Dear Prudence: My cousin wants a free honeymoon at my ski condo … – Slate

Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. For this edition, Dan Kois, a Slate writer and editor, will be filling in as Prudie. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Prudence,

My only cousin and I were close as kids but rarely saw each other once we were out of our teens. When she got married two years ago, my husband and I didn’t make the cut on the guest list (she was invited to mine). I wouldn’t have been able to go between work and travel expenses, but I took it as an indication of the state of our relationship or lack thereof.

My husband’s parents have both a summer house and a ski condo that they didn’t want to sell but were tired of the upkeep. They gave the properties to my husband and me. We are in the process of updating the properties and renting them out. My uncle is a contractor by trade. His wife isn’t a professional designer but could be. She has exquisite taste. They both spent a week at both properties free and gave us a rundown on what we would need to do. I guess word got around.

My cousin started texting me. She made it sound like she wanted to reconnect, but then she mentioned the ski condo and “joked” that she and her husband never got their honeymoon because of the pandemic so I should let them use it as a belated wedding gift. I “joked” back that no wedding invite, no gift, them the rules. She left the text on read and never responded back.

I figured that was the end of it. Only my cousin went crying to her mom and my aunt went on the warpath. She called and berated my mom, my uncle, and my grandparents over my “self-serving” attitude. It was fine of me to use my uncle and his wife for my own selfish needs but god forbid that I do a kindness to my only cousin. Apparently, she has been dealing with mental issues and her husband has a chronic health problem. None of this I knew.

My uncle and aunt got into it. My aunt and mom got into it. My grandparents are in a tizzy. And apparently, a lot of old family drama got brought up in the wake of this. My question is what do I do from here? If my cousin had straight up asked to use the ski condo and was honest I would have offered her some dates that hadn’t been booked. But this is another level of entitlement. My husband is firmly in this is my family do we go on my lead.

—Cousin Confusion

Dear Cousin,

Why not just ask your cousin if she would like to stay at your house? It costs you basically nothing. It might help someone who needs it. And maybe it will begin to repair a relationship that was once important to you. All this family drama is not your problem. It doesn’t matter who’s yelling at who, who’s acting entitled, or who’s keeping score. It doesn’t matter who was “right” in the text exchange, in which both of you revealed ways you feel hurt. But you have the chance to do something generous, so take it.

—Prudie, condoningly

Dear Prudence,

My 46-year-old wife has a near-crippling fear of talking on the phone. I’ve known this the entire time we’ve been together (20-something years now), but it’s very selective. She’ll talk to her family on the phone, and she is able to do work zoom calls without a problem, but she will not pick up to do simple things. If we ordered food and it showed up wrong, she won’t call to get things sorted out. When she had COVID this past summer, she refused to speak to a doctor over the phone to get antivirals prescribed, and I ended up doing it for her. Every now and then, the ridiculousness of it will spark a fight between us. Her reasoning is that she’s terrified she might not be able to understand someone’s possible accent, and she doesn’t want to say “pardon?” or ask them to slow down a bit. I’ve told her that she needs to get over this and learn to talk to people on the phone. Am I pushing too hard, or has she got to get over it?

—Pick Up the Damn Phone!

Dear Damn,

Hello? Are you there? It’s Prudence. What a drag! You’ve spent 20 years as the one who has to make restaurant reservations, change airline tickets, and wait on hold for Bank of America. Rest assured that the rest of your marriage will include ever more tasks that can only be accomplished on the telephone, no matter how AI-automated the customer service industry becomes. (In the year 2500, our disembodied consciousnesses will still be required to call the insurance company to figure out why we’re being double-charged for our brain tubes.) And these tasks are never enjoyable, always time-consuming, and often maddening. I agree that it’s ridiculous that your wife refuses to speak on the phone to certain people, and that things need to change.

Perhaps this is insensitive to your wife’s oddly specific fear. But when one partner’s pathological inability to accomplish an everyday task puts an undue burden on the other partner, they’re obligated to at least try to do something about it. I’m no specialist in anxiety disorders, but the fact that your wife is perfectly able to handle work calls—some of which surely involve clients who speak quickly or in an unfamiliar accent—suggests to me that there’s hope on the horizon.

Sit down with your wife—maybe do this one in person, not over the phone—and tell her that you do not wish to spend the next two decades as your marriage’s designated customer-service interactor. Not only that, but you’re worried that (should you, God forbid, one day be absent from her life) her inability to speak on the phone will endanger her health and happiness. You’d like her to work seriously on overcoming this fear, and if she feels that talking with a professional would help, you’re happy to pick up the phone to make the first appointment.

—Prudie, ringingly

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Dear Prudence,

I think I’m a pretty great uncle, if I say so myself. I love the kids in my family greatly and nobody who knows me would say I’m anything but the fiercest protector of them. They range from the ages of 5 to 13, and they all follow the trend of calling anyone or anything they deem to be bad or uncool “gay.” I’ve tried and tried to explain to them that as a gay man I find this very insulting and disrespectful to not only me but to the struggles that my community has and probably will always continue to survive through but it just falls on deaf ears. I know they love me with all their hearts, there is no doubt. But every time I see them I feel so devalued. I forgive them of course. It won’t affect our relationships but their reluctance to even listen to my words properly does make my efforts to show them my love and protection feel worth less.

Their parents and other adults in my family just tell me I should suck it up and accept it as just a trend but I don’t know. I just feel so much less important because of this.

—Just Gay

Dear Just,

I’m so sorry this is happening. On your behalf, I’m annoyed at the kids but infuriated at their parents. Kids do stupid things and later regret them—I’m surely not the only child of the ‘80s who looks back with great shame on my use of “gay” with the exact same valence—and often we must extend them forgiveness more times than seems fair. But the adults? They’ve been given an opportunity to teach their children kindness and respect, and instead, they choose to be actively unkind and disrespectful to you.

You are completely within your rights to simply tell your siblings and in-laws that you won’t be visiting for a while, until they take the extremely basic action of telling a freaking 5-year-old that it’s not acceptable to call things “gay.” You are not asking them to demand their children speak in Elizabethan blank verse! It should not be hard for them to establish some simple rules, in much the same way, I’m sure, that they have family rules about cursing in front of grandma. If they tell you, once again, to “suck it up,” tell them honestly how devalued and hurt their behavior—not only their children’s—makes you feel.

—Prudie, straightforwardly

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My 13-year-old daughter just got her first smartphone and made an Instagram account (with permission). She followed her older cousin who is 23, and whom she admires. I also have Instagram and follow her cousin (my niece). My niece is great, but she occasionally posts inappropriate things.

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