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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
Happy Tuesday, ladies! I hope everyone had a great long weekend (what'dja do for fun / buy at the sales?). This simple wool V-neck dress has so many details I love — the longer elbow-length sleeves, the longer hemline, the numerous darts and seams for that perfect fit and flare. The price, well, leaves something to be desired, but that's what makes it a splurge: it's $548 at Bloomingdale's, available in sizes 2-16. Lafayette 148 New York Mirasol V-Neck Wool Dress
Looking for something similar but more affordable? Try this dress. For a similar plus-size option, check out this dress or this dress.
Admin Note: I did a major troll purge on Thursday morning, but I realized a ton of them were getting through because a setting that SHOULD be checked (requiring all new commenters to have one manually approved comment before they can comment without being moderated) was NOT checked. It is checked as of this morning… but the downside is that everyone commenting today (even if you've commented 3000 times, and recently) means you'll go to the modQ. We're going to do our very best to make it a seamless experience and approve 'em quickly, but please be patient with us today. Thank you in advance!
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(L-all)
Sales of note for 9.16.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 30% off wear-now styles
- J.Crew Factory – (ends 9/16 PM): 40% off everything + extra 70% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Extra 25% off all tops + markdowns
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
Some of our latest posts here at Corporette…
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- What to say to friends and family who threaten to not vote?
- What boots do you expect to wear this fall and winter?
- What beauty treatments do you do on a regular basis to look polished?
- Can I skip the annual family event my workplace holds, even if I'm a manager?
- What small steps can I take today to get myself a little more “together” and not feel so frazzled all of the time?
- The oldest daughter is America's social safety net — change my mind…
- What have you lost your taste for as you've aged?
- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
anonymous
For client facing roles, how often do you reject candidates for being boring or not engaging?
all about eevee
Often. The person would simply not be suitable for the role, and I am looking for the best fit when I am hiring.
Bonnie
When I was doing interviews, I frequently downgraded applicants who were not engaging. Even in jobs where you don’t have to deal with clients, you typically have to be able to work with collegues.
LAnon
Very often. Being engaging and building rapport is something that it’s very hard to teach. We can teach / train a variety of other skills, but that is not an area where I’ve seen dramatic growth if a candidate doesn’t already have it. If anything ever goes wrong with a customer, their relationship with the company is dependent on that person and could mean the difference between keeping and losing the customer. I’d take a very likeable, less qualified candidate over someone more qualified lacking in interpersonal skills every time.
Anonymous
I don’t know, I assume most people are easier to talk to when they’re not in an interview setting, and I wouldn’t ding someone unless they said something inappropriate or demonstrated a complete inability to keep a conversation going despite several attempts on my end. (But I’m a lawyer and, to be honest, I think the vast majority of lawyers are boring. The average law student I interview is way less boring for me to talk to than the 70-year-old white male partner that I have literally nothing in common with.)
Anonforthis
Any tips on some sensitive stuff? My husband’s step brother and his wife have had some very ugly words for me lately, stemming from their disapproval of me as a new mother. (I feed our baby formula. I’m not interested in defending that choice here.)
When I was pregnant, my husband agreed to be their daughter’s god father, at a catholic service, even though he is a firm atheist. They made a HUGE deal of this the moment we announced our pregnancy. It irked me at the time but I didn’t think they’d go through with it. Now, of course, they’ve scheduled it for my husband’s birthday weekend, out of town. He had never been to a baptism until after he agreed and was recently horrified when my mother (who was raised Catholic, but of course not the authority on these things) explained that he’d be agreeing to support and further the child’s education as a Catholic should something happen to her parents. He’s confided in me that he’d never do that. Can I talk him out of this? Do I have to go?
These people are so horrible to me that I’d rather not establish any new ties to them. At the same time, my husband seems to think it’s important to maintain a relationship with them.
Diana Barry
This is your husband’s issue to bring up with his stepbrother. He should explain to them that as an atheist, he can’t agree to supporting and raising the child in the Catholic faith, and do they still want him to be the godfather since that is the case? If he’d rather not bring it up with them, you can try to talk him out of it, but if he still wants to be the godfather, I’d just shrug and go.
Leave the rest of the issues out of it – it plays into the antipathy *you* feel towards them, but really has no bearing on the godfather issue.
Anonymous
Leave out the formula issue and the baptism scheduling issue (they likely had no control over the date – that’s how it works in my church).
On the actual issue of the promises he has to make in church as the godfather -google a copy of the Catholic Baptism service and review the promises. If he isn’t comfortable making the promises, he shouldn’t lie. Our church has a pre-session that must be attended by parents and godparents – find out if their church has a similar requirement.
Anonymous
No. His decision is between him, them, and God/lack thereof. It’s not anything to do with you. He is a grown up, so drop the birthday weekend nonsense, and yes you need to go.
Stop being passive aggressive. The problem isn’t the baptism. The problem is their comments to you. Deal with that directly.
anonymous
Agree with this, but don’t agree that you need to go. Do what you want on that front. Let your husband make his own decisions, and you make your own regarding your interaction with the family.
Anonforthis
I appreciate both of these comments. Would love any tips on dealing with them. They’re so condescending, it’s very hard for me not to point out their many, many shortcomings as parents and human beings.
Anonymous
“Thanks but this is what works for our family” = only response you ever need to give to anything – give the exact same response every time.
Anonymous
“Please don’t tell me what to do.”
“This is what works for us.”
“That was unkind. We need to go.”
Hollis
These are great. I’m going to use these.
all about eevee
“I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible.” Repeat as needed.
EM
Just say, “Wow.”
Anon
I also like asking them to repeat it, “I’m sorry what did you just say?” Sometimes they don’t have the nerves to say it twice. If they do, then I’d probably whip out a “wow” and change topics/leave room/stand up and find something to do.
Anon
“You don’t need to comment on my breasts.”
Anonymous
Your husband wants to maintain a relationship with them and agreed to be a godfather. If he wants to back out now because of what he’s promising to do in terms of religious education, it’s between him and his step brother and the church. It’s not your place to encourage him to back out, and the stepbrother and his wife’s rudeness to you shouldn’t be a factor. If they’re rude to you, you can limit your time around them but don’t try to prevent your husband from having the relationship he clearly wants to have with them.
anon
This. Also, are they also wanting your husband to be the legal guardian of the child should something happen to them? I realize they are two very distinct roles, but sometimes people conflate the positions. He should have a discussion about what all his godfather role is supposed to encompass.
An
You should both go and be nice about it. Being a godfather isn’t really establishing new ties, considering it’s for his niece and if he’s nonreligious, the other godparent will have to be a member of the church and will probably do the main godparent things, like being their sponsor during confirmation. Whether or not your husband wants to be a godfather is up to him, but he shouldn’t be surprised that there is a religious component to it. Kind of wondering if he thought he’d be inducting the baby into the mafia or something… maybe he could suggest that instead. :)
Anonforthis
:) thanks. I needed a smile.
ck
+1 this
I am an atheist and am the godmother to a close friend’s children. Of course she knows my non-religious affiliation, even though her parents are disapproving. The child has additional godparents, that will be more for the religious aspect.
These days being a godparent is often much less religious, and is more symbolic… you know?
Your SIL knows her brother, and what he believes. No matter how she is to you, she is not likely expecting him to reconvert to Catholicism and train them in the traditions. Try to to ruffle your husband’s feathers here. He’s her brother. It is very, very, very common for him to be a godparent for this reason alone.
And how old is your husband…. 9? Since when does an adult birthday trump a Christening?
Let it go. For your sanity.
Look into Mindfulness Meditation.
AKB
Don’t allow your issues with them (as adults) to affect the kids – yours or theirs. I dislike my SIL a lot, but I keep that 100% separate from my relationship with her children who I adore. You should go and put a smile on your face. Not because you like the parents, but because you are celebrating a ceremony for an innocent baby.
And birthday weekends for adults are a non-issue. Nobody really cares. You can celebrate later.
Niece
+1 to this. As a child, my mother had major issues with her SIL and MIL. I really appreciate that my aunt didn’t let this affect my relationship with her kids. I went on vacations to visit them and enjoyed the time with my cousins and the sleepovers etc. I was an only child and it takes a village. I still sometimes think about “this is what my aunt would do in x situation” and having that extra adult-woman perspective helps.
Em
Being a Godfather at a Baptism is more of a symbolic and/or political role anymore, at least in my community (although some people certainly view it as a more serious commitment). My Godfather isn’t Catholic and I see him maybe once a year. If your husband has a moral obligation against supporting the child being raised Catholic, then no, he should not be the Godfather. But it isn’t like he is pledging his devotion to pay for Catholic school or take the kid to Mass every Sunday if something happens to the parents.
Scarlett
+1 – it also isn’t always the legal guardian. It’s more often a way to “honor” an important relative. That said, because there are so many different takes on the role, OP’s H should talk to brother in law.
Anon in NYC
I know somebody who had to prove they were in good standing in their church before being allowed to be a godfather to a friend’s daughter. I think it can really vary by church/denomination. Your DH should talk to his brother and see what is required.
Anon
Yes, our home Catholic Church requires godparents to be in good standing with the Church. Which means if you were not married in the church and your husband does not continue to go to mass, confession, and take communion, then he would not be allowed to be a godparent in our church. Some are more strict than others.
Anne Elliott
Let him be upfront with the parents about what he is willing or unwilling to do.
You do not need to go.
rosie
It’s your husband’s family. At this point, I would support him in whatever relationship he wants to have with them. Nothing you’ve described sounds particularly egregious. Adults should get over having other events scheduled on their “birthday weekend.” My nephew is Catholic and we are not, so DH was not asked to be a godparent although they are close (it’s his brother’s kid), so I think it’s a little odd that your in-laws would be asking a non-Catholic, but like I said, I’m not Catholic so I don’t really know. And remember godfather does not mean legal guardian if something happened to the parents, it’s symbolic, and if your in-laws know your husband isn’t Catholic, they have to know what they’re getting.
all about eevee
You don’t need to go. Have him tell them that you are busy with work or that you had another obligation at that time. It shouldn’t be an issue unless you make it one.
Cat
I have nothing to contribute that hasn’t already been said on the “should your husband be a godfather” question, but the responses seem to be missing the point that the OP had already booked an out-of-town trip with her husband for his birthday — it’s not that they’re randomly refusing to make plans, despite being around, because of his birthday.
OP, if your husband is honest with them about his faith and they all decide he will still be a godfather, can you rearrange the travel plans? I know it’s a huge PITA for people that sound…. unpleasant, but a baptism only happens once.
ck
Why wouldn’t you go to the baptism?
It’s in a church, sometimes with a short service. You don’t talk during it.
It would be a bit rude not to go, especially since your husband will be godfather.
These events don’t happen that often, do they? And they are important to your husband’s parents, most likely. Try to rise above it if you can.
Anonforthis
Thanks all. I acknowledge I’m overreacting particularly about the birthday thing- we’d planned a fun trip but we can cancel and head to this thing with our baby. (How the heck I’m gonna feed baby all weekend without a nervous breakdown I don’t know.) I don’t want to go bc it’s painful to watch my husband support people that publicly disparage me.
Anonymous
“I don’t want to go bc it’s painful to watch my husband support people that publicly disparage me” sounds more than a little self-centered. Your husband is not publicly supporting the disparagement, he is supporting his family, and most importantly, supporting his infant niece, who is a totally innocent party in this, regardless of how terrible her parents may be. Declining this invitation wouldn’t just hurt his relationship with his sibling and his wife, it would undoubtedly hurt his relationship with his niece, who will grow up hearing about this terrible thing her uncle did.
YOU don’t have to have a relationship with your BIL and SIL, but it’s unreasonable to expect your husband to cut his step-brother and his baby niece out of his life, just because the step-bro and his wife were a little snotty and judgmental to you. If they were racist towards your ethnicity or something it might be a different story, but what they have done is really pretty typical b!tchy in-law behavior that isn’t all that uncommon. It doesn’t mean it’s nice and I can certainly understand why you want to limit your interactions with them, but as an adult you need to recognize that your husband isn’t slapping you in the face by refusing to terminate his relationship with his close family members just because they’re not nice to you.
ck
I hear you. I’m sorry it is so hard, and stress inducing for you.
Have a candid talk with your husband about the effects his family is having on you, at a time when you are calm and not talking about the Godfather debacle. If need be, he should be the one standing up for you, and talking to his family if they are being disparaged. Practice your canned responses for these family occasions.
And try to remember the “best intentions” rule, when family talks to you. With my relatives, I use the phrase “thank you for your thoughts…. we’ll think about it….” And then change the subject, or excuse myself for the bathroom.
I suggest a glass of rose or a cocktail before all family gatherings….
AnonA
I wouldn’t think about it as supporting the adults, but as supporting the baby, his niece. When she looks at pictures years from now, she will know that he was there and that he cared about her.
all about eevee
I disagree. Babies don’t care, she won’t remember this, and it isn’t going to be important to her whether or not the OP was there when she is older. This is making a mountain out of a molehill.
Wildkitten
Since you’re feeding your baby formula anyway you might consider taking a Xanax for this short-term very stressful event. (Seriously.)
Anonforthis
Thanks for this, wk. I’ve never taken these drugs but will seriously consider it. Then again if it drives me to meds I think it’s better to skip.
Lorelai Gilmore
I’m also a mom who fed her baby formula. When I was six weeks post-partum and dealing with the worst of low supply, my sister-in-law had also just given birth to her own baby and kept posting pictures of the gallons (literally gallons!) of milk she had pumped and stored, with captions like “My superpower is making milk!” I now know that none of this was about me and can even laugh about it, but it sure felt horrible at the time. I definitely cried a lot.
