Thursday’s TPS Report: ‘Brushed Flower’ Print Cascade Faux Wrap Dress

166 Comments

1. Any suggestions for good drop in exercise classes in the Twin Cities? Thanks!

   1. Corepower Yoga – they are all over the Twin Cities.

   2. Barre with Laura at 501 Fit if you are near downtown Minneapolis.

   3. There is free open swim across Lake Nokomis on Tuesdays if you’re looking for something different!

   4. Sparrow Studios in Eagan! They have barre, they have sculpt, yoga, and a yoga/dance fusion class called Soul that rocks my world.

2. Any advice (besides therapy, obviously) about how to let go of past hurts? I’ve really struggled with feeling demeaned, powerless, and violated by my in-laws and to a lesser extent DH. On DH’s part, it’s totally unintentional and a lot of it was an outgrowth of how he dealt with the in-laws situation. He does his best, has learned from his mistakes, and it’s not something I should hold against him. The in-laws are just in general bad people, and while he has some passing contact with them, I don’t. Anyway, I’ve find that I get really angry about anything that sort of touches on these issues, even if indirectly. Now that I’ve figured out why I get angry, I’m looking for ways to deal with the root cause feelings. Help?

   1. I agree that you shouldn’t hold things against your husband, but I think it’s important to not invalidate your feelings in any way. They are your feelings and they are valid, regardless of why or how they come about.

      In regard to dealing with feelings, I think it’s helpful to say hey, I am angry, this is why I am angry, it’s okay to be angry, and the anger will pass. Then you kind of just have to let it pass on it’s own. Realize that your in-laws behavior is about them and not about you. It’s an indication of who they are as people, not who you are as people. Don’t let them take away your happiness, or good mood, or have that sort of control. It’s within your control to allow them to have that effect on you. Time to take back that control.

      1. Should I expect the anger to dissipate over time, even if I don’t “deal with” the feelings that are causing it?

         Is there any way in particular I should ask DH to support me in this moving forward? He really wants to fix this and will do anything to be helpful, but just has no idea what would be helpful. Unfortunately, neither do I.

         1. It sounds like he might be dealing with even more than you are dealing with. I read something recently, maybe here, that feelings are things you can just let come and recognize and let them go and not stew in them. I’m not good at that – but I’d like to be! You might benefit from some mindfulness meditation to learn how to release your thoughts.

            1. You’re right, I need to be better at just releasing negative feelings.

               “It sounds like he might be dealing with even more than you are dealing with.” What makes you say this? If it context is helpful, this issue with the in laws basically stems from them choosing to attack me for things that I am (and can’t change) because it makes them feel better about themselves. I know DH has felt really embarrassed by them and when we were still talking to them was dealing with a lot trying to “mediate,” but I’m wondering if your statement could still be true now.

            2. This is helpful. I think that your husband needs to support you by standing up for you. It’s doubtful it will change how they are or how they feel, but he needs to be team you/us. I think you said that you no longer deal with them/have contact with them. That’s good. Does he pass along things that they say about you? If he does, he should stop IMO. It doesn’t help you AT ALL to know these things.

            3. I think it’s harder to come out of being raised your whole life by jerks and not be a jerk than it is to just know that your in-laws are jerks. Both suck, but you are dealing with it as an external force that you know is irrational and he’s probably dealing with it as an internal struggle to learn how to be different than how he was raised. I don’t know the specifics of your situation – that’s just my initial reaction to the story. It sounds like you’re both dealing with difficult situation.

         2. I think it depends on what you mean by dealing with the feelings that are causing it. I would need more information about what those root cause feelings are to be able to provide more guidance. It sounds like you are already in therapy – this is a great question/topic for your therapist.

            Your husband should always been supportive IMO, but it will depend on what you need as to how he can/should support you.

            I have had a LOT of therapy – I am happy to chat off line if you are not comfortable sharing more details here. Email is $hitmensaytowomen at gmail dot com with the dollar sign being replaced with an s.

            1. Agreed. In addition, if seeing your in-laws is a trigger, it would probably be a good idea for you to limit your time with them, either temporarily or permanently.

               I would also bring DH to your therapy if possible so that you can talk about the issue together in a structured/facilitated way.

            2. Yeah, I don’t see them at all now. He doesn’t tell me things he knows will set me off.

         3. I had (have?) a similar situation. the feelings of anger and resentment have not dissipated over time, I’ve just learned to deal with them better — and by that, I mean that I have to actively tell myself that I’m not going to let them get me angry etc. I don’t want them to control my life like that. any time I start feeling angry or resentful, I just walk away and do something else until the anger passes. also Zoloft. Zoloft helps a lot.

