Help! I Caught My Girlfriend’s Niece Stealing Alcohol. She Threatened Me in a Very Disturbing Way. (2024)

Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Prudence,

I rent. My girlfriend of three years owns her place. We were planning on moving in together in December, when her older brother unexpectedly had to move to the Midwest. Her 16- and 13-year-old nieces didn’t want to leave their schools in the middle of the semester, so they moved in with my girlfriend. This was supposed to be a temporary solution. Only now, the pair of them are throwing a fit about not being able to finish high school here with their friends. It is only a two-bedroom place. I am extremely uncomfortable about how the girls act around me. They are extremely rude and walk all over their aunt (they don’t do chores and feel free to make messes that she cleans up). I have caught the oldest sneaking out beer and she threatened to call the cops on me for being a “pervert.”

She later apologized and claimed it was just a “joke,” but there have been similar incidents.

Their father thinks it is just fine to pawn off parenting for the next four or more years on my girlfriend. Our relationship has ground to a halt, and I am tired of it. It isn’t like this is a real family crisis. The girls just don’t want to move! My lease is up in July. I don’t want to make an ultimatum, but we went from discussing our future together to … nothing. What should I say? My girlfriend says that she is being pulled in too many directions.

—End of July

Dear End of July,

I feel for your girlfriend, but I also want you to, in order of importance, 1) avoid being falsely accused of sexual abuse, and 2) live your day-to-day life in peace. You can’t be over there when the teens girls are there anymore. I don’t care about the apology. That threat was far too serious.

Your girlfriend has chosen her nieces over you. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing. It shows her commitment to family and her willingness to be there for young people who are clearly a bit troubled and lacking some of the support you’d hope they have from their own parents. But her choice is incompatible with living with you right now. You can keep dating if you want, but you’ll have to spend time together out in the world or at your place. Explain that, and renew your lease. If you find that her making time for you doesn’t happen, you’ll have your answer about the future of this relationship.

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Dear Prudence,

My (wonderful, loving, etc.) partner and I are in our 50s. Aches and pains and the indignities of aging are beginning to rear their head. I take a Tylenol, maybe stretch, and carry on. My partner complains. All the time. Every time they sit down, or stand up, or bring in the dog food delivery from the porch, I hear about it. Sometimes it’s just grunts and groans. Sometimes they want to tell me what hurts, how long it’s been hurting, the suspected origin of the hurt, etc. And I do not want to hear it. It’s boring and pointlessly negative and so, so repetitive. We are in good health. They go to the doctor as often as needed. The things that can be addressed have been. The rest is just age. What can I do (kindly—they’re a sweet, sensitive soul) to get them to accept that their sore knee/stiff shoulder/plantar fasciitis is not interesting and will not improve by bitching about it. And that hearing about it is bumming me out on a daily basis? I know it’s a habit that can be broken, but how do I communicate that it’s a problem? We have at least a few more decades to get through, in which our bodies are unlikely to improve. I can’t take another 30 years of “conversation” about back twinges.

—My Back Hurts Too

Dear Hurts Too,

I actually feel like it’s pretty normal to complain about weird and uncomfortable physical symptoms, especially with your own partner in the comfort of your home. If it’s really getting you down, though, I suppose you could use a gentle “It’s not you it’s me” approach by saying something like, “I’m realizing when I hear about your aches and pains it bums me out, maybe because of what it represents about the reality of aging and how it reminds me that the issues we both deal with are unlikely to improve. Could you take that into consideration and cut back on the stiff shoulder updates? Of course, I care about you and still want to know if you’re injured or if there’s something you’re really worried about. But I think it would just help me a lot to spend less time thinking about the way our bodies can fail us.”

But I’ll give the suggestion I often give in situations in which a person wants their partner to stop doing something annoying: Before you ask him to stop, take stock of the habits you have that he may not love. (Do you provide a stream of gossip about people he doesn’t know? Complain excessively about your work nemesis? Eat off his plate without asking? Leave hair in the shower?) And make sure you’d be willing to break one of them at his request. It’s only fair.

Dear Prudence,

I have a truck, and it is basically seen as an invitation to be a free moving company for people. I made an exception in my no-moving policy for the sister of my new girlfriend. She was 18 and moving out from one friend and in with another. I rearranged my work schedule to help her.
When I got to the apartment, she had barely begun packing. I got really annoyed and told her how rude and wasteful of my time it was. Even so, I was going to start getting the bigger items into the truck, when I heard her cussing me out under her breath. So I left. And then I texted my girlfriend about the incident. She sided with her sister and said that an 18-year-old adult is “basically a baby” and I was a jerk for abandoning her and breaking my promise.

We took a break after that but are trying again. My problem is that her sister continues to be snotty about the entire incident. She says I owe her money because she had to go rent a truck and had to miss work for the move. She manages to bring it up every time I am in her presence, and all my girlfriend can do is tell me to ignore her. It is getting really annoying. Should I clear the air or not?

—Truck

Dear Truck,

You were well within your rights to set a boundary around the time you dedicated to this move. But to do that, you could have simply said “I’ll take what’s packed in the next few hours, but this afternoon is the only time I have off work, so unfortunately I won’t be able to make any trips with the truck after that.” Maybe your girlfriend’s sister still would have had to rent a U-Haul. Maybe she’d still argue that you owed her money. But you’d know you behaved reasonably while making sure you didn’t do more than what you promised.

For you to lash out and say she was rude and wasting your time was unnecessary. And now, because you didn’t handle the situation like an adult, you’re in a battle with a teenager! Don’t get me wrong—she sounds entitled and obnoxious, but she’s an 18-year-old entitled and obnoxious person who you barely know. This was an opportunity to stay calm and be (or behave like) the bigger person. To be honest, neither you, your girlfriend, or her sister seem to be very good natured and no one is bringing enough emotional maturity to the table to repair this situation or get along well going forward. Take another break—a permanent one—and don’t make any more exceptions to your no-moving-help policy, especially if you’re going to bring all your built-up resentment and anger about being taken advantage of with you.

Catch up on this week’s Prudie.

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My wife and I have a female-led relationship. Before we got married, I agreed that she could “take other lovers,” while I would remain faithful to her alone. She said that she might not ever see anyone else, but she liked that I knew shecould. Well, now she’s pregnant, and I’m wondering the obvious. We do have intercourse, but not often. She was away on business near the time she would have conceived. I don’t know whether she’s ever had another lover. I could have asked that before, but now I’m afraid of how it would come across. Should I ask, orjust wait to see if the baby looks like me?