Anyway, all that is to say that I understand a little of where you are coming from, and I think you should do two things. First, your husband needs to tell stepbrother and his wife that their comments were hurtful and inappropriate. He needs to defend you! Second, I think you should go to the baptism and take the high road. I still am not a huge fan of my SIL, but I love her children and I hope that her children and my children will be cousins and friends for the rest of their lives.
Good luck. Be kind to yourself. I know you don’t want to debate formula feeding here, but I just want to also say that formula is an amazing, wonderful choice. You are doing a great job here.
Anonforthis
Thanks for the long and thoughtful post. It’s nice to hear from someone on the other side. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to explain the hurt to my husband, or anyone, except to say that I have no interest in maintaining a relationship with them.
Lorelai Gilmore
At some point – not now, but later – you may be able to figure out a way to restore some semblance of familial harmony. I would take whatever steps you need to protect yourself now without cutting off that possibility in the future. People do crazy things in the aftermath of a new baby and are sometimes so desperate to feel like they’re doing the right thing that they slam other choices in the process. It’s a sort of pathetic way to seek validation. Once you’re out of the new baby haze, it’s easier to see that for what it is, and dismiss it accordingly. There are a million ways to be a good mother and none of them are contingent on breastfeeding.
full of ideas
Are you me?? This same situation (w.r.t baptism) happened to my spouse. We went, it was not that bad, and I laughed in my head seeing my spouse read from the bible… My thoughts were that we were doing it for the baby and the chance to be in her life, not necessarily her parents.
Books!
Looking for some book recommendations – doesn’t have to be anything new. Recently read and loved Cutting for Stone and A Thousand Splendid Suns. But also like things like Girl on the Train. Go!
Cb
I read The Muse recently and it was very, very good as was her previous book. Eva Sleeps was excellent. Check out the Bailey’s women’s prize candidates as well.
I didn’t love some of this summer’s lit fiction – was meh on The Nest, the clasp, vinegar girl but I did like the engagements. I just finished Yann Martel’s new book and despite a hatred of magical realism, I liked it.
Spirograph
If you like Khaled Hosseini, he has another book: And the Mountains Echoed.
Warning, the first chapter made me cry.
HSAL
I’m currently in the middle of the second book of Justin Cronin’s The Passage trilogy (The Passage, The Twelve, City of Mirrors). It’s amazing post-apocalyptic vampire fiction. The second book isn’t quite as good as the first, but the first was so incredibly engaging.
Anon
The first book was really good. I stopped reading the second book about 1/4 of the way in because I just couldn’t get into it.
Lobbyist
I’ve read two great memoirs recently: Hillbilly Elegy and When Breath Becomes Air. Both were really good. I loved Cutting for Stone!!
Honeycrisp
+1 for When Breath Becomes Air. Very well written. I read it in a day and a half.
teflon
When Breath Becomes Air is the best book I’ve read recently, give it a try!
all about eevee
You may like Luckiest Girl Alive.
ELaw
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker was absolutely lovely.
TravelBug
Seconded.
Senior Attorney
Third. Loved it!
Runner 5
I just read Joanna Trollope’s Sense and Sensibility update and it was incredible. Highly recommend for anyone who liked Eligible or indeed the film with Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, etc
anon
The book I think the most about that I read this year: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This book has the ability to consume your thoughts and give fresh consideration to the power of love and friendship.
Runner up is Year of Yes, Shonda Rhimes book. It’s no preachy self-help book, but rather as Shonda takes you along on her journey of yes, you draw your own connections and are left inspired and confident. I read this one along with several friends at the beginning of the year, and I can’t believe how often we still reference it.
Of the 2016 books I’ve read:
My Name is Lucy Barton (Elizabeth Strout) was really lovely. I enjoyed Before the Fall by Noah Hawley, but go into this book knowing it was written by someone who writes TV. Eligible (Curtis Sittenfeld) was hilarious, suck-you-in brain candy. The Nest was fun, with a large cast of characters. I loved it, but some people were meh on it (including much of my book club), I think because they were expecting more overt drama as opposed to the book’s reality, which reveals undercurrents of the family dynamic.
In don’t waste your time land, 2016: I frankly didn’t understand the hype behind The Girls. It promised a revelation, but I felt the prose was lazy. Sweetbitter felt…. basic. There is no food writing here, an anemic plot and some pretentious babble about wine that most anyone who’s spent the smallest amount of time studying wine can see through.
2 Cents
Read Before the Fall, and was underwhelmed by the conclusion. Thought the premise was really cool and set up a great mystery…which then just petered out by the end. An OK and fast read for me.
Anonymous
I had the same reaction to A Little Life. I found myself crying on public transit as I read. Unforgettable.
H
If you want something lighthearted, Mindy Kaling’s book, Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me?, was a fun read and pretty quick.
full of ideas
Bel Conto by Patchett
Anger and alcohol
My fiancé and I are supposed to be getting married in 6 months. He is a great, sweet, happy go lucky person, but he’s quite conflict avoidant. He only allows himself to have emotions or to discuss his frustrations when he’s very drunk. Unfortunately, that means he’s incoherent so when he doesn’t get the response from me that he wants (because I can’t understand what he’s saying or why his mood just shifted from PARTY TIME to morose) he becomes angry and curses at me. His favorite word to call me is see you next Tuesday. When this first started, I would get angry and yell at him, which would result in some bad fights, but eventually I sort of got used to it and just disengaged, so our fights stopped escalating. We went to therapy to work on our communication. He also stopped drinking as much. Things got and stayed better and we got engaged about 6 months ago.
Over the weekend, he started to get very drunk again. I asked him several times to slow down. We got home at about 4 am and he continued drinking. I asked him again to please stop. Out of nowhere he ripped things off the wall. I told him that’s not ok and he needed to assure me that he wasn’t going to continue or I would call the police. He started screaming and cursing at me so I called the cops. They took him to his parents house for the night.
The next day we talked and I told him a condition of him coming home is that he has to work on his relationship with alcohol with a medical professional. He thinks alcohol isn’t the problem, it’s that he doesn’t know how to talk to me about his relationship frustrations. I asked him what was he mad about other than the fact that I asked him to stop drinking and he didn’t have an answer. He thinks that the only reason I called the cops is because I’ve been in an abusive relationship before so I am more prone to react to a violent outburst. He is upset that I don’t trust him to not hurt me. I told him he doesn’t get to have hurt feelings about me fearing for my safety when he has a violent outburst, that I don’t like how this is escalating, and that it’s not a huge leap from destroying things in my house to hitting me.
I don’t know what to do next. Wait and see if he follows through on his promise to seek professional help? What kind of help should I expect him to get? I’m not sure I’m interested in going to therapy with him again at this point. It’s hurtful to me to have him and a therapist sit there questioning whether I’m right to feel threatened by angry outbursts. His behavior is not ok and he needs to come to grips with that before I want to go to therapy again. Sorry for the novel and any typos – I’m on my phone. Thanks for any insight, hopefully not just DTMFA. I know it’s easy to say that to an Internet stranger but he and I make such a great team when he’s not wasted. I’d also like to request that this not be put on “threadjacks of interest” as this is obviously a sensitive subject. I just didn’t know where else to turn. TIA.
Anonymous
You are in an abusive relationship again, this time with bonus alcoholism. You need to leave or kick him out for your own safety. If he acknowledged a problem with alcohol and recognized that he needed to fix it, you could work with that. But he doesn’t. You are engaged to a man who gets out of control drunk and violent and places the blame on you. You don’t make a great team.
Diana Barry
+1. This relationship is not safe for you.
lost academic
THIS.
Anon
+1000. I know it’s not helpful to have other people tell you what’s wrong with your relationship, but this sounds full-on abusive, dangerous, and like you need to gtfo now for your health and safety. Best of luck and make sure you bring in your girlfriends, mom, or whoever else can provide support in your life.
ELaw
Agree.
Idea
+ 1 million. You had me at Sentence #3.
Annie
+10
thigh teeth
100%. He is gaslighting you by ascribing your fear to your previous relationship. You are being abused.
...
I was the kid of a person who acted like that.
It is terrible to live in a house where you’re constantly walking on eggshells, trying to foresee what the mood will be like when your parents come home from social engagements or after-work drinks. (is it jolly? or crazy?). I still suffer from those after-effects.
If someone knows that he/she is an angry drunk (tbf, its unreasoanable for anyone to get property-destructive drunk), it doesn’t make much sense for him to excuse objectively unreasonable behavior with “I was drunk,” and then act confused/like you’re overreacting when you ask him to stop drinking (or at least not get super drunk). If he’s easily stressed or you’re bad communicators, IT DOES NOT GET EASIER once you throw a few kids and a mortgage and 2 careers into the mix.
The therapist doesn’t need to agree with why you feel threatened–it’s not like you’re feeling threatened by germs or aliens or something bizarre. If you’re not interested in going to therapy with him, I think that’s a big indicator that wedding is the best idea right now.
OP
Re the therapy thing because I’m sure others will pick up on this too – the last time we went to therapy, it was very much a mediation. The therapist didn’t pick sides, she helped us to talk about why we felt the way we did and try to find some common ground. I’m not sure that’s productive right now. I feel like I’ve explained why I feel the way I do, he just doesn’t get it because if the tables were reversed he wouldn’t have felt threatened in my shoes. I would feel more comfortable going to therapy with him if he started working with someone on his own first. I’m open to other opinions though if I’m approaching this from the wrong perspective.
Anonymous
He needs rehab and to work on himself a lot before he can deal with couples therapy. Don’t waste anymore time on this loser – you deserve better.
Anonymous
You aren’t. Couples therapy is not appropriate in abusive relationships for exactly these reasons.
anon for this
Of course he wouldn’t have felt threatened. I hate to be like this, or make assumptions about your relative sizes and strengths, but the chances that you could do him significant harm with your fists alone are slim to none. I’m a fit and athletic 5’4 and 125 pounds; my boyfriend is 6’0 and 175 and works out a hell of a lot less than I do. I could attack him all-out and he could pin me without breaking a sweat. He could still do it if he was three inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter.
There’s that quote “Men worry about women laughing at them. Women worry about men killing them,” for a reason.
...
I didn’t mean it like you weren’t willing to do the work.
If doing the work seems scary or ineffective, it seems like there’s a big problem.
would you buy a house built on a huge sink hole that you didn’t think would respond to repairs?
anonymous
I’m not going to say DTMFA necessarily, but I do think you need to revisit whether this is a workable situation. I get that he’s otherwise a lovely person, but it really does seem like you’re setting yourself up for some very low lows in this relationship, and that concerns me. I would also likely have a somewhat different outlook on the situation if he wanted to get help for himself, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I don’t think you need to break it off right now, but I’d be seriously thinking about the future of your relationship, what you want, and what kind of behavior you can tolerate (fwiw, this isn’t behavior you should tolerate). I see a ton of red flags here, and if he doesn’t go to therapy, I’d probably advise you to break off your engagement.
JuniorMinion
No one you care about should ever make you feel afraid of them. At all. Full stop. As someone who grew up with an emotionally abusive parent it took me a long time to come to terms with that. I realize it is hard as when you are in any kind of intimate relationship with someone who behaves like this/ makes you afraid you almost end up in some kind of twilight zone where this feels normal, but I am here from the other side to tell you that it is not.
Put yourself in his shoes – if you had, in an altered state, pulled a bunch of his things off the wall and become so violent / belligerent that law enforcement had to be called in – would you be defending your actions? Personally I would be horrified and abjectly apologetic if I had behaved like this and would be exploring my therapy options because I would clearly be not OK if I was behaving like this.
I am not a therapist (and ps I recommend you get a different one because no one should ever question whether you have a right to your feelings – they are your feelings) but my recommendation would be you need to take some space from this guy – you need to live separately / take a breather for a bit. Something is very wrong here in this situation and before / if you move forward you need to get to the bottom of what it is / take care of your own well being. No man should treat you like this – you deserve someone who appreciates you and makes you feel loved and valued all the time.
Scottie
Whilst I understand that some people need a small drink to allow them to free themselves up to discuss emotions, if it’s the amount that makes a person unintelligible then I’d be worried. I’ve walked on eggshells around someone when they drink and although it was doable for a while, it eventually erased my interest in the person to the point I just turned around and walked away after what seemed like a small thing to them but was the tipping point for me.
By all means try and work on things, but a person has to not just acknowledge a problem (stress/alcohol/inability to communicate – delete as appropriate) but WANT to change.
Anonymous
This is an abusive relationship. Leave him.
Calling the cops was 100% appropriate.
You DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER.
This is not what healthy relationships look like.
Please, please leave him and keep yourself safe.
Annie
+10
anon for this
I am so sorry that you’re going through this. What your fiance did was unacceptable, and I’m so glad that you stood up for yourself and got him out of the house that night. You are 100% right that it’s not a long way from destroying things around the house, to laying hands on you–and his belief that you were only bothered by this because of a past abusive relationship is deeply problematic. It’s also a huge red flag that he doesn’t see the link between alcohol use and his anger issues. Also a red flag that you didn’t feel comfortable in therapy because he manipulated the therapist to take his side and make you justify your discomfort. These are huge issues. Huge. I hope that you know that in order to safely continue your relationship, your fiance has got to get a major attitude change and do the work that he needs to do in order to fix his relationship with alcohol and learn to manage his anger. And that means actually doing the work–seeing a therapist, talking to a doctor, going to Al-Anon, demonstrating that he understands that he has a problem–not just saying he will and then never getting around to it.
I’m not going to tell you to DTMFA right now. But I hope you know that if he doesn’t show you that he’s doing the work, your options are A) DTMFA or B) remain in a relationship with a man with a drinking problem and anger management issues who hasn’t hit you…yet. Have you considered calling a DV hotline to talk this through with a trained professional?