            1. Anger is a secondary emotion as I understand it – it covers up fear, shame, guilt. It’s about having boundaries pushed and expectations (yours or someone else’s) not being met. See if thinking about the triggers of your anger in these terms helps.

         4. To add to my previous comment, I think a lot hinges on why you are angry. Are you angry about something you have no control over? If so, this is a good time to practice letting go of things you have no control over and realizing the only person you have control over is yourself. Even if you do have control over it, it’s still within your control to let it go. You have to make the conscience decision though.

   2. When I have something that I’m unhealthily ruminating on or obsessing over, I find it useful to have some kind of phrase to quiet my mind. The phrase can be anything that resonates with you. For example, my new phrase that I repeat to myself when I’m getting overly stressed about work is “what if we pretended everything was easy?” It’s just something I say to myself and it helps me unclench and let go of my stress.

      Maybe your phrase could be something like what CountC said “the anger will pass”.

      1. I do the spinning record thing in my brain too. I think there was a chapter in the happiness project about this & she said to us a phrase as well and I have found this useful at times.
         Mine is, “thanks for the thought *my name*, you’ve already let me know that thought, let’s move on.”
         Every time I find myself in a repetitive thought pattern, I say this to myself to recognize the spiral & to break out of it.
         In the past I’ve also kept a list of activities that make me happy- going on a walk, a song I like to hear, painting my nails, calling a friend, whatevs & when I see myself getting overly-focuses on something negative, I’ll force myself to do one of those things.
         Also, in periods when it has become too much & I just can’t break out o f my pattern of obsessive negative thoughts, no matter what I try, I have used prozac & have found it to be extremely helpful at times to just reset for a period of time.

   3. The ILs seem to have hold over some of the real estate inside your head and your emotional bandwidth. They do not deserve any and need to be evicted. Can you crowd them out of the space they mentally occupy by replacing them with good people, good things, good experiences, and good energy?

      Seeds, once planted, tend to grow. Plant good things and norish them with your time and attention.

      The ILs can’t be fixed by anything you do. I agree with minimizing contact and moving on. Looking back and revisiting what has upset you does not help you.

      I’m glad your DH is supporting you and I feel bad for him as someone who is now painfully aware of how his parents have failed to be what parents should be.

      1. Just wanted to say I love this: “(They) seem to have hold over some of the real estate inside your head and your emotional bandwidth. They do not deserve any and need to be evicted.”

   4. I’ve actually received some really good advice here on dealing with some extended relatives substance abuse issues that end up causing issues at various family functions. One thing I needed to accept is that I cannot change anyone but myself. If my relatives are asshats for allowing bad behavior from other relatives, I’m not going to make them see the light. It’s the whole don’t wrestle a pig because you just end up dirty and the pig likes it thing. There was another poster here before about racist inlaws. She is not going to make her in-laws not racist. All she can do is limit her interactions with them. You can be hurt and mad that people like that exist in the world but that gets into the letting go of things we can’t control arena.

      Then you have to decide what is reasonable. In my situation, I don’t interact with my extended family anymore but I’m not going to fault my parents for doing so. Yeah, I get annoyed sometimes when I hear them talk about visiting them like nothing ever happened. However, my parents shouldn’t have to choose me or them. It’s my choice to limit my interactions, I don’t have the right to make that choice for them. Further, some people will choose to stay connected to family no matter how awful they are because they think it is what you have to do.

      I can understand you getting mad at your husband if he still interacts with your in-laws where you had to cut them out but at the end of the day, no matter how awful they are, they are still his parents. If he is good with not pushing a relationship with you and agrees to just see them here and there with no pressure on you to join I think that’s a solution you should work on being comfortable with. If it was some random friend that was awful to you, my analysis would be different. If he wanted to still have dinner with them every Sunday my analysis would be different too.

      He may not have realized how awful his parents were until he met you. That is a very hard thing for him to now deal with. He has to balance hurting his parents, who have been in his life forever, with hurting you, who he probably loves more than anything. He’s in a lose/lose situation. If he recognizes the errors of their ways and does what he can now to keep you safe from their vitriol than it sounds like he is really trying. Is there anything more that you wish he would do now (not stuff from the past)?

      1. that might have been me posting about racist in-laws. That’s been among the many issues.

