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Dear Prudence,
I’m getting married in a year and my older brother is my best man. We’re in the middle of planning the details of my bachelor party, and during a family visit our sister asked if her partner would be getting an invite to the trip. We’re renting a house on a lake for two nights and it’s only my wedding party and two dads who are invited. But I know that if I don’t invite my sister’s partner, she would be extremely upset. Her partner is a nice enough person but has a tendency to get very intense and competitive to the point where he’s stormed off at family gatherings because someone didn’t ask him if they could have some chips that he brought with him. To a communal cookout where everyone was transparent about sharing and signed up to bring things! My gut tells me I should stick with a hard rule of “only the party and dads are invited” but I also know my sister (and her agro partner) would be genuinely upset if he didn’t get an invite and it would get passive (or not so passive) aggressively brought up by him or her in the future. Should I extend an invite just to keep the peace or risk throwing a wrench into our relationship?
—Bachelor Thinking Twice
Dear Bachelor,
Stand firm! Here’s the thing: The agro partner is either going to get upset by himself, at home, or he’s going to get upset about something stupid at the bachelor party and ruin it for everyone. Let him do it at home while you enjoy your time with your actual friends. I’m sure you’ll have to deal with him at plenty of family events in the future. Calmly and firmly sticking to your plan here, regardless of the response, will send an important message that you’re not someone who’s going to tiptoe around and cater to his worst personality traits.
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Dear Prudence,
Low stakes question: What’s the most polite way, if there is one, to duck out of a yoga class early? There’s one place that offers yoga classes near me, and it’s rescued me from my 2020-inflicted working out at home is torture feelings. Turns out I like moving my body if it’s not to video in my living room. However, they now do something called “sound healing” at the end of each class and it is horrible. It vibrates my ribcage and makes me feel like crying or puking. I would like to leave classes at the 45 minute mark to avoid it. What’s the most polite way to make this a pattern for me? Other people inexplicably like this part of class so I don’t think they’ll switch it back.
—No Sound
Dear No Sound,
You should ask the teacher (or someone at the front desk, if there are a variety of different teachers) if it would be OK for you to leave early, and be ready to accept “No, that’s too disruptive” as the response if that’s what they say. But something tells me it will be fine. Say something like, “I love this class so much but I’m finding I have a really negative reaction to the sound healing experience at the end. Would it be OK for me to quietly step out right before that begins?” If you get a yes, set yourself up as close as possible to the door, and as everyone is moving into position for the tear and puke-inducing noises, grab your mat by the corner (don’t draw attention to yourself trying to roll it up) and tiptoe out, closing the door gently behind you.
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Dear Prudence,
My wife and I are second-generation Indian American, and we have two daughters (33 and 29) and one son (31). In our culture, it is traditional for entire families to save up tens of thousands of dollars for their daughter’s wedding and save family wedding jewelry and clothing for them for decades—weddings in general are multi-day affairs, no matter how wealthy someone is. While my wife and I saved enough to pay for all of our children’s university and graduate education, we couldn’t also afford to save money for our daughters’ weddings (and thought it seemed unfair to our son). But when they did get married, my wife divided up her and her mother’s heirloom wedding jewelry, which had been in the family for nearly 80 years, and gave them her wedding saris to wear for different events. Many older family members also gave them money because they were horrified that we hadn’t saved (which we did NOT ask for) and that ended up being around $10,000 each.
Our son and his long-term girlfriend “Emily” are now engaged and planning a wedding of their own, which we are delighted about. We told them that because so many of our relatives had given our daughters money, we would contribute $10,000 to their wedding. Emily thanked us but seemed a little let down, and when we met for dinner last week, she blurted out why: She knew that my wife had given several thousand dollars worth of silk saris and gold jewelry to our daughters for multi-day weddings, and wanted to know why we weren’t giving them a comparable amount. My wife pointed out that they were heirlooms and Emily insinuated that it was because she wasn’t Hindu/Indian and didn’t want to have an Indian wedding, but by now she should know that we’re non-practicing and was at our oldest daughter’s wedding to her Colombian husband! I told Emily that if $10,000 wasn’t enough of a contribution to her wedding, she could just not accept it. Now our son is upset with us, and suggested we pay for Emily’s dress and jewelry as a “compromise” because it was cheaper than Indian wedding attire, and my wife says we should just give them the money so Emily can have a good relationship with us. I disagree. What should we do to resolve this?
—Cultural Clashes in Chicago
Dear Cultural Clashes,
I don’t really have a clear sense of the value of the heirloom jewelry and whether the saris were given or loaned, but even without a precise accounting of how much each couple received and whether it was exactly fair, your offer to your son and Emily seems very generous. Go ahead and give them the money, because that’s what you wanted to do, and an amount you decided was fair and felt good to you before they weighed in. My goal for you going forward is to protect your relationship with your son. I’m worried it’s at risk given that he and Emily aren’t even married yet, and we’re already seeing her becoming confrontational with you, which is in turn, leading him to be upset on her behalf. On this issue and any that may come up in the future, make sure you don’t engage in arguments with her and don’t say anything that could be used to paint you and your wife as the bad guys—even if it’s something as logical as, “If you’re dissatisfied with the money, fine, don’t cash the check.”
I think your line to the two of them needs to be, “We hate to hear that you’re disappointed, but we’ve contributed all we can to the wedding. We hope we can get past the tension over this as we prepare to celebrate your big day. Most of all, we’re deeply concerned that Emily seems to believe we have a problem with her culture, and we want to reassure her that we welcome her into the family with open arms and want to put to rest any concerns she might have. When you’re less busy with planning, we’d love to sit down and talk about this.” The idea here is for you to feel certain that you’ve gone above and beyond to make sure that if their feelings of entitlement to your money do end up causing distance between you, it isn’t because of a miscommunication or anything you’ve done wrong.
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My mother-in-law is generous and dotes on our 3-year-old son. We live less than an hour away and visit every Sunday. She invites us to spend the night on holidays, but never in the spare room. Instead we sleep on an air mattress downstairs. They let other guests (and our son) stay in the spare room. My mother-in-law has accused me of snooping a few times.
