Each week, Dear Prudence answers additional questions from readers for Slate Plus members only. Submit your question here. (Anonymous!)
Q. Cousin Care: My cousin “Kara” and I have been good friends since childhood. She has always been an aspiring achiever that I look up to, she completed her master’s degree before she was 21 years old. Then she met “Dan”.
Her brains seemed to drip from her ears. He was a mostly underemployed slacker, always smoked, and treated Kara badly. When Carla had her first miscarriage, I asked her to use reliable birth control. On her second one, I sat Carla down and told her to think. Dan had just had an affair and she wasn’t going to magically transform into a good father to her when she had a baby.She wanted to be a 25-year-old single mom?
Kara and Dan reconciled and I started to pull away. It was like watching someone run into a brick wall and start crying that they were all covered in blood. failed to get married. She told her she was an idiot for marrying a man like Dan, so we stopped talking. She hasn’t spoken to Carla in over a year. She didn’t even know she was pregnant until her mother told her. And Dan is her father. It’s already a shit show. Dan refuses to acknowledge her paternity, so they are awaiting court.Carla tried to move in with her friends, but it didn’t work out for her. She is moving with her father and a stepmother whom she dislikes to a small town where they have retired. I don’t know if I should reach out to her. I love Kara and miss her. If she wants to get her own life on her track, I’m happy, but she’s afraid of stepping her foot in the same mess.
A: You stopped liking Carla when she stopped making good choices. Your connection with her was based on her admiration. Because you love them so much and love them unconditionally, you want them in your life, even if their lives aren’t going well or they’re making decisions you don’t agree with. is clearly not someone like you.
She’s going through a tough time (admittedly a result of her own choices, but a difficult one nonetheless). Her last need is for someone to tell her “I said so” or to quarrel with her about her five years. plan.Wait until she gets her life on her track and you can treat her with respect before reaching out to her, but she’s not the person she is at that point. Note that you may not be very interested in the relationship point.
Further advice from Slate
A neighbor moved next door a few years ago. We were thrilled when we discovered they had a child. Their son is a year older than ours and at first we thought he would be a useful playmate for his son, but couldn’t be more wrong. The day his family arrived, we let their son play in the backyard so his parents could focus on moving. The new neighbor boy quickly reached out from the top deck of our playset and began dismantling the swing from the beam. Great fun for our son.