   5. “I’ve really struggled with feeling demeaned, powerless, and violated by my in-laws and to a lesser extent DH. ”

      Your issue might be that when your in-laws demean you and your husband doesn’t step up to defend you, it makes you feel like crap. But if your husband spent his formative years with demeaning people who engage in power struggles, telling them to eff off probably isn’t something he’s going to do. Maybe understanding what you want him to do and what he’s capable of aren’t the same thing?

   6. My (possibly wrong) take is that you’re suffering because you have specific desires that cannot be fulfilled. You want your in laws to be people that they are not – they should have acted differently, been better people, etc. But, you cannot ever change this. It’s ok to recognize that you feel certain things when they act certain ways to you, so acknowledge your feelings as they arise and then let go of your expectations or desires. Maybe it would help to write down your feelings – you feel angry or sad because of X reasons and actions. Then it’s all out there, you have acknowledgeds and hopefully decompressed and that is all you can do about it. It is frustrating that there is nothing you can do to achieve your desires sometimes, and many of us are raised with the false belief that we can change our lives to be anything we want them to be. It’s a lot of work to be able to accept some things as they are.

      1. I wanted to add that I don’t mean you should passively sit there and take whatever people throw at you. If you’re happy with the actions you and your husband are taking, you have to come to terms with the situation or change something about the role these people play in your life, which may involve things that you’re not willing to do.

      2. Well like I said, I have no contact with them. I think the problem is that I feel like he didn’t stand up for me until I made a huge issue of it and told him what I wanted him to do. I feel like he sat and watched them abuse me and just tried to get us to make nice with each other instead of doing something *anything* to stand up for me. We’ve talked about this a lot and I forgive him because he thought he was trying to help and didn’t realize how big the problem was etc. His position makes sense, and he wishes that he had figured things out sooner. So I shouldn’t be upset with him, but I guess anytime something comes up that I feel like he’s ignoring my needs in favor of his, I feel like I’m back where I started all those years ago. I guess I just think I’ll never feel like he’s got my back or he’s looking out for me. I don’t think that’s accurate, and I know it would really hurt his feelings a lot, because I think he wants nothing more.

         1. Based on this information, I think you should go to therapy together to work through it.

         2. Do you guys talk about your feelings a lot? It might help to discuss hypotheticals, like what would he do if X happened, and see if he can actually live according to what he says. It might take time to start living it, but you have to figure out whether or not he is serious and think about what you consider an appropriate effort on his part. The last part is especially something you want to think a lot about and figure out how you feel about – I think sometimes we carry around anger because we have a lot of feelings and we aren’t quite sure what they mean or what we think about them, other than wanting them to go away, which is never going to happen. I am assuming that maybe you do talk and he says he understands and will change how he handles things, but never really follows through in the way you would like.

            Maybe suggesting therapy can help him – for some people, that is a wake-up call to get serious, and for others it’s a way to figure out how to do the things they want to do but are too spineless to actually do. It sounds like he is great in many other ways, but he’s pretty terrible when it comes to dealing with his parents. He probably wants them to be different, but they’re never going to be. He needs to deal with it in the future in ways that are acceptable to you.

            1. Yeah, but usually he wants to hear instructions about what he should do and doesn’t want to hear my feelings so much. He sort of shuts down when I express feeling bad as a result of something that was his doing. He wants to make things better, but doesn’t want to hear much about how I feel, it seems, which to me is not terribly helpful. I kind of understand in this situation, though, because I’m guessing he feels massively bad and personally responsible. I’m sure it doesn’t help when he feels like I think it’s all his fault.

            2. No, no, no, he does not get to dismiss your feelings. That’s 100% not okay. Just because it makes him uncomfortable to hear, doesn’t mean he gets excused from the exercise. Of course you are still harboring resentment and anger towards this because your husband refuses to HEAR you.

            3. I’m not sure he’s dismissing them. Like, he didn’t tell me not to tell him how I feel, I can just tell it upsets him, which seems reasonable. Tell me this- what would it look like if he dismissed my feelings vs actually HEARING me? I’m trying to seek reasonable expectations here.

            4. I think it’s to be expected that he will be upset, but he should talk about it with you even if it makes you both cry. You could probably pose that question directly to him.

            5. Those are really good things to talk to a therapist about.

            6. Well you said he doesn’t want to hear much about how you feel, so I took that to mean he wasn’t letting you tell him how you feel. Reasonable expectations IMO are for you to say, hey is this a good time to talk about something that has been bothering me? And if he says yes, you are able to freely tell him how you are feeling. He can then also share how he is feeling if it’s appropriate. Once you have said how you feel, you then ask for reasonable support/compromise/whatever.