My boyfriend can also be conflict-avoidant, has a temper, likes to drink, and admits that in the past he’s punched holes in walls. I don’t care that he occasionally screams at football games or slams down a TV remote, because that’s the way he blows off steam; I’ve told him that anything approaching wall-punching is an absolute no, he has agreed, and stuck to it. Despite some disagreements, we’ve never raised our voices at each other, and he’s never directed his temper at me. We’ve been dating two years and I’ve only seen him get angry and drunk one time. It wasn’t at a person, just at a situation, but he yelled, slammed some car doors, and threw a few things. I disengaged until he calmed down and switched to water (of his own volition). We talked about it later and he fell over himself apologizing, admitted that he got too drunk, agreed to not get that drunk again, and that if I thought he was over the line I could tell him and he’d back off. That was only a couple of months ago, so we’ll see how it goes moving forward, but no matter how much I love him, I am not willing to be around him when he’s like that. If he’d tried to minimize the incident or gaslight me into thinking it wasn’t a big deal, I would have broken up with him.
What I’m trying to say is that people aren’t perfect and that one incident does not always mean DTMFA. But a pattern of behavior with a refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of the problem…that’s a huge problem. OP, take care of yourself and stay safe.
anon
Something that jumps out at me: you say that he feels he needs to be drunk to “discuss his relationship frustrations.” Well, tearing things off the wall and screaming and yelling and insulting you isn’t “discussing relationship frustrations.” Which leads me to wonder if he’s ever able to do that. I’m concerned that he thinks that calling you a c you next tuesday is “having emotions” or “discussing.”
I, like “. . .” grew up in a house where parents were verbally abusive to one another, including things like punching holes in walls, tearing things off walls, breaking furniture, possibly some physical abuse right toward the end. The walking on eggshells feeling is awful and I’m still paying for the therapy. Also – consider that the “good times” might not feel so shiny or worth it after the two of you are worn down by 10 more years of this. This is awful.. I’m so sorry.
ChiLaw
I agree. If he can ‘only talk about relationship frustrations’ when drunk, then he really isn’t talking about them at all. And he’s scary and mean when he *is* talking about that, and I don’t want anyone to have to live with that.
I know you love him, but you’ve got to take care of yourself first. He’s not safe to be around. Throwing things in anger is one step away from throwing them *at you.*
If you don’t want to DTMFA, maybe you can consider making some hard boundaries? Not going forward with the wedding planning, not cohabitating, etc., until he has made very real progress on these issues.
Be safe.
Wildkitten
Yeah I also need a cocktail to discuss my feelings but this guy is not that – being violent (even towards things) is not discussing feelings, it’s abuse. I’m so sorry that you are in this situation. Please get yourself out of it.
all about eevee
Please do not marry this person. Cancel the wedding. You can do better.
Brunette Elle Woods
Being alone is better than this. This is dangerous.
MU JD
+1000 My BFF would agree. She’s in the midst of a divorce from a guy that sounds just like your fiance. You can’t fix people.
Blonde Lawyer
You are right to trust your instincts not to do therapy together. Abusers should not be in couples therapy because they manipulate the therapist too. They are masters at looking like the nice guy to others and the devil when alone with you. This makes you feel crazy because only you see these bad things about him. It’s not because you are crazy, it’s because he only does them with you.
Your emotions are going to clouded by this impending wedding and your thoughts of how hard it will be to call off. Your family and friends will be relieved if you call it off. Call it off. That doesn’t mean you have to break up. It means you take the pressure off.
Same with living together. You need your own space while you decide your future with this guy.
Read “Why does he do that?” It’s really long so feel free to jump to the most important chapters for you. Be aware of the “honeymoon period” because the abuse will often be worse after that. Keep in mind the statistics about people in former abusive relationships ending up in those relationships again. I am not saying this to say it is your fault by any stretch of the imagination. I’m saying that if you are wondering if it is abusive, it most likely is.
I don’t think being abused in the past makes you more likely to feel abused in the future. I think the opposite. You aren’t used to be treated the way you should be and likely make MORE excuses for bad behavior than someone who wasn’t previously abused. You also need individual therapy and do not tell him what you discuss with your therapist. Also, don’t tell him what your trusted friends and family say about him either. He will just try to drive your support network away from you.
You’ve got this. You know what you need to do. The hardest part is doing it.
Anon
+1 to “Your family and friends will be relieved if you call it off.” My sister was you. She went through with the wedding and then got divorced 3 months later when he escalated his drinking to drugs and cheated on her. He did all of the things you describe and luckily never hit her. His current wife was not so lucky.
anon
Piling on to share two favorite quotes: “When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.” and “There is never a right time to do a hard thing.” Take care.
Senior Attorney
All of this, times a million!
Your friends and family will be SO relieved when you call it off!
Some other aphorisms to help you through this:
People are not improvement projects.
The only way out is through.
Relationships stand or fall on their worst moments.
Blonde Lawyer
I’m in moderation and I bet other people are too. Make sure you check back later.
Anon
I’m so sorry, but my advice is DTMFA. Please take care of yourself. This is just not ok at all.
Anon for this
This is really hard to write because I am kind of you but 15 years later. I married mine. He is an alcoholic. The first 10 ish years of the relationship were me learning that, constantly making deals about how much he would drink a day/ an event and then him busting through that. Then we had 4-5 years of therapy where he was lying to me about his drinking.I was very naive about the drinking thing — I didn’t drink much, hadn’t seen much drinking, and didn’t understand he was an addict for a LONG time. Now he goes to AA and I believe he is sober. We have two kids. I consider divorce on a regular basis but I do still love him and he is a good Dad, but boy is it tough sometimes. What helped me, and what might help you, is going to Al Anon. Learning what I could deal with and what I could control. (which is me: not him.) And event though things aren’t great, my perspective is much better than it used to be because I realize I have made the choice (for now) to stay with him, to stay married, so I get less resentful. Good luck to you.
...
:(
I just am sad to read this.
I know it’s hard, divorce is hard, logistics are hard., finances are hard……but (being the kid from those relationships.) my mom was bright and talented and just FUN/kind/quirky, but chose over and over to be in a bad marriage because she was raised to “be grateful” and because she thought my dad was a “good dad.” He was good in that he provided for us and did (in his own very dysfunctional way) love us, but MAN is it hard to not be bitter and sad for my mom.
Anonymous
+1 to Al-non. He is an alcoholic. You need to take care of yourself.
ck
You need to put the wedding on hold. You cannot marry this man.
He needs therapy. He needs to stop drinking. Couples therapy can’t work until those things are at hand.
You will need support, and possibly therapy to help you figure your way through this.
I am proud of you for what you have done so far.
full of ideas
But keep in mind HE needs to stop drinking, and it won’t work unless HE makes it
nutella
I’m sorry but this doesn’t sound like a guy who is great, sweet, happy go lucky OR conflict avoidant. He is verbally abusive (nasty words towards the supposedly most important person in his life), physically violent (throwing things off the wall), abusive of alcohol (obviously, from your whole post), and perhaps one of the worst – unwilling to improve (does not want to go to therapy, does not know how to talk to you or want to learn, and does not want to admit he has a problem either with alcohol or his emotions). I used this analogy last week and I don’t mean it to sound trite, but you have a rotten fish in your sushi and it doesn’t matter how ‘great’ the other parts are.
I also want to point out that it didn’t ‘get better’ before, you said you ‘disengaged.’ Life will throw you curveballs like mortgages, job loss, aging parents, illness, childcare, etc. etc. etc. Dating and engagement should be fun and easy. How are the two of you going to face real life head on as partners together when he gets drunk to the point of you (rightfully) calling the police but otherwise cannot talk about his emotions and issues and you (rightfully) ‘disengage’ ???
I am not sure this can be saved, but only you know. I would caution you to not let wedding planning cloud your judgment here, though. If you think it cannot be saved, better to walk away now than when more deposits are made or you have to divorce and split your assets and child custody.
Anonymous
This!!
I thought dating and engagement were hard at the time – they are easy compared to sleep deprived years of children, jobs, mortgages, aging parents etc.
It will be exponentially harder to leave an abusive relationship once you have children. If you have children, if he is not abusive to them, some courts will still allow him access so you can never truly be free.
Please leave now while you still can.
LAnon
I, too, am a generally conflict averse person who comes across as pretty happy-go-lucky but am actually very emotionally repressed, and I also sometimes need a few drinks in order to get out of my own head and have meaningful relationship conversations. It’s not great, I’ve been in therapy, but at this point that’s my reality.
However, I have never, ever been cruel or nasty to my partner during one of those alcohol lubricated emotional conversations. When totally sober, I feel incredibly tongue-tied about expressing my deep feelings and the alcohol helps remove that. It doesn’t change any of the feelings. Alcohol doesn’t change who a person is but rather reveals it. This is going to sound harsh, but if your fiancee is calling you a see-you-next-Tuesday drunk, believe me that the thought is in his brain when he’s sober.
Anon for this
Not acceptable at all. I’m married to an alcoholic (he wasn’t one when we married) and I would not have married him if it was an issue at the time. Dealing with a partner’s substance abuse is draining in every conceivable way and my DH is not abusive like your fiancee. Seriously consider walking away before subjecting yourself to a life of misery.
Anon for this
Get out get out get out. I married this person, trust me, it does not get better. If the breakup encourages him to get sober, you can reconsider the relationship after he’s clean for a year.
Any other wonderful qualities he may have don’t balance this one out. Imagine raising kids with someone who is too drunk most of the time to be an equal partner (ask me how I know.) Imagine having to explain to neighbors what all the shouting was about (ask me how I know.) Imagine slowly losing your friends and relationships with family over time because either they don’t want to be around him, or you are too embarrassed to let them come around.
Signed –
Divorced now, should have known better.
Anon
Oh sweetie. I’m so sorry. This sounds horrible. I just got out of a relationship with an alcoholic, abusive dude and as much as it hurts: Leave. It was a three year relationship and it took trying me many times to get out of it, but I’ve now been out of it since March and the stress relief is indescribable. I don’t have to worry about him becoming cruel or violent or screaming at me until I was cowering. Reading this was like reading my situation this winter. I never called the cops, but only because I’m pretty sure he would have hurt me had I done so.
If this was your daughter or best friend, what would you say?
Sending you a thousand hugs. It sucks. It sucks so hard. I loved this guy- he was awesome, except when he was drinking. Then he got to be unpredictable and scary. But those two sides of him were sides of the same coin- they couldn’t be separated. Leaving sucked. Staying sucked. But I thought about whether I wanted to be here in 5 years, miserable and scared. And I didn’t.
Anon
Also: Read Why Does He Do That. Get it on your kindle or phone or buy it and read it during lunch at work, but read it. It helped me crystallize exactly how the ways I was being treated were abusive.
Live and Learn
I’ve been where you are. I chose to stay, but I did not marry him. We don’t have or want kids. It’s been a rocky road. Thankfully, he was always open to what I had to say and willing to work on his drinking even when he didn’t agree there was a problem. It’s taken 8 years for him to get to the point where he can have a few beers and quit before getting wasted and there were a lot of false starts in between (periods where he wouldn’t drink at all for months and months and then an incident like what you described or just short of it would happen). That only made it harder to leave because each dry period lasted longer than the last and I saw light at the end of the tunnel. To his credit he seems to have a healthy relationship with drinking now and expresses his anger in acceptable ways. Our communication has also improved by leaps. But I still grapple with my own anxiety in situations that would have triggered his drinking excessively in the past. It can be exhausting and not great on the relationship. If you don’t want to DTMFA now, I can understand. But seriously consider whether you want to invest years dealing with this even under the best circumstances. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have made a different choice at the first sign of trouble and I’m certain that all of the good reasons I chose to stay could have been found elsewhere. FWIW, I found Anthony Robbins Love and Passion on itunes very helpful. You might too.
Anon
One more thought – he seems to believe (and perhaps you have internalized) that as long as he is not hitting you, he is not abusing you. I don’t agree. Damaging your home, calling you names, and making you feel believe that it’s your fault when he gets mad is abuse, too. I encourage you to look for a Power and Control Wheel if you have never done so – it’s a really useful tool that shows the different forms that abuse can take. And you can always call a domestic violence hotline and speak to an advocate if you want a few short perspective or help with safety planning if you want to end or slow down the relationship. Good luck and take care of yourself.
Sage
Run, don’t walk away from this man. It does NOT get better. It gets worse. You’ll find yourself sitting in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart at 1:00 a.m. waiting for him to pass out at home, so that you can walk into a quiet, peaceful home. Please don’t think you can fix him or that it will get better.
officer
I’ve been easing back into dating after a soul-crushing breakup, but not really liking any of the guys much…until I went on a date this weekend with someone I actually liked! He seemed to be enjoying himself (as was I), but afterwards he said goodbye in a pretty perfunctory way and hasn’t been in touch since. Back to the drawing board, I guess…
In theory I’m not opposed to asking him out again myself, but he seemed uninterested/in a hurry to get out of there as we said goodbye…and I generally feel like if men are interested, they will let you know. So I don’t know. Still, bummer…
Anonymous
In my experience I lose nothing by asking a guy out on a second date. I actually like it- even if he says no or never responds, I’ve been true to myself and my goals, which include not playing games and trying to guess how people feel.
Shopaholic
+1 – I think it’s worth it to try at least once if you liked the guy and felt like you connected!
nutella
Hey this isn’t a bummer! You can and should! reach out again saying something like “Thanks so much again for drinks on Saturday. I had a great time! Would love to do it again sometime.” and leave it at that. (I always did that because I would get nervous and wanted to convey that yes, I was interested.) If he doesn’t reply, no problem- there are literally hundreds (thousands?) of other guys to go fish from. It just wasn’t the right fit. Otherwise, consider it a win that after a soul-crushing breakup, you can connect with people! Find people that attract you again! These are good baby steps and nothing but progress.
