Emily Yoffe Photo by Teresa Castracane.
Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is on Washingtonpost.com weekly to chat live with readers. An edited?transcript of the chat is below. (Sign up here?to get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week. Read Prudie?s?Slate columns?here. Send questions to Prudence at prudence@slate.com.)
Emily Yoffe: Good afternoon. Let's get to it.
Q. Mother's Day: Each Mother's Day I am expected to prepare and serve a special breakfast, plan and pay for an activity centered around what "mom" enjoys, and provide cards and gifts for my wife. We have a young child and have had gone through the same thing each of the four years. My problem? We are a lesbian couple. I'm a mom, too. She is the birth mother, but how do I explain to my wife that I want the special day, too? It's not like I am celebrated on Father's Day. One year it was so bad that when the restaurant offered each of us a free dessert with dinner, she claimed mine and asked for it in a to-go box.
A: I think Mother's Day is mostly a manufactured forced-march (and as I made dinner last night, I found how much my husband agrees with this) and is best downplayed. But for you this holiday exposes an ugly crack in the foundation of your relationship that must be addressed. If your wife is not on board with the fact that biology aside you two are every bit equals as mothers, there is an ugly undertone of you being a second-class parent. I admire you for not resorting to the classic pie-in-the-face when your wife claimed your dessert. But now that Mother's Day is over, you two need to have a private discussion in which you say that the Mother's Day dynamic is terribly undermining to your relationship and your sense of being full partners in the raising of your child.
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Q. Relationship Drama: My friend committed suicide last Thursday night. Because of that, and circumstances surrounding that suicide (I saw his body before the police got there, and I was among the first to hear about it), I suffered a severe panic attack. (I suffer from a panic disorder.) I had to be sedated. I told my boyfriend of four months ("Kevin") what was going on so he wouldn't worry when he couldn't get a hold of me. He responded by asking me whether this would become a regular thing, and then told me that he didn't know if he could be with me if it would. Prudie, I doubt this is going to become a regular thing, as there were some pretty severe extenuating circumstances behind it; but at the same time, I can see his point. A recent boyfriend should not have to see me through this kind of thing. I'm not really sure it's right to stay with someone under these circumstances. Should I work this out on my own? Should I stay with him? I do care about him a lot, but I don't know if this is really the best time.
A: I'm so sorry for this loss and your trauma. However, painful as it is, it's useful that Kevin's character was exposed in such a stark way so early in your relationship. You walked in on a death scene. You don't need to suffer from panic attacks regularly in order to have one under those circumstances. If a boyfriend of even only four months can't come to your side to help you through such a dire experience, now's a good time to explain to him that the "regular thing" is going to be that you two no longer see each other.
Q. Polyamory: Out or Not?: My husband and I recently opened our marriage to be polyamorous (more deep bonds with other people than the "running around" some consider open marriage). I?ve told a couple of female friends and I've lost them as friends. My boyfriend and I have a wonderful relationship, and he gets along well with my husband and our children, so I can see a time where he may end up meeting my very Christian father. Dad already hears me speak of my friend Roger often, but I wouldn't be surprised if he picks up on the actual nature of our relationship. He'd be seriously floored and averse. Losing friends was bad enough, I do not want to go through this with my father. Can I keep it that we are ?friends? even if eyebrows start to raise?
A: Now that gay marriage has become so normalized (even if not everyone understands that on Mother's Day both moms deserve to be celebrated) I expect polyamorists to start coming out of the closet. I understand polyamory is different from polygamy, and doesn't share the latter's rigid and noxious views that men run the show and are the only ones allowed multiple partners. I basically feel adults are entitled to make the personal arrangements that please them as long as that doesn't hurt others, but my concern is what it means to the children. I don't get the impression that you've seriously thought through the effect of this on them since you are so unsure about how to present yourself as a newly constituted family. You've learned that blurting out your good news has not engendered congratulations and inquiries about how your friends can get rogered with their own Roger. So letting your father in on your secret doesn't seem necessary or beneficial. I think you three adults need to do a lot more thinking about your arrangement and its effects on everyone involved, and right now I don't see the need to make your private lives public.
Q. Roommate Eats My Food: I've been living with a roommate (someone I knew only through other friends) for about six months now and I've been noticing that from time to time, some of my food seems to go missing. It's not a lot, just enough for me to notice. A cup of cereal here or there, some milk, handfuls of pretzels or chips, a couple of slices of bread, an occasional piece of fruit. I just seem to go through food faster than I used to when I lived alone. I've never caught my roommate stealing food, but I can't come up with any other explanation. I have a longer commute than he does, so he spends a couple of hours alone in the apartment almost every day. Short of catching him red-handed, I guess I can't really prove that I know he's stealing, but I'm pretty positive and I don't like that he's taking food without asking permission. We occasionally offer each other a beer, or offer to share leftovers if we have them when we're making dinner, but we agreed when we moved in together that we would be buying our food separately, and I certainly never agreed that we could just take food from each other's shelves in the pantry. Other than this, we get along pretty well, but this is really starting to get on my nerves. What can I do about it?
A: I suppose roommates can have this kind of punctilious agreement that everything, down to the condiments, is separate. But it's really hard if you've run out of your own bread not to take a slice of an available loaf when you want a piece of toast for breakfast. Either you need to say to your roommate that you need a strict agreement that food is sacrosanct, or (my suggestion) you say that you understand that occasionally dipping into staples is almost irresistible and that you should each contribute to a fund to make these available for both of you. Surely something around $20 a month should cover the noshing.
Q. Re: Mother's Day: The LW should make it a Mother's Day weekend, one day she gets to be celebrated and the other day her wife gets to be celebrated. That should even it out without taking away from a potentially fun tradition.
A: Yes, that's one good solution. But what is disturbing is that the biological mother has so thoroughly claimed the day as hers. If the other mom has to explain she's a mother too, the issue goes beyond each woman getting her own Mother's Day dessert.
Q. Son's Extremely Obese Fianc?e: I need help about my son's extremely obese fianc?e. I might need advice on how to get over my own discomfort and how to address rude comments from family. My son is engaged to a girl who was a little more heavy than "chubby," when they met, but who has in the last two years gained another 150 pounds. She makes me uncomfortable because she eats the most unhealthiest of diets?fried foods and sugar, basically. My son battled weight issues as a teen but fought hard and lost it all and kept it off for eight years. I'm upset that her influence is also causing him to gain weight. I know there are other weight issues here ... I am not that thin, and most of my family members are heavy. Other family members make comments to me about how she will break their furniture, whether she is one of those people who ride carts at Wal-Mart, how they don't invite them over because she eats too much. Really bad stuff. Is it even in my place to suggest she gets help? I feel terrible for feeling this way.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=e4c87128da51b07006216862fe35fab1
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