               As your husband it makes sense that he is upset if you are upset about something, but he should still let you talk about it without making you feel bad about talking about it. It’s not your responsibility to control how he feels about something. If you are doing something terrible, then you should stop, but you still aren’t in charge of how that terrible thing makes him feel. Hopefully that makes sense.

            7. Could part of the issue be that your husband, raised by racists, is ignorant to certain things actually being racist and didn’t realize in the moment that you were being put down? Once you pointed it out to him he was upset because he realized how it impacted you and is upset with himself that he didn’t catch it earlier so he could have said something?

               My (white) husband has pointed out racist things people around us have said that I had no clue were racist until he explained it to me. Then I was horrified at what they said and embarrassed I didn’t know at the time why that was bad to react appropriately in the moment.

            8. I don’t think so- he typically does extremely well on that front. He said that he felt like if he jumped in an said something, he would have been stripping me of my agency/control of the situation to the extent that I had it. That it should have been up to me to decide when and how much to engage, and without a prior agreement of how I’d want him to act on my behalf, it would have be an active disservice to me. Like, if somehow I just wanted to leave but he didn’t know that and made an issue of it, he was afraid that I’d feel worse.

               He also felt like if I handled the problem instead of him, I would be asserting myself in their eyes, and they would have hopefully respected me enough to stop doing this, whereas if he did it, it would make me look weak.

               I think #2 reason is ridiculous, but I get how he could just not get it. He had never dealt with or even seen anything like this kind of behavior before (his family doesn’t know any other non-white people, so they talk amongst themselves but there’s little opportunity to interact), and we were very young when the whole thing started.

   7. Start a blog like The Diary of a Golddigger? It is pure gold.

      1. Pure gold, but everyone in Wisconsin knows who the author is and I don’t think she’s helping her husband’s campaigns much.

         1. I also kind of feel like that kind of thing just encourages you to hold on to and treasure every little resentment, instead of helping you learn to let them go.

         2. Not just Wisconsin, anymore. I’m surprised at how surprised she was that people would track down that info.

         3. I haven’t followed the blog in a while, but now I want to know who the husband is!!

            1. Huh, it appears the blog is now invite only.

            2. He unsuccessfully ran for election in Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional district in 2014. I don’t want to put his name on blast because I don’t know if he ever knew she was blogging.

            3. and it appears somebody left a message about her blog on his mom’s obituary. That is really cold.

3. Quick–your best tips for staying cool on a hot day while still living your normal life. Go.

   Right now I am:

   — walking slowly/not exerting myself
   –drinking cold beverages
   –wearing linen
   –wearing my hair up

   And still, every single time I step foot outside, I am a sweaty mess. Ugh. DIE, Humidity, DIE!

   1. I wear hats and try to stay in the shade. And I don’t wear foundation- just sunscreen and concealer. I drink lots of cold water.

      And when that fails I whine and moan and carry on as if I am actually about to die.

      1. +1 to less makeup. I wear MAC pro longwear concealer and Clinique lash power longwear mascara because they’re basically hurricane-proof and don’t budge no matter how much a sweat.

   2. Carry a folding fan in my purse and use as needed. I don’t care if random people on the subway think I’m crazy. I’m cooling off and they aren’t.

   3. A nice cool shower as soon as I get home.

      Popsicles.

      And realizing beautiful fall is just around the corner.

      September is really one of the nicest months of the year.

      Everything is relative, you know. I was staying in Singapore for awhile during their hottest, most humid time of year. Now nothing seems bad compared to that!

      1. From living in Japan I learned:
         – Really hot bath makes everything else feel cooler and thus finally able to sleep
         – inner shirt to mop up the sweat during the work day
         – little towels (about the size of a washcloth) to mop up the sweat during the day (I sat through work meetings where everybody brought a towel with their pen)

         Also, regular bikram practice — it somehow made me able to tolerate extreme heat and cold much better.

         1. on really hot days in nicaragua you eat hot soup. +1 to hot + hot = cool!

   4. I can’t ever stay cool, so I always travel with baby wipes and some deodorant!

      1. Sorry hit report by mistake!

   5. My friend just posted this listcicle:

      http://www.buzzfeed.com/pablovaldivia/the-sweat-struggle#.ifee3z5d

      1. OMG. This is hilarious.

         During hot months I have one sports bra a day I switch into as soon as I get home. I have so much swoob that I need rotation or things start getting….ripe.