January
Plus, if he doesn’t answer you, you can always tell yourself that he ran away to join the circus.
ELaw
Ask him out.
Meg March
Do it! There’s no harm.
An
Or maybe he felt awkward. Who knows? If you want something, express interest in it and see what happens.
Edna Mazur
Maybe he had to go to the bathroom. Give it a shot!
Marissa Russell
Hate to go against the grain but, like you, I do feel like if a man is truly interested in you, it will be beyond obvious. Unlike women, men are not conditioned/encouraged by society to play hard to get, so what you see is what you get with them typically in terms of interest. They either want you or they don’t and there often isn’t much of a gray area. You’re not in too deep with this guy so you don’t have that much to lose if you decide to ask him out again, but from my experience if you’re the one putting in more effort to show interest in the beginning, it will be an uphill battle from that point on.
late reply
I’m with the majority here. And I think depending on the ‘attitude’ of the city you live in, it’s very possible a guy does not necessarily show a lot of interest or is passive and wants to hear how you feel before reaching out again. I go back and forth a lot with online dating about whether I should ask guys out, reach out, push for more dates, etc. Like Marissa sometimes I think ‘if they were really interested, they’d contact me’ but then I think ‘you are super woman! take control of your life and go for it!’
Planned Parenthood
Did anyone see that Planned Parenthood had a tweet over the weekend about the tampon tax in NYC where they referred to women as “menstruators”? As in, “Menstruators in NYC are happy about the repeal…” I’m so disgusted and pissed off.
anon
Uh, why? I suspect that language was used to be inclusive of all people who menstruate- this group is larger than women. It’s not an attempt to denigrate or objectify or otherwise be diminish women. Seriously. The reproductive justice community uses terms like “people who menstruate” or “pregnant person” all the time.
Yeah it sounds kinda awkward on twitter, but, well, it’s twitter.
Books!
I am not trying to be flip, but who else menstruates? I was under the impression that if you were a transgender person menstruation and pregnancy were not happening because the internal biology is different. Are you referring to FtM persons?
Anonymous
Well, not all women menstruate. To say “Women in NYC are happy about the repeal” is too broad.
anon
There are a lot of people who don’t menstruate. Some are trans people, people who are transitioning, and others who would fall into the general “non-binary” or “genderqueer” category- these are sort of “catch all” terms that describe a variety of different gender identities that are, as the term suggests, not simply “man” or “woman.” There have been a number of good articles written in the past few years that describes this specific issue that are worth reading.
Wildkitten
I don’t menstruate. Happy side effect of my body’s response to my IUD.
Not trying to be that guy, but
This is the sort of comment I think some commenters take issue with (I do). Why does it need to start with, “Um”? If you have something to add to the conversation, say it. I read the “Um” as implying the original post is unintelligent. That’s the kind of stuff I find unpleasant and unnecessary.
Perhaps I am reading your intent wrong and I should be following Senior Attorney’s rules and take things as though they were said with the best intent. But that is not the impression I have.
anon
You should have. My comment was clearly a contribution to the conversation. “Uh” is also often used to make written words sound conversational. At most, it was meant to express surprise- because I was genuinely surprised to read that she was “disgusted and pissed off” about this tweet. And honestly I don’t think that my comment is a good example of the animosity that has been happening here recently, and I don’t appreciate your attempt to dress me down for starting a post with “Uh.” Thanks.
Not trying to be that guy, but
My bad then. Sorry. I’m older than the normal crowd around here, and to me the “Uh,” reads as more sarcastic than you intended.
Wildkitten
I assume the Um was to soften the blow and not start with “WHY!?!!!?”
anon
Did we just have a thread here a few weeks ago about a “feminist” man who mansplained to the poster why the term “women’s health” was offensive to transwomen? I think maybe “menstruators” is meant to sidestep that sort of issue. You can’t say “women” are happy about the repeal because it doesn’t affect transwomen, post-menopausal women, or women who’ve had hysterectomies. I think maybe “people who menstruate” would’ve been a better term than “menstruators” though. Reductionist language is way more anti-PC than calling a tampon tax a women’s issue.
Tetra
Some trans men menstruate; maybe they were trying use inclusive language.
Planned Parenthood
Yeah, they were trying to be “inclusive,” but alienating women in the course of doing so. How is this different from men reducing women to “bleeders” in jokes and insults? Reducing women to their biological functions, excluding women who no longer menstruate, and kowtowing to the ever-more-militant PC police is not progressive or inclusive. Calling women “menstruators” ignores the misogyny against WOMEN that goes into laws like the tampon tax or abortion restrictions. Women who no longer call themselves women are no less immune.
anon2
I totally agree.
anon
So, you got yourself all riled up and outraged, demonstrated in your original post that you didn’t understand that the language was meant to be inclusive, it was explained to you multiple times that it was meant to be inclusive and not reductive, and now you’re upset about that.
Sounds like you just want to be upset, disgusted, and pissed off. I am a woman and I do not feel alienated by this language. This is different from men reducing women to “bleeders” in jokes and insults because it is not meant to denigrate women. It’s used to be *precise* and to *include* individuals who menstruate but who are not women (despite anon at 10:30’s oh so scientific rebuttal, below). This type of language is used all the time in reproductive health/justice circles (as I explained to you) and is fairly standard for the community- it’s not some desperate attempt to be PC. If you were familiar with this sort of discourse, you would never have called this kowtowing to militant PC police. Does the word intersectionality mean anything to you?
It’s a tweet. They have 140 characters. Sorry that they didn’t draft an entire tweet-treatise (tweet-ise?) justifying their word choice and describing all of the misogyny wrapped up in how societ(ies) handle menstruation. Pretty sure PP isn’t confused that abortion restrictions are misogynistic either.
Planned Parenthood
I would hazard a guess that I’m a lot more knowledgeable about whether or not this language is inclusive than you are, given that it’s nearly impossible to engage in critical feminist analysis and then determine that “menstruators” is the ideal language to use to describe women who menstruate. I would be happy to send you some resources if you’d like to get up to speed on the current debates and issues surrounding the erasure of the word “women” to describe women.
pockets
Well, if you say you’re a lot more knowledgeable, then I guess I have no choice but to believe you :).
What would you otherwise call menstruators? Women who menstruate seems unwieldy. I’m a lawyer, not a woman who practices law. I’m a parent, not a woman with a child. We use shorthand terms all the time to describe ourselves with no intent of trying to erase our woman-ness.
I think they were using the term to remove some of the stigma around the term menstruate. I highly doubt they were trying to denigrate women.
anon
Cute. I’m good, thanks. You’ll notice how I never said that “menstruators” was the ideal term in anything I posted. Hope your day gets better; you seem angry.
Planned Parenthood
Isn’t it interesting how women always get called angry whenever they say anything controversial or impassioned? I wonder if that could be more internalized misogyny at play.
Wildkitten
I am a woman and I do not feel alienated. Not only are they being inclusive to transmen, but also women who do not currently menstruate (like me!) do not currently benefit from the tampon tax repeal.
Anonymous
It’s deliberate- that tweet was inclusive of all who menstruate, some of whom are men, and not all women menstruate.
Anon
Nope, men don’t menstruate. Only adult human females (women) menstruate, although some may self-identify as transmen.
Anonymous
See this is where I disagree. I’m all for using people who menstruate instead, and I think women and those who menstruate is even better, as it acknowledges both that the tampon tax is a harm directed at women, and that some men menstruate.
Where the argument becomes transphobic for me is your dehumanization of transmen as delusional women calling themselves something different. It shows both a lot of ignorance and a lot of hatred to be so vehemently opposed to someone’s existence.
Anon
No one is denying or opposing anyone’s existence. I just oppose the notion that you can change your sex. You can’t identify your way out of an unwanted pregnancy, ovarian cancer, or testicular cancer, no matter how strongly held your beliefs. Transmen have the same general needs for reproductive healthcare as women and nothing changes that.
Anonymous
They are men, with those needs.
Anon
We’ll have to agree to disagree. I define men as “adult human males” and women as “adult human females.” Transwomen are still male and transmen are still female. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their own lives and health, but pretending that reality doesn’t exist isn’t a strategy for providing safe, effective reproductive healthcare at a system level.
Anonymous
We can agree you have accurately stated the definition of transphobia, yes.
Anon
Anonymous, are you saying that you think it’s possible for people born male to menstruate? To gestate a child? To have ovarian cancer? To suffer an obstetric fistula? This is a serious question.
pockets
I agree that trans woman (those born male who transitioned to female) do not have the entire range of experience that women born women have. Some people rightly point out that to call yourself a woman when you haven’t dealt with explicit and implicit sexism your entire life is disingenuous and downplays the struggles that women face as children, teenagers, and young adults. BUT to say that trans women are really male is kind of mean, and I’m sure that as a trans person they dealt with their own forms of discrimination and other issues growing up. If they want to identify as women, then let them identify as women. It’s like literally the least a cis person can do to support the trans community.
Planned Parenthood
Pockets at 11:48, you might enjoy this piece. It’s a pretty incisive look at the problems with “cis,” which I found really fundamental to understanding how women should advocate for themselves in potential conflicts with issues concerning transgender people (whether that’s in healthcare language, bathroom access, female-only DV shelters, or any other issue). Everyone faces different struggles – that part is definitely not in question. It’s just important for feminist advocacy to use the right language in addressing feminist issues.
https://liberationcollective.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/a-feminist-critique-of-cisgender/
Wildkitten
We can agree you have accurately stated the definition of transphobia, yes.
CLAP EMOJI. CLAP EMOJI. CLAP EMJOI!
Anonymous
I find it a little eyeroll-y too. One of my biggest problems with the trans movement is MtF people sort of adopting the problems of women as their own, and I feel like this is indicative of that.
Planned Parenthood
That’s where my original anger was coming from. Appropriating issues unique to females is offensive and it disgusts me when organizations that were created to serve women accept that without debate or discussion. Tbh, “pregnant person” or “menstruator” is the feminist movement’s equivalent of “All Lives Matter.”
Anonymous
Except the issue is also FtM. These are people who identify as male and yet still have to deal with menstruation. There is no appropriation going on, instead you are including a segment of the population that is effected by the repeal of the tax, but would be excluded by using “women”
Anono
How do you deal with that conflict, though? Trans people make up 0.3 percent of the population (according to most estimates) and FTM transpeople are less common than MTF. Is it better to adjust the language so that very tiny fraction of the population feels maximally included, even if it offends half (let’s just say half for the sake of argument) of women in the population? If both sides’ feelings are hurt and both sides can still technically go to the doctor and access care, how do you decide which to default to? In my experience, women are always expected to put themselves second and to take care of others’ needs first.
Baconpancakes
Are they excluded? If the law is intended to give women relief from the tampon tax, and a FtM transperson buys a pack of tampons, are they going to deny the transman the lower price?
No, because this isn’t a health insurance policy. If a health insurance policy stated it would cover pap smears only for women, that would be one thing. I’m ok with my health insurance policy calling me a “person with a cervix,” because my health insurance policy is only concerned with my physical parts. I’m not ok with public statements reducing me to a uterus, because public opinion already often reduces me to a uterus, and I’d really like them to stop that.
bridget
When someone says “Women are happy about…”, I do not assume that this means that every single woman is happy, nor that only women are happy. Basic common sense.
But referring to us as “bleeders” or “menstruators” is just plain crass. I am a human being, not a uterus.
Baconpancakes
I’m kind of on this train, too. I, like WK, currently don’t menstruate thanks to my wonderful IUD. But being a person who has spent a lot of money on tampons in the past, I do know how frustrating it is, and because I am a woman, I want sanitary products to be more affordable and available because I identify as part of the group that is usually partly defined by their ability to menstruate, ovulate, and gestate. Just because I personally don’t need the products for myself today doesn’t mean I’ve stopped understanding the need for them.
As for inclusiveness, there’s a difference between denying someone necessary healthcare (i.e. pap smears, birth control, cervical cancer treatment) and avoiding language that doesn’t erase women from the conversation when the issue at hand overwhelmingly affects that sex, even if some of that sex don’t experience that issue and some of the opposite sex do experience that issue.
padi
Agreeing with Bridget and Baconpancakes. Especially BP on the erasure of women issues here.
Reducing women (including AFAB FtM people) to a biological function that society deems shameful is not what I expect from PP. So long as we have jokes about “not trusting people who bleed for 7 days and don’t die” and “bleeding from her …wherever”, referring to anyone as a “menstruator” is as bad as referring to her (him) as a “bleeder”.
The term “menstruator” excludes women on hormonal birth control (pill/ring/patch) who experience withdrawal bleeding yet still purchase tampons and pads. So, while PP wanted to include the portion of the 0.3% of FtM people who menstruate and aren’t on hormonal BC, they have excluded the much larger percentage of women who are on hormonal birth control and experience withdrawal bleeding.
Anne Elliott
If my husband ever called me a c u n t, I would ask him for a divorce. No questions.
And he rips stuff off the wall? Why are you with this guy? He abuses you verbally, can get physical, doesn’t respect you, what else?
He has shown you what he is. Can you live with that?
Em
I really wanted to respond but was having a hard time formulating a thoughtful response, but this was something that really stuck with me too. This is probably one of the most offensive things to call a woman and the man you want to marry has called you this multiple times in a drunken rage. I wouldn’t tolerate that from a random stranger on the street, much less from someone I wanted to marry. I wholeheartedly agree with Anne Elliott, look at who he is right now, because that is what your future is going to be. Do not expect him to change, particularly because he has made it abundantly clear he sees nothing wrong with his behavior and has no desire to change.
Anonymous
Exactly. Ever. Even one time.
ACK
+1,000,000
Two of the main purposes of a relationship is to feel safe and loved. Calling you that name, getting crazy drunk so he can yell at you, and getting physical do not help you feel safe and loved. You deserve so much better.
ck
+1
I could never look at him the same after calling me that…… I would remember ……….all the time what it was like when he said that to me, and how I felt.
The fact that you have become a little desensitized to this worries me, and makes me want to encourage you to get into therapy even more… for yourself.
You can have a healthy relationship in the future. Please, look elsewhere…
Wendy
He doesn’t deserve a chance to do it again. Time to move on.
Anon for This
A guy I was in an abusive relationship told me I was “dead to him” last summer. Not nearly as terrible as the c-word, and it took me another 8 or so months to get up the courage to just break it off completely, but thinking of how I felt when he said that still makes me emotional to this day. At the time, it was just another insult in his barrage of cutting me down, so it didn’t hurt as much, but now, it hurts. He also asked me (same night) if I wanted to end up “like my mom,” which was another thing where once I got some perspective, I realize how absolutely horrendous he is. My mom’s AWESOME, yeah I want to end up like her.
Being desensitized to this kind of stuff is a great indicator that you should be moving on. Even therapy can’t help when you’re so far into it that this stuff seems okay to you. It can help you see that you aren’t really a terrible person, but what helps the most is GTFO.
Anne Elliott
Sorry, this was for the poster above.
Anonymous
I got asked to be a maid of honor this weekend (yay!). The downside is I now need to fine a plus size floor length gold sequined dress. Rose gold is also a possibility. Anyone know of any out there or want to go shopping for me? I am very *ahem* rotund, so something that isn’t clingy in the midsection is a must.
KateMiddletown
There’s a super cute one that Adrianna Papell makes at Nordstrom right now. All sorts of colors.
anon
I found this to be very forgiving through the mid-section and it looks like it comes in plus sizes. There are also tons of pictures on the website with lots of different body types:
https://www.renttherunway.com/shop/designers/badgley_mischka/glitz_gown
b
+1 on the Badgley Mischka dresses from rent the runway! I wear a 14-16 and ended up in a 14 long, it was tremendously flattering.
Amanda
+1 this is the dress I was thinking of recommending as well. It’s beautiful on!
CatToo
Tadashi Shoji has plus size, try their site. “Mito” might work.
Bonnie
The non-dowdy selection looks slim. You could have something custom made: https://www.etsy.com/listing/269519751/infinity-multiway-dress-custom-made-usa?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=plus size gold dress custom&ref=sr_gallery_8
Tetra
Eloquii had one last year over the holidays – maybe check them out if you can wait a couple of months so that their holiday party stuff is out.
OP
This is good to know! I was planning on waiting to buy until new Years-ish just to see what else came out. Do you remember the price point? There is no way I will spend $600 on a bridesmaid dress.
Anonymous
Eloquii is made by The Limited so it would definitely be under $200, probably under $150.
Wildkitten
You might want to check Weddington Way. They have a LOT of dresses.
Jtx
I have a video interview for an attorney job with a federal agency today. I don’t video conference very frequently, and I’ve never had a government job. Anyone have any helpful tips? Thanks!
Anon
Just for the video part — make sure you aren’t moving around too much bc it looks like you’re fidgeting. Also figure out early on if there’s any kind of delay and if so – try not to speak over people.
As for a fed agency — it would depend on which one, but overall keep in mind that they do NOT want to hear that you want this job “for the experience” and many agencies see that as code for “I want this on my resume for x yrs so I can get a better private sector job.” You should be saying something about why you want to serve the public interest.
anon
Look at the camera, not the people on the screen. That way it will simulate eye-contact as opposed to looking like you’re avoiding it.
Newbie
Any suggestions for good outfits for family photos? We (me, husband, 1 year old) are taking pictures in a park with skyline views and I am really struggling with what we should wear. Everything on pinterest seems really cutesy / matchy-matchy. Baby and husband are easier so I’m hoping to pick my outfit and go from there but can’t decide…
Cat
For classic childrens-wear inspiration, I like the royal great grandchildren portrait from over the summer. No one is “matched” but the colors / tones/ styles go together well.
As ideas…
You – navy dress
Husband – Navy pants, subtly patterned button-down
Baby – whatever color is flattering? Yellow, pink, light blue, green, lavender….
Anonymous
The Mom Edit had two features on this topic last year–one for fall, one for summer. Search “family photos” on that page. The main takeaway is to pick your outfit first and then coordinate the other outfits with yours. For example, choose a skirt with a bold print and then pull colors out of that print for the other outfits.
Newbie
These Mom Edit posts are great, thank you!
ace
For you, solid color dress in the same color family as their outfits. E.g., sky blue dress for you, navy polo & khaki slacks/shorts for him, and a similar outfit for baby depending on gender (for ex., patterned blue dress for baby girl or blue shirt & shorts for baby boy).
I tend to be bad at this too, so I just pick 1-2 colors that work together & aren’t a direct conflict. Simple designs/patterns are best.
JayJay
It’s not overly helpful, but the common advice is to pick things that don’t match but “go” together. For our last picture session, husband wore jeans and light blue button down, I wore jeans and a mint green top, and my boys wore khaki pants and one blue and one green madras plaid short sleeve shirts. The colors didn’t exactly match, but they were all in the same tone, so they blended well together.
carrie M
I found the mom edit series helpful, and a couple others on Pinterest. The formula that has worked for us: putting our child in a print (one year a dress with leggings, another year a print sweater with jeans and faux fur vest), and then H wears one of the colors from the print, I wear another, and we all wear jeans or dark pants. Then we bring various layering items depending on weather – cute hats, jackets, sweaters, blankets, etc. I laid out a couple of options the first year, texted photos to our photog and asked her input because I was so unsure. So you might try that route too.
Wedding attire dilemma
I posted here just over 3 weeks ago asking for advice about what to wear to my fiance’s cousin’s wedding back in his hometown, where they would be getting married in denim shorts outside at a farm. My dilemma was that I didn’t own shorts or anything casual and wasn’t sure what to wear.
I ended up wearing a denim skirt and a tank top, no jewelry except for my engagement ring, hair down and straight, no makeup besides concealer in a few spots and mascara and light pink almost clear nail polish. I was originally going to wear a denim shirt dress with a belt but my fiance said it was too formal.
I was still way overdressed. No one else there was wearing any makeup (including the bride). People were dressed in cutoff shirts like his aunt said they would. Others wore lumberjack shirts and baseball hats. People were going to wear flip flops but it had rained the day before so they ended up wearing rubber boots, the bride and groom included. We were staying at his other cousins house up the road and it was so muddy my fiance had to carry me there because I wasn’t wearing rubber boots. The bride and groom came in on tractors and the whole ceremony lasted like 5 minutes. They had something called a pig chase and a mud fight and then there were burgers and beer. Someone played music from a radio. Also his aunt and uncle were having trouble with their plumbing so everyone had to use an outhouse.
Apparently many of the people thought I was too fancy because of my nails and how I dressed and that I wanted to show up the bride because I didn’t wear rubber boots and I didn’t participate in the mud fight or eat much of the food because I’m a vegetarian. His cousin is a police officer in their town and she went to work the next day and her husband made us ham and sausages and then went to do farm work.
It was bizarre to say the least. My fiance has now said he wants us to get married in his hometown because my family can easily afford to travel there whereas his can’t really afford to come to New York. Between this and the wedding stuff there is tension between us. Sorry for the long post, just needed to vent.
Scottie
I usually try and join in but that sounds like my idea of hell. I don’t do mud. Ever.
Time for a long chat about your wedding and what you want/don’t want. For both the wedding and the future as it sounds like your future husband has quite different ideas of normal. I know someone who always thought their husband was joking when he said he was going to retire to a small Scottish island. Then he told her he’d bought them a Croft…
Cb
Oh gosh! That’s a good point about expectations. On a related note, my husband’s retirement planning is inspired by ring of bright water. We may have to split up because i consider East Lothian to be rural living.
Scottie
Anywhere more than 15 minutes from a M&S food hall is rural. :)
Seriously, sounds like you did your very best to fit in at that wedding. His family have to do the same at yours.
Newbie
This is bizarre. I would plan the wedding you want, budget to pay for his close family to come, and then have a BBQ in his hometown for his extended family.
Senior Attorney
This sounds perfect. And the family members who come to your Big City Fancy Wedding can come home and report back and they can all shake their heads over your Big City Fancy Ways and have a grand old time. LOL Seriously it sounds like a Julia Roberts movie from the 90s!
Cc
The whole wedding process is an exercise in communication and compromise. The wedding sounds weird for sure but your post is dripping with distain for the event and the people there- I’m thinking the comments were less about nail polish and more about how you acted. No family is perfect – you certainly don’t have to have a wedding like that but you’ll have to navigate what’s best for you both
ck
+1
emeralds
I’ve got to agree with this. I have relatives who would have loved that as a reception. I promise you they would not have been worried about your nail polish–they would have been worried about you holding your nose and sneering at them the whole time, which sounds justified based on your post.
Senior Attorney
Well, yeah, that’s possible. I mean, I can imagine your fiance carrying you while you shriek with delight and embarassment about not having boots, and eat what you can and are friendly and lovely to everyone, which is what I hope and assume happened.
If he carried you while your barked orders about not getting mud on you, and you turned up your nose at everything, then, yeah… that would have been a problem. But I’m sure your better than that!
Senior Attorney
you’re
cbackson
That totally sounds like a Farmers Only commercial…
EM
I would not get married in a place without plumbing and electricity. I would not LIVE in a place without plumbing and electricity.
Also 2nd Scottie’s advice that you attempt to reconcile your different ideas regarding “normal.”
...
???
She had her wedding.
You have your wedding.
Assuming you’re not a troll, very few country folks would get cranky about someone wearing nail polish and jean shorts. If they were put off by you, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because you were “showing up the bride,” by wearing jean shorts, but because you were acting like they were “bizarre.”
Wedding attire dilemma
I wore a denim skirt while everyone else (including the bride) wore cutoff denim shorts and this part of what they said was “fancy” or “showing up the bride”.
...
OK, you guys wore different forms of denim on the bottom.
I don’t think the skirt was the thing about you that was off-putting.
pugsnbourbon
Sounds like you had quite the weekend! I second the advice to have a frank talk with your fiance about your wedding. Thankfully there’s middle ground between “fancy-fancy wedding” and “mud fight and pig chase.”
Closet Redux
You sound like a snob. This experience is very different from what you’re used to, but that doesn’t make it “bizarre.” It sounds like you really tried to fit in in terms of what you wore, etc., which is awesome. But I probably would have thought the same about you being fancy if I saw your fiance carrying you to the wedding because you didn’t want to get muddy. Really, he carried you in? If anyone was judging you for what you wore/ did/ ate, it might have been because you were very obviously judging them for the same (or, more likely, no one thought much about you at all and you are projecting your judgment).
Anonymama
Yeah, your previous post, and this one, make me think of the dad’s fiancée in the Lindsay Logan parent trap movie. The part about fiancé carrying you definitely made me think you might even be a troll… It’s just soo over the top. Definitely like a scene out of a romantic comedy, as senior attorney noted. And you could either go the way of the love interest’s snotty fiancé who is Not Right For Him and loses her sh/t, or of the Heroine Who is Out Of Her Element but shows that she is The One by having a sense of humor and taking off her designer shoes to walk through the mud (obviously descriptions are exaggerated for dramatic effect).
ELaw
Honestly I think that sounds like fun, even though it’s not something I have ever done before and it’s not how I would plan a wedding for myself, were I to have a personality transplant and decide to get married. But, if it’s not your idea of fun, you and your fiance really really need to talk about what he means by having your wedding in his hometown. You should both enjoy your wedding.
As for this: “Apparently many of the people thought I was too fancy”, if that bothers you, find a way to stop caring about this, now. They can either accept you or not, and if they don’t, their loss. Though, it might make practical sense to invest in a pair of rubber boots to wear for next time you go back to his hometown. Just so you can walk around without needing to be carried ;-).
Anonymous
Exactly. Who cares if they think you’re fancy?
Wedding attire dilemma
We want a church wedding followed by a reception at a hotel or banquet hall. He wants to do that near his hometown instead of in New York. That’s part of the issues because he doesn’t want to have a wedding like his cousin, he wants a traditional wedding, he just wants to have it near his family instead of in NYC.
Anonymous
That sounds . . . not crazy?
ck
This sounds reasonable. And you will save a ton of money!!
cbackson
Where you want to have your wedding is a totally different issue than anything about the wedding you just went to.
cbackson
1) Their wedding sounds fun.
2) Their wedding sounds different than the wedding you’d like to have, and I’d try to focus in your conversations with your fiance on the wedding you’d like to have. Which I’m guessing can be in his hometown (if you both agree to that) without involving tractors and cut-off shorts.
Idea
I absolutely think that you made the best choices for you and what you knew and expected.
I’ve been to weddings in the country. I’ve never seen most of what you described, or even heard about it.
I think you’re okay, and it’s worth it to continue to discuss expectations with your sweetheart. It always is an ongoing conversation, to say the least.
Good luck.
Anon
I’ve been to a few country weddings in my time and I still read OP’s description with my mouth open.
Nope, far outside the norm. No makeup, at all for anyone? Makeup is non negotiable for me, so I’d be fancy right with you.
Grew up country
When you say your hair was down and straight, did you blow dry it straight or use a hair straightener? For people that wear their hair wash and go, straight hair can look fancy.
