about our problems. Oh yeah, and he’s Not A Girl.
But what if all of this is just some kind of overboard reaction to relatively new sobriety? What if it’s the first manic episode of heretofore undiagnosed bipolar disorder? What if I start dating girls and find out I don’t like it? What if I ruined a good person’s life by not being honest with myself? Do i just have to live with my mistake forever? How miserable do i have to be to make this change? I know that if I do decide to end this, I will probably be the bad guy, and I will definitely lose most of my friends, so that’s not ideal.
It’s also just embarrassing, because it’s not like I had any trouble embracing my sexuality. I’ve known I liked girls since I saw Linda Hamilton doing chin-ups in Terminator 2. I think I just lucked into a good enough companion and went, okay, this is fine, I can live with this, and I can, BUT, could I have more? I don’t want to make a decision right now. I think i need to sit with my epiphany for a bit and make sure that it’s not just a matter of feeling empowered by new sobriety and fitness. Because maybe(?) that will let me confront some of the other things that make me unhappy in my life, and then i will have the confidence to be more vocal about my sexuality and sexual identity, and make some changes within my marriage.
Anyway, any advice you may have is appreciated, especially any advice from anyone who’s been through a similar situation, whether you left or stayed.
Dear Captain Awkward:
I (35F) have been with my boyfriend (36M) for sixteen months now. We met online and I moved with him after roughly two months. He has led me to believe that he would propose marriage in the time frame of two or three months. He told me this roughly six to eight months ago.
I have been annoyed and angry for the last two months. I love him, but if he is not ready to propose, then why am I here? I cannot ask him to marry me anymore then I could sprout wings and fly. I have given myself a pretty strict mental deadline. Past this date, I end the relationship and start looking for someone else. I love him. I admire him. He loves me. He is very wonderful, caring, and smart. It would devastate me to lose him, but I would hate myself if I stayed in a relationship that did not progress. I would hate knowing I pressured someone into proposing to me. I need to know that he wants to spend his life with me. Points that may not matter:
Am I doing the right thing? I need to judge people on what they do and not what they say. My walk date is precariously close.
Thank you.
Confused and Sad