   6. I do better when I spend more time outside. The more time I am outside on the weekends, the better I do with short trips out during the week. Acclimate I guess is the word. Going from crazy cold AC to hot outside also does not help so we set our home AC to cool, but not freezing.

   7. I always feel much cooler if I am wearing a sleeveless shirt and open shoes. So I always commute in a tank top and sandals and then change when I get to the office (or put a cardigan or blazer or whatever on if my top is otherwise ok)

   8. I cold-brew buckets of iced coffee and keep my ice tray full. So every morning, there’s chilled cold brew waiting for me; I just add ice (conveniently located), milk, and sweetened condensed milk (which also lives in the fridge). My big 24 oz of iced coffee then gets toted to work with me (silver car, cream interior), where I promptly freeze my butt off in the A/C that is meant for men in wool suits.

      During the day, I keep my window unit A/C on “energy saver” and set it to about 75-77 degrees. First, I don’t want my cat to bake; second, the A/C unit just can’t cool everything down enough in time for bed if I don’t do that. The problem isn’t the air; it’s the carpet, furniture, walls, and everything else that turns into a heat-retaining device throughout the day.

   9. I wear sleeveless shirts/dresses for the commute and put on layers at the office. Wearing sandals is much cooler than closed shoes as well.

   10. I don’t have AC, so I stay out until it starts to cool down a little bit. I keep a little travel spray bottle of Na-PCA or rosewater (the ELF setting spray works too) on me so I can spritz it on my face/arms/neck and cool down a bit. Bringing a change of clothes to wear after work. If it’s 98 degrees outside I’m not stepping out in pants, a short sleeved blouse, and closed toed leather shoes. A freezer full of popsicles. Gallon jugs of cinnamon water, iced tea (caffeine free)and a very cold light beer in the fridge.

       1. TELL ME ABOUT CINNAMON WATER!

          1. It’s so good and refereshing! I just get one of those huge gallon plastic pitchers, drop in a couple cinnamon sticks, fill it up with water, and let it steep for a while. Bulk cinnamon sticks are super inexpensive and I can reuse each one 2-3 times before the flavor starts to drop off.

             1. I must try this. I love cinnamon. I do a lot of fruit or veggie water, but this sounds totally different and awesome. I’ll be trying tonight! Thank you!

4. I LOOOOVE that dress you linked to. It’s backordered until August in my size, but I just ordered it. So cute. Who knew Betsey Johnson could make professional dresses?

5. Just had a call with a recruiter/headhunter who asked my salary and I flubbed by telling her. Hoping I didn’t kill my chances of movie where I want to be career-wide.

   I hate it when places ask this – my current salary is really fair, but no reflection of my potential value to another company.

   1. So follow-up and say that. Tell her/him you would be looking for compensation that is appropriate for the position, market, etc., and that your current salary is relevant.

      1. *not relevant

   2. I did headhunting for a while. The salary should not effect their hunt if they are good. You should tell them what salary range you want in order to change jobs and they should go after it for you. Salary being lower than what you deserve is a great green flag for headhunters because they know you are going to be more willing to switch jobs to a higher paying one.

6. Update!

   I went into a store and tried on items for fit. They do line up with J. Crew / BR sizing. I found that the cuts worked really well for me (usually I think that BB is the horror of boxy horrors) and I liked that the fabrics were natural and that the wool dresses were lined. The cardigans, in particular, fit me better than anything else I have tried in years.

   FWIW, I am 5-4, 32C bust, usually a size 4 (tops, No. 2 pencil, some dresses) or 6 (very generous hips / thighs), so I am used to *nothing* fitting (I didn’t try on any pants). I am really, really happy. I think I will wait to see what they roll out as the weather gets colder, but it seems like a magical unicorn to me.

   Also, I tried on the alphabet print dress. It was too long in the torso for me, but would work for someone a few inches taller. But the skirt was a nice length and it would be a safe but not boring dress for me. I really, really like Red Fleece.

   1. Hooray! Now I want to look at their cardigans, too. I agree that regular BB is usually way too boxy.

      I feel like Red Fleece may be really dangerous for me. I, too, will be looking forward to seeing what they roll out towards fall/winter.

      1. I really appreciate the quality of BB (and Pendleton), but I often feel like they are designed for a slightly differently-shaped person who wants slightly differently things from workwear.

         I’m built like a grade-schooler with generous hips/thighs and I’m 45, so there is just not a lot of stuff