I think the two of you need to have a serious talk about what is important to each of you at your wedding. He likely wants his relatives to be comfortable and they aren’t going to be comfortable at a 5 star dining city location. We did the wedding in my hometown but scaled it up so it was fancy-ish. It was in a pintersty barn at a bed and breakfast on the water before pinterest was a thing. But we served surf and turf and had china and crystal and all that jazz.
My SIL married someone whose family is very country club. They did the fancy hotel wedding but there were family members that are lower middle class who were really uncomfortable in that setting and stood out. She did a great job to seat them with other people who were kind and welcoming but it’s really hard to mix two drastically different classes. Hopefully you can find a middle ground where both of your friend groups and families will be comfortable.
Minus the outhouse, that wedding sounds like a ton of fun to me.
(Former) Clueless Summer
It sucks you felt out of place. But I think you knew you should have worn denim shorts (even if you had to buy some new from Old Navy that you’d never wear again) and an old t-shirt. You chose not to. And that’s fine, but by doing so, you chose to differentiate yourself from the rest of the guests. It sounds like you may never fit in with them and that may be okay with you, but if it’s not, you have to make an effort to a) not be so disdainful about how they live their lives and b) fit in.
PolyD
So……… we assume that more “dressed up” people are always the disdainful ones? I would bet that plenty of the uber-casual people DID judge her on her appearance, not attitude.
Just because someone looks all casual and happy-go-lucky does not mean they cannot be very, very judgemental. I would not find it hard to believe at all that people at the wedding assumed that the OP was a citified snob, just because of how she looked, before even talking to her.
anon
I’d take that one step further and think that at least some people assumed OP would be a citified snob before they even MET her.
If people are determined to not like you, you’re not going to convince them otherwise. What you CAN do is make sure you don’t alienate other, less judgmental people by rising to the behavior from the judgey ones. Go out of your way to be nice and act interested in other peoples’ lives. If you can really think of nothing better to talk about, ask them about baby animals. Everyone loves baby animals.
Anne Elliott
I hate to say this, but it would be a cultural chasm too wide for me to bridge. Are you sure you could get along with his family post marriage? They’d judge you and vice versa.
anon
If I recall correctly, this is the first time you were meeting many of his extended family members. Right?
There is an Amy Poehler quote that I love: “Good for her! Not for me.” She had her wedding and you will have yours. I don’t understand why you are so invested in her wedding choices, but like a few posters above, think their attitudes towards you had more to do with your vibe/attitude than your nail polish.
GCA
That sounds like a fun wedding, if a little different than you were expecting. I’ve been to backyard weddings. I’ve been to 800-person Chinese weddings. Both have their merits. What is the issue here?
– That you are worried his family is judging you and you do not fit in with them? You can nearly always find some common ground. Make amends accordingly.
– That the wedding you would like to have is not the wedding your fiance would like to have? Then discuss expectations. If the issue is just location, holding it someplace that everyone can travel to without breaking the bank is not demanding, it’s just being considerate of all the guests.
anon
Feel free to tell me I’m reading too much into this, but it sounds like his family was sort of itching to act judgy to you. Your last post made it sound like your fiance was super concerned about your attire. This post says he shot down your denim shirtdress idea – an idea that came from the commenters here. Unless your fiance is always this up in your business about what you wear, I think his anxious attitude suggests that his family has made some unkind comments about his career path, generally, and about him coming home with his Fancy New York City Fiancee.
Which is all to say that this is about his relationship with his family, not the fact that you wore a skirt and pink nail polish. He wants to show them that he’s still one of them, not some stuck up, out of touch yuppie. That’s why he’s now also changing his ideas about the wedding – he’s imagining all the snide comments he’s going to get about how he thinks he’s so much better than all of them now that he’s all fancy-like.
January
I agree – I think it’s likely the judgment was going both ways here. And being a vegetarian likely rubbed them the wrong way, too. They may not have understood that you can’t just eat a burger for the night. Your fiancé probably should have helped you out by making sure there was something there you could eat – but maybe you should have helped yourself by wearing shorts. Or maybe not. If you’d shown up in JCrew chinos, they might have decided that was too fancy, too. Sometimes you can’t please people.
ORD
Yes to this. I want to know more about how your fiance supported you at this event. Meeting family for the first time is stressful under any circumstances; this one sounds more challenging, and I think it’s all about him, not about you. Wonder what he said to them ahead of time that made them all judgey about your nail polish?
OfCounsel
Speaking up somewhat in OP’s defense, I have family like this and am regularly accused (usually behind my back) of being uppity and unfriendly. It has nothing to do with what I wear or acting superior – as far as I can tell from the family members who will talk to me about it (mostly my sister) it is a function of (1) accent; (2) using grammatically proper English; (3) having a larger personal space “bubble” than they do and (4) having interests and lifestyle so different that we might as well be from different planets.
I do not think there is a solution. You cannot be a different person and trying to put on an act makes it worse. it will get a little better if you have children because it gives you a topic of conversation (although that creates a whole other set of problems when parenting values are very different; the conversation about how my family was not allowed to spank my daughter was not a fun one!) The critical thing is to be sure that you and your fiancé are on the same page in terms of values and goals and reconcile yourself to awkward family visits.
It is sometimes helpful to be vague about your own life. When asked about my vacation (and I was asked because we did not come home for Thanksgiving) I said we went to the beach and changed the subject. When asked what kind of car I drive, I said “a sedan” and changed the subject to ask about that person’s truck, etc. That might sound like overkill, but I know from painful personal experience that saying the words “Hawaii” and “Lexus” will lead to awkward and unpleasant conversations.
H
This sounds like a fantastic rom com. Will someone please make a movie? OP – who you want to play you and your fiance???
Cat
isn’t that pretty much Sweet Home Alabama? where the perfect plantation house event goes awry and they end up having the still-married party in the bar with the rock-em sock-em fighters as cake toppers?
Anonymous
Yes, I was thinking of some characters in Sweet Home Alabama when I read this.
Wildkitten
What? They thought you were too fancy because you painted your nails? Is this real life? Those people sound absurd.
SDAnon
I am in dire need of a wardrobe update. My workplace is business casual unless I am meeting with clients or in court in which case I wear suits. I would love links or suggestions for new clothing items to reinvigorate my closet.
AIMS
What do you have that you like already? E.g., if you like to wear black ankle pants maybe you can get some cute new tops to wear with or some new colors of a similar style pant.
I saw these pants at the Gap recently and thought they were cute, if you’re looking for some casual-ish work pants. Tons of colors, but I really liked the olive. They seem to be the Gap version of the Old Navy Pixie pant.
http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=1051237&vid=1&pid=130046302
Senior Attorney
I don’t know what your budget is, but I am all over the shopping/curating services these days. I started with an MM LaFleur Bento Box (my gateway drug), then moved on to Trunk Club (OMG such fab stuff but quite a bit more expensive than I’m used to but OMG such fab stuff!), then took a detour to Stich Fix (skews kind of young but good prices and some good pieces). There’s something just amazing about having somebody send you a box of stuff and you can say “yay” or “nay” without having to start from scratch.
Kind of like how it’s easier to draft a settlement agreement by marking up an old one than it is to start with a blank computer screen…
anonymous
I am very stressed out and anxious today about events I have coming up for work in the next couple of weeks. I need advice on what to do to relax/ CTFO so I can get through the day and not be a mess. Ideas?
ck
Just learn the simple art of breathing in, and out, slowly with your eyes closed. Mindfulness meditation breathing exercises. Download a free app. Try it. Just 1-2 minutes helps. Pretty soon, anytime you need a quick re-boot, you can sit up straight, close your eyes…. and relax.
When you can, stand up and take a 5 minute walk. If possible to get outside, do that. If you have time for lunch, get outside and take a longer work.
Drink less caffeine. Bring a healthy, munchy snack instead.
Sleep. Regular hours. Every night.
You can do it!!!
Wendy
+1 I practice mindfulness meditation daily and swear by it. It’s not difficult at all.
Anon for this
As a last resort if breathing or exercise doesn’t work, call your doctor and make an appointment for anxiety — or go to urgent care. They will likely prescribe you hydroxyzine which is an antihistamine, so not a benzodiazepine (which would be Xanax or Lorazepam – much more intense and habit forming). Lorazepam is a miracle drug for nipping a full-blown anxiety attack in the bud, but hydroxyzine is a much milder way to soothe some of the physical effects of anxiety.
anxious
Or half a benadryl can do wonders as well, as long as you don’t think you’ll fall asleep.
Zipp
Do a HARD workout – especially a run involving sprint intervals. Run hard enough that you are in the anaerobic zone (ie that feeling that you are going to barf if you kept going). No need to actually barf though. :)
I find it hugely beneficial in terms of burning off the edges of anxiety
Redshirting
For those with kids with fall birthdays– I’m trying to decide what to do with my oldest daughter. She misses the kindergarten cutoff (9/30) by 10 days. In our district, there are no exceptions. She’s turning 4 this fall and on her second year of preschool. We are trying to figure out if we send her for a third year of daycare/preschool or if we send her to a private kindergarten (and possibly first grade), then transfer her to the public schools. For those of you with fall birthday–or kids with fall birthdays– what’s been your experience being the oldest vs youngest in your class? If she were a boy, this wouldn’t be a question and we’d keep her back– in my head, it’s an advantage all around to be the oldest boy (license first, more time to develop for athletics, more time to mature, etc). If she were petite, it’d be different too, but she is genetically predisposed to being the tallest kid in her class.
Our daughter has always been tall and mature for her age (in the 90th percentile for height/weight since birth), is a great communicator and is ahead of her age group for things like potty training (not that that makes her mature, but she was the FIRST in her group trained vs the LAST despite being the youngest). Her closest friends from daycare/preschool are all 4-6 months older, vs the kids that are her age or younger. But…sending her when she’d be a year + younger than some of the kids in her class seems daunting. She’s either going to be older than all the boys (and probably taller, given her genes) in high school or she’s going to be the dead last kid to get her license and turn 18.
Either way, we have to pay for that last year of school–either an extra year of preschool/daycare or private tuition.
Anon for This
I’m not one to normally pick on people’s posts- but saying ‘if she were a boy I would hold her back for license first, more time to develop for athletics, more time to mature, etc is kind of s*xist- girls get licenses too, and we play sports too.
Being a tall person myself, the assumption that that somehow makes it easier to be in a group of older kids is misplaced- people assume you’re older and have more expectations of you, which can be tough. People assume you have some sort of unfair advantage, not just in sports (and even in sports where height is not an asset), but also in doing school work etc. Emotional development is not the same as physical development.
Anonymous
Yes. Pushing tall kids to be older faster is a real problem.
OP
Fair enough. Thinking back though, being the first girl to get my period (being the oldest) seems like a bigger down side than being license less. I was a July birthday and was super tall, so never felt younger/less developed.
Anon for This
But it is about way more than physical markers of development- posters below seem to all agree on this- what stage is she at emotionally? mentally? socially?
ml
I would make this decision based on what you think is best for her and your family now, not with some long range view of being taller than the boys in high school. Fwiw, I am tall and skipped 1st grade, so I was among the last of my friends to drive, and still taller than most of my classmates, despite being a year+ younger. None of it mattered, because I’m not the type to care. If your daughter is the type to care, she’ll care about *something* regardless of how careful you are to make everything as smooth as possible.
My son will miss the cutoff by a week, and he’s spending the extra year in preschool.
applemelon
I was the tallest kid in my class throughout elementary school but basically stopped growing at some point. I’m now 5’6″, a very unexceptional height. I get that you’re concerned about your daughter’s social development but I think there is a lot more in attitude than appearance in high school. I didn’t date until I got to college but my 6′ tall friend had a slew of boyfriends.
Anonymous
My birthday is July 28. Let her have another year of preschool. She would be, if you push her up, turning 5 on October 10 of first grade? There were 3 kids with Oct. 10 birthdays in my class. They were all turning 7. She would be 17 when she starts college. I don’t even see this as borderline. There is a cut off for a reason.
OP
Schools here have cutoffs 8/1, 9/1, 9/30 and one region is 11/30! And private schools are generally 12/1.
Wildkitten
I grew up in a 12/31 cut-off state and started Kgarten at 4 and college at 17 and did perfectly fine. Anecdata. My parents talked to my preschool teachers in depth about whether they thought I should start then or wait a year. Talk to your kid’s teachers who are in the know about child development and know a lot of 4 year olds and can give you an assessment.
ck
I skipped first grade, and was always the youngest. It was fine, as I was mature and tall.
But these days it seems like EVERYONE is holding their kids back, trying to give their child a bit of an advantage. I might lean towards keeping her in preschool, and starting other enrichment outside of school (read read read read…. or start some music or a second language by putting her in a bilingual pre-school). And take all that money you would have spent on private tuition and bank it and save it for college. She will thank you more for that later!!
Eliza
Agreed. If you want to make a truly informed decision, go read the research on red shirting. It isn’t particularly supportive, regardless of the trendiness of the practice.
Anonymous
I’d send her to kindergarten at private school or expect that she’ll skip a grade at some point. I was in a similar boat except I was a little shy, so preschool teachers suggested “redshirting” me (I made the cutoff, but just barely). My parents could tell that I was smart and mature, and ignored the teachers, and say it was the best decision they ever made. As it was, I was accelerated in certain subjects but I definitely would have had to formally skip a grade if I’d been held back. I don’t think being the last to get a license is a big deal, and in many parts of the country the school cut-off is in December, so when she gets to college she won’t be an outlier at all (at least half my college friends were Sept-Dec birthdays on the younger side).
mascot
Pretty sure most states have moved away from a December cut-off for school and moved to a late summer or early fall cut-off. At least that is the research we found when we had to make this choice recently.
OP, how is she emotionally and socially? That’s what really is going to make a difference in keeping up with her class. We are repeating K this year with my son because he just wasn’t mature enough to happily move on. Academically and physically, he was doing fine. But, you can’t tutor/rush your way through the emotional development. Deal with the child that is in front of you now- not what you think she will be like in the future. I’d let her do an extra year of pre-school. I think you will find that there are several kids in her class that will be in the same boat.
mascot
Another question- how academically rigorous is your school? We are in a fairly rigorous private school and the teachers are able to customize/ provide more challenging material to kids that need it.
Anonymous
Another vote for private kindergarten if she demonstrates kindergarten readiness both academically and socially. My daughter missed our state’s cutoff by nearly four months, but she was more than ready for kindergarten at age 4.5 so we sent her to an accredited private kindergarten program at a day care/preschool and then enrolled her in first grade at public school at age 5.5. It was the best decision we could have made for her. She is now the youngest and the second shortest child in the fifth grade and is doing very well socially and academically, although the academics still aren’t adequately challenging and we have had issues with boredom. Our school district provides virtually no gifted services and does not allow children to skip grades once they are enrolled, so private kindergarten was our only chance to get her accelerated. Her best friend is exactly a year older and nearly a foot taller. Many of her other friends are as much as 18 months older as a result of redshirting. All of her peers accept her without question, and her teachers are always surprised when they find out how young she is.
We were not very impressed with the quality of the private kindergarten program we used. I don’t think any of the kids actually learned anything there. However, the program didn’t cost any more than preschool, and it punched her ticket for first grade because it was accredited.
Anonymous
Also–verify that the school you’re interested in will accept underage kids who did private K into first grade. In our district it is at the principal’s discretion, and only a few will allow it. The big-name private schools won’t allow it either. The solution for families who want to accelerate in one of the unfriendly public schools or one of the fancy private schools is to have the child complete both K and grade 1 in a small private school and then transfer for grade 2.
Anonymous
Not sure why my first reply disappeared or went to moderation. Short version: if she is socially and academically ready, put her in private kindergarten. This may be your only chance to accelerate her if that’s what she needs academically. We did this with our daughter (who, by the way, is short for her age) and it turned out great. She is now in fifth grade and a leader in her school.
anon
Not a parent, so ymmv, but this is so individual. I went to school with some kids with October and November birthdays. Some of them were fine and others really struggled, both socially and academically.
I’m not seeing anything in your post about academics. Is she already reading, comfortable with colors and shapes, counting, and otherwise excelling at whatever preschoolers are supposed to do?
blue
I need to jump in here, but I’m not trying to pick on anon: preschoolers are NOT supposed to be reading. It is inappropriate for their age. Some do and that’s fine, but it is not and should not be a requirement. I notice that no one is questioning whether this girl has age-appropriate gross or fine motor skills. That’s part of development, too. A friend who is a kindergarten teacher tells me that kids are much less coordinated than they used to be because they spend more time in sedentary activities using ipads and the like and because their early-childhood classroom experiences are much more focused on academics, when they should be learning to play, use their hands, etc.
Anonymous
Fine motor skills are very important. For kindergarten, she should be able to hold a (fat) pencil properly, trace shapes, cut with scissors, and glue things together with a glue stick.
Proud mom
Our daughter’s birthday is Nov. 2nd, and we agonized over this decision, too. In the end, we waited until she was officially old enough for kindergarten, even though she was reading well (e.g., the Laura Ingalls Wilder books) before starting kindergarten. It worked out extremely well, with her being a leader, socially and academically, throughout her education. She is now a full professor at a prestigious university.
anon
My kid has the same birthday, and I think we made a mistake waiting. She is one of the oldest kids in class (now 3rd) and complains frequently about other kids not taking school and activities as seriously as she does. The teachers love her because she’s so well-behaved, but she’s not particularly challenged and has developed a bit of an aversion to doing activities with kids her grade level.
My birthday was near hers and I was the youngest kid. Never had social or academic problems, and am particularly glad I was early because I was *still* one of the first girls in school to develop. (I consider this a real issue and am concerned about it with my kid). My brother, whose birthday falls right between mine and hers, was also started early, and he needed another year socially.
But ultimately, you’re not going to ruin your kid either way, so just do whatever you think is best.
Anon
What is enlightening here for me is as one of the last to develop I always thought the first girls were so cool, to know that you all disliked it, makes me rethink all of my pre-pubescent shame at being so far behind.
Anon in Biglaw
I developed early + was always one of the oldest due to 3 international moves in elementary school and I hated it.
Anonymous
I don’t think height should be a factor. I’m 5’10” and an August birthday in a district with a September cutoff, so I was one of the very youngest in my grade. I think I was the second or third tallest girl out of my graduating class of more than 200 girls. If she’s going to be tall, she’s going to be tall and I don’t think one grade level really matters, since puberty happens to different people at different times.
Cat
Speaking as a late August baby… I “made” the cutoff and turned 18 a day or so before leaving for college. There were pros and cons to being the youngest — particularly in the tween years when everyone wants to seem older than they are. I got “into” boys later than my friends did, which was really awkward in 5th/6th grade or so. I secretly played with toys they thought were “babyish” and hid them in the guest room when they came over. However, it all evened out in high school (driving isn’t as big a deal anymore anyway, right?) and now I’m glad to have had an extra year of adulthood vs. an extra year of preschool.
Private K is a good way to punt this decision — if she’s ready for first grade after private K, she switches to public school 1st immediately. If she’s not ready for first grade, she switches to public K immediately, but perhaps it wouldn’t feel like “repeating” a year to her with the change in schools / not seeing her former classmates now a grade ahead.
Anonymous4
So I’m not a fall birthday – I’m a spring birthday. As a child I was tall for my age and mature – I related better to adults than other children. My mother – a kindergarten teacher – chose to hold me out of school. I started kindergarten the fall after I turned 6. This made schoolwork a breeze and was helpful for my social development. Holding off a year was definitely in my best interest, even as a tall, mature, gifted student.
Conversely, DH, with a fall birthday, started kindergarten at 4. He struggled in school (not so much academically as following directions and acclimating socially), was nearly held back a year, and never really caught up socially with the students in his class. His experiences have led him to believe he would have benefited from at least another year of maturity before starting school.
I now have a LO with a fall birthday. I don’t plan on starting him in kindergarten until 6. Kindergarten is highly academic now, and the pressure is significant for all students but especially for the youngest students. They only have so many years to be little and free of academic responsibilities. I would definitely go with another year of preschool.
Anonymous Canadian
I’m Canadian and here the cutoff only goes by year of birth. So my son who was born on January 1, 2010 is in the same grade as my niece who was born December 18, 2010.
Sometimes here if a child has a fall birthday their parents will skip junior kindergarten (kids start this when they are 4 or will turn 4 before January 1) and don’t start them until senior kindergarten (the year they turn 5) or grade one (the year they turn 6).
Wow
That’s…wild. I can’t imagine how it’s possible for them to “skip” a year instead of being held back. So weird.
Anon
Most Canadian schools focus on play based/social learning until K5 so that would make sense. If you don’t understand something look it up, So Weird is not a helpful comment at all.
MargaretO
Please base this decision on her developmental milestones (socially and academically) and not how tall she is or the fact that she is a girl. My birthday is right around the same time as your daughters, my parents sent me straight on to kindergarten and it was absolutely the right choice for me. I was still pretty bored and unchallenged academically even in the “older” grade and it would have been even worse if I had been stuck in school an extra year. They made the same choice for my sister and I think she would have done better socially if she had been held back to the younger grade. It’s so personal and you know your daughter best – but please think about which factors to use in your decision making. Getting your license last or being the tallest in the class are not serious repercussions, but being bored in school or struggling to keep up socially are very serious.
Sutemi
If you do private kindergarten and it turns out that she is behind her peers, you should still have the option of sending her to the public kindergarten the following year. On the other hand, skipping a grade later is a much bigger deal.
I was younger (and shorter) than most everyone in my class with a September birthday and everything worked fine.
brokentoe
We went through this with our DD whose birthday was September 1, the cut off date in our state. An only child who was bright, mature and promised to be tall ( I am 5’9″, dad is 6’5″ – she wound up being 5’11”), a wise preschool teacher told us that by giving her an extra year of maturing, she’d have a better shot at being at the top of the whole class, rather than being at the top of the class average. It made a lot of sense to us and we never regretted it. It’s a pretty big positive to be more mature when faced with potentially life-changing things like driving, dating, substance use, going away to college, etc. once they are older.
Bewitched
Sounds like a good decision for your child, but recent research into red-shirting shows that the advantage associated with being the older kid only lasts through 3rd grade. Thereafter, older kids are more likely to be bored and act out. I was redshirted myself years ago and that’s not my experience, but I would caution OP to not just rely on anectdotal reports and to review the research.
Jules
My birthday is the week after your daughter’s. I don’t know about the cut-offs when I was small – I’m in my 50s now – but I started kindergarten at 4 and graduated HS at 17. It was completely fine and the right choice for me, I never felt in any way “behind” socially or academically.
OTOH my son has a mid-November birthday and didn’t score high enough on standardized tests that the public school would make an exception and let him start at 4. We sent him to a private Montessori-type school for kindergarten because we felt he was ready, and he ended up doing two years of kindergarten there. It was a decision we made with his teachers and the end of his first year, and again it was fine and the best decision in his case. He was on the older end of his class – turned 18 two months into his senior year – but not by that much. In his case, the extra time to mature was helpful. (The only downside: he loved his little hippie private school and didn’t want to leave; he didn’t move to our excellent public school until 4th grade and we spent a fortune on five years of tuition.)
I know you will make the right choice for your son.
Lobbyist
We sent my very tall son to kindergarten at the normal age. Everyone else held their kid back. We ended up switching schools and having him repeat first grade. My daughter we didnt hold back (cuz shes a girl and more mature) and I wish we had. We are tall big people, both my kids are huge, and my daughter is within the correct age range but one of the younger girls and she does fine but that extra year has made such a difference for my son I wish we had done the same for her.
stephanie
I have a November birthday kid- we kept him in pre-K an extra year so he would be 5, almost 6, when he started kindergarten. I just think it would be easier to be older than a lot younger. Nobody around here sends November birthday kids early, and even September kids are held back (they’ve now changed the cutoff to Sept 1). I don’t see any huge benefit to sending a 4 year old, and I have a little eye roll for all the “he’ll be so bored!” I mean it’s a few months difference, and most kids are not *that* off the charts brilliant that it’s going to make a huge difference.
Also, I don’t consider holding back a fall birthday kid to be true “red-shirting.” Spring, maybe. But those of us with kids born at the end of the year aren’t trying to get some weird sports advantage. We just want our kids to have a good experience. And I’ll admit to wanting him to stay with us an extra year before college instead of leaving us at 17. This becomes a lot more relevant as the years fly by– you blink and your kid is 12, like mine.
October bday
My birthday is 10/11 at a school with a 9/30 cutoff, and my parents started me at the state-appointed time, so I was always the oldest person in my class. I didn’t mind it at all. There were always a couple of other kids with October or November birthdays, so it’s not like I was a full year older than every single kid. Looking back on it, in late jr high and high school, I made a lot of friends in the grade above me, but I never felt like being the oldest kid in my class was a bad thing.
My cousin, on the other hand, had a late August birthday, and he really seemed very young to everyone in my family as he was starting school, graduating, etc. My parents still talk about how young he seemed.
Anon
More anecdata. I have a spring birthday. I skipped a grade. Academically it was fine, but socially it was rough. I probably seemed mature for my age to adults because I was smart and well behaved, but I was not ready to date, drink, etc when my friends were. I always had friends, but it affected my confidence and it took me a long time to catch up to my peers.
Alanna of Trebond
More anecdata – Your daughter has the same birthday as me, and we had the same cutoff in my kindergarten. Send her to kindergarten!
Becca
Hi again! I posted about dog food a couple days ago and wanted to thank everyone for their thoughts. I acknowledge that taking on a dog is a big thing; I didn’t intend to say I wouldn’t feed my dog the food best for her because it was too expensive. I meant to put feelers out about possible better brands (but yes, cheaper is always good) that are out there. The vet didn’t specifically say that she needed to be on wet food for life, but Dog seems to have trouble eating hard/crunchy things. Vet also recommended Blue Buffalo, but I’m very leery of switching her over because of the class actions regarding their dog food.
For the moment, I’ve settled on a mix of Nutro wet food and dry Iams senior small breed dog food mixed with a little hot water. She seems happy enough with it! She has a vet appointment with her new vet since I’ve adopted her this weekend, so I’ll ask then.
rosie
I didn’t post about it in your other thread, but I would suggest checking out Costco food if you have one nearby. The food seems fairly high quality, and the savings will pay for the cost of the membership (how quickly depends on how much your dog eats). We recently got some samples of Ancestry food that my dog gobbled up–she likes variety–but comparing the ingredients list, the Costco food seemed basically the same (the salmon one).
Wildkitten
This. My dog is allergic to Costco food but if she wasn’t I would absolutely feed her Costco food. It’s excellent and affordable.
Becca
I’ll check it out! Thanks!
Nina
Didn’t read the previous post but want to say…our dog ate Purina. He was a rescue mutt when he was 4 and that’s what he was on when we got him. He absolutely flourished. We make good money. We asked our vet about all the other options and we were told “your dog is in better shape than 99% of the dogs I see here (in the rich suburbs). Do not change a thing.” He had a sleek shiny coat, strong teeth and was trim and muscular. He lived to 16.
Sometimes the food is only component of a healthy dog.
Anonymous
Yeah, so much of this is just what keeps your dog happy. I’d be very careful about changing your dog’s food so soon after you bring her home. Coming home is a big change, and you want to be able to link any health changes to the cause. Changing environment and food at the same time seems like a receipt for disaster.
For what it’s worth, my dog had all kinds of skin allergies, so we tried every grain-free, fancy dog food brand on the market under vet supervision. Turns out the only food that keeps her skin allergies in check is Purina with lamb.
Anonymous
I feed wet because dry gives my dog digestive issues. Check out the grain free Tractor Supply brand. Its very reasonably priced and high quality.
Dog Momma
Fromm’s dog food is very high quality for a reasonable price. They are also one of the few brands that have not had a dog food recall. We give our dogs a mix of Costco dog food and Fromm’s. Costco canned dog food is pretty good quality.
Vacation Childcare?
Hi hive! My BIL and SIL are coming to visit for a sports game and my SIL asked what she should do with their two elementary school aged children while we are at the game (bringing them is not an option). We don’t have children so I am a bit at a loss on what parents do with kids while out of town. My parents were the type to never really have grown-up no-kids allowed fun, so I have no context from my own childhood. Any ideas?
Anonymous
They hire a babysitter. She’s asking you for help finding one. Do you know any parents? Have neighbors? Any community you can tap into? If not, say sorry you don’t know a sitter.
Anon in NYC
+1. She’s asking you for suggestions for childcare.
Anonymous
Are they bringing the kids to your city but not to the game itself? If so, isn’t the obvious solution a babysitter for the few hours you’re at the game? If you have a neighborhood or town facebook page you should be able to get a good reference there. For elementary school kids I wouldn’t worry too much about vetting anyway, since the kids are older and able to communicate.
anon
You hire a sitter to watch your kids or have them stay with family/friends while you are out of town. If the kids are coming on the trip, but just not coming to the game, hire a sitter to watch them while you are at the game. Ask around to see if someone has some names (or a trusted teenager/college student). Set them up at your place with movies, snacks, and money to order a pizza. Your SIL can probably guide you here on what they like to do.
Mrs. Jones
Get a sitter?
ck
Agree with sitter, and maybe have them all go to a movie and out for pizza.
Carine
Do you work with anyone with kids you could ask? Friends? Neighborhood facebook group? Someone you trust has to have a go-to babysitter they would recommend. Then I’d just give BIL and SIL the sitter’s(s’) information and let them work out the logistics. It’s what we’ve done in the past for our kids when traveling and has always worked out well.
Stormtrooper
Agree – sitter.
I’d ask colleagues, friends, neighbors if they have any recommendations. If you don’t have anyone you can ask for recommendations, then if your family is staying at a hotel, I’ve found that hotels often have nannies/sitters they recommend (or at the very least, a nanny service they can refer you to). If all of that doesn’t work, your BIL/SIL can look on care.com or google nanny services in your area.
Wedding Food
Related to the poster above with class disparities and weddings. How do you feed country folks a vegan wedding meal? Other than the obvious no ‘strange’ vegetables is there any secret to planning my menu that won’t alienate the beef and potatoes crowd? These are the type of people who think burritos are ‘ethnic’.
Anonymous
Not really? Cheese helps, but you won’t do that I assume. You’re living your values, which is fine, but it sounds like you are right that people won’t love it, and it isn’t the most hospitable choice- for better or worse, vegan food is more important to you than serving your guests food they like to eat. That’s perfectly fine, but they get to not like it.
Anonymous
I would go with pasta and sauce and veggies. There are ways to make a fairly creamy sauce without actually using milk or cream. I love this recipe: http://cookieandkate.com/2014/creamy-vegan-butternut-squash-linguine-with-fried-sage/
I assume you’re using a caterer and not actually soliciting recipes, but I highly recommend something like that. I know a lot of beef and potatoes folk and there’s not a lot of overlap between that crowd and vegan food. I’d definitely stay away from spices, as beef and potatoes diets tend to be super bland, and I’d probably avoid ‘weird’ foods like quinoa.
Bonnie
Do a buffet so they can pick and choose. Have plenty of rice or a basic starch. Limit spiciness. But they probably still won’t like it.
ELaw
Vegan beans. BBQ beans are generally made with meat but can be made vegan pretty easily. You can serve them with buns and coleslaw and it’s similar in experience to a pulled pork sandwich. Bonus: this is cheap.
Simple salads. Baked potatoes. Roasted vegetables. Cake of your favorite variety, fruit, and whipped coconut milk for dessert.
Also agree that I would just not really care that much if not everyone likes the food. I like the food at weddings probably no more than half the time. The food isn’t the point.
Anonymous
Don’t tell them it’s vegan. Pasta bar with different sauces and veggies. And if you want, veganized meats. But don’t make a big deal out of it, don’t tell people. Most of the time people don’t notice and don’t care unless you really advertise it. I feed my family “vegan meals” all the time when they come visit, but don’t mention it and they think we’re just eating really healthy.
Also, people are always going to take issue with something you do at your wedding. If it’s not the food, it’ll be the music, or the decor, or the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses. You do do. And let them have whatever opinions they’re going to have.
anon
Just to add to this – you need to have some sort of obvious main course. Maybe that’s veggie burgers. But if you have baked beans, potato salad, and a pasta bar, people are going to stand around wondering when the “real” dinner is being served.
I’d go really protein and fiber heavy. Ime I feel a different sort of full when I eat meat versus a vegan meal. It takes some time to get used to feeling satisfied on a plant-based diet. The goal here is to not have hangry guests. You might consider having mixed nuts and bread on every table.
rosie
I went to a vegan wedding that was excellent and didn’t seem too “out there” (although I’m a vegetarian so not the best judge). I’ll post a link to the venue’s catering menu as a reply for you to get ideas. I think a buffet will be better than plated. Keep in mind that just because people are “country” doesn’t mean they are rude–hopefully they’ll be polite and try some new things, especially if you’re meeting them halfway by providing recognizable options.
rosie
http://abernethycenter.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/EMAILWEB-AbCtr_WedDinner.compressed.pdf (I realize it’s not all vegan, but most of the vegetarian stuff is going to be easily made vegan)
Anonymous
Whatever you do, BLAND BLAND BLAND. I feel like vegan food is often super spicy and I don’t think that would go over well with these people.
An
Feed them pasta. There’s often no meat in it and they might not realize it’s intended to be vegan.
pugsnbourbon
+1. Pasta and potatoes. My family is somewhat country, my husband and I aren’t vegan, but I was absolutely sure that everyone would eat roasted potatoes.
Veronica Mars
I think italian is the best bet for vegan. You can offer a lot of traditional italian things that are “meant” to be vegan so they won’t seem out of place (pasta primavera, aglio e olio, veggie lasagna, a nice fagoli soup, salads, etc). Of course, it’s missing the parmesan and other cheeses, but it would seem less out of place.
CPA Lady
What if you did the kinds of foods you’d have at thanksgiving, minus the turkey? Some kind of sweet potato thing, a green bean dish, a cornbread stuffing, a roast veg dish?
FWIW, as a non-vegan, the most off-putting vegan food I’ve had is mac and “cheese” made with vegan “cheese”. Any kind of vegan foods that are made out of vegetables or whatever are totally delicious. But when you start trying to replicate dairy with soy protein and vegetable oil, that’s when things get a little iffy, IMO.
ELaw
Agree on the fake cheese. I’m not vegan, but I am lactose intolerant. I have tried, lo have I tried, to experiment with vegan cheeses and learn to like them, and they’re just not good. I’ve learned to just make things that don’t call for cheese.
Eliza
Maybe I’m just cranky today, but what’s with today’s comments essentially equating “country people” with tacky, uncultured hicks? C’mon now.
pugsnbourbon
Maybe I’m just cranky today, but what’s with today’s comments essentially equating “country people” with tacky, uncultured hicks? C’mon now.
Wedding Food
I probably should have specified that its intended to be a plated meal as a part of a more formal wedding. So homestyle buffet is out of the question. My idea was to do a squash and sage pasta with a garden salad and garlic bread. Then cinnamon buns for dessert. No cake because I dont like cake.
Anonymous
Girl. Serve the darn cake. You’re already making them eat vegan food. At least try to not be different just for the sake of it? I’d do full on wedding cake and brownies and cookies. End on a generous note they’ll be comfortable with.
Anonymous
Is the “Girl. Stop” anon again? You’re exhausting.
OP, do your wedding however you want. There’s no law requiring that you serve your guests cake.
And your planned meal sounds delicious.
Anonymous
It’s good advice!!
Cat
WTF? I don’t like cake much either, so we skipped it in favor of a dessert bar. That meal sounds perfectly yummy other than the cinnamon buns, which I equate with breakfast food rather than dessert, but by no means do you “HAVE” to serve cake.
pugsnbourbon
I know lots of people who have done dessert bars or pies instead of cake.
ELaw
That sounds delicious to me. Though, would it be possible to have two pasta sauces? At plated-meal weddings people are accustomed to having options, I think, and maybe the squash based pasta as one option and a tomato-based sauce (with mushrooms maybe?) as a second option would go over well.
Anonymous
I think this is a great idea!
ck
+1
I agree.
At least for your non-meat option, make it recognizable for those picky eaters. An option of tomato sauce and regular pasta will be appreciated. Lots of mushrooms in the sauce can make it “meaty”!
Anon
If these are meat and potato folks, I wouldn’t do a squash/sage pasta as the ONLY option. I’d do maybe something more “traditional” like a pasta primavera w/ assorted vegetables and/or a tomato sauce based option. Not everyone likes sweet entrees and often squash based entrees are sweet.
And I’d definitely do cake – -even if you personally don’t eat it. People expect a nice steak/piece of fish at weddings. You’re already not doing that — so now to also “deny” them the expected wedding cake seems over the top.
Though I don’t know your crowd, not all country folks are total hicks. Some may appreciate different foods that they wouldn’t typically eat at a wedding or in real life — but obv some will think you cheaped out with a vegetarian meal.
Wedding Food
Well I’d hope they’d assume the best and think that I was just following my moral values and not being cheap since I haven’t eaten animals since I was 12 and they all know that.
Wildkitten
I hate cake too and have no intention to have cake at my wedding. I’m surprised that’s something people think is important. But you can always have cinnamon rolls and sheet cake if you want.
Anonymous
I only think it is important because she knows they will be uncomfortable with everything else.
rosie
I think this sounds good, but agree that another option would be nice. Do you have GF folks coming? Portabello slices, a green veggie, and potatoes? Otherwise you could have a more savory pasta, like mushroom ravioli, or a tomato sauce option. And serve a dessert and you’re covered, don’t worry about no cake.
anon
There’s not a lot of protein in your planned meal. Could you do maybe a pea and pesto pasta? Peas have something like 8g of protein per serving, vs about 2.5g in squash. And add some chopped nuts to the salad?
plant based
I’m on a plant-based diet (not vegan, but I eat like a vegan). I don’t think it’s unethical to eat animals and this is where we differ.
Honestly, if I were feeding a meat-and-potatoes crowd, I would not fight this battle. I would give them what they expect. Plus, many meat-eaters can’t tolerate beans and lentils. I would make sure I could eat something (e.g., a bean salad) but wouldn’t even offer a plant-based option.
I agree with the above. If having a vegan meal is important, I would offer pasta. For protein, I’d have an Italian bean salad or soup. Maybe lentils included in a sauce or a soup? And warn everyone ahead of time that the menu might not be what they are expecting.
Katy
At the same time, you’re giving a party for your family and friends. Maybe you serve them something you don’t like and wouldn’t eat yourself, perhaps at a minimum offering shredded parmesan cheese on the side? Or maybe even an option that includes meat, if your objection isn’t ethical? I hardly ate anything at my wedding, I was so busy talking to everyone, but we did serve an olive tapenade that I really didn’t like but that everyone else loved – the food wasn’t really for me anyway, though!
Bonnie
This dress seems a bit dowdy to me. Maybe it’s the sleeve length?
Anonymous
When do you say I love you? I’ve been dating and sleeping with a guy for about 2 1/2 months. We were friends first, and we’ve known each other 6 months . This morning as I left his house, we hugged and kissed and he said “love you”. I was too sleepy and surprised to do anything but walk out the door. We haven’t even defined the relationship, nothing about being monogamous in dating or sex. I haven’t been monogamous. I’m open to a relationship but just…surprised…he’d say that at this juncture especially before we’ve established we’re formally in a bf-gf relationship. Feedback?
cbackson
For some people, this happens organically and isn’t an agonized-over decision. It sounds like that’s the case for the guy you’re seeing.
You say it when (i) it’s true and (ii) it feels right to say it. How long you’ve been dating or your official status aren’t relevant, except to the extent that they affect (i) or (ii).
Anonymous
He obviously think you’re in a relationship and your status didn’t need to be acknowledged by a formal ‘talk.’ Which is perhaps a bit naïve of him in this day and age, although I do think becoming BF-GF without formalizing it is more common when you start dating an existing friend than it is with someone you met online (because everyone who online dates knows the other person is probably messaging and meeting lots of other people). Talk to him ASAP.
Nancy Raygun
Sounds like you need feedback from him. Think about whether you want to pursue a relationship and then the next time you have a quiet moment with him, have a conversation about what you guys want. Maybe like “Hey, I noticed you said “I love you” earlier and I don’t mean to be weird about not saying it back…” then talk about what kind of relationship you guys want going forward. It doesn’t have to be a Big Awkward. I had a very similar thing happen to me with a guy a few years ago and I wish I’d just clarified things right then because I went along with a relationship I wasn’t that into because I was afraid to “make it weird”. Good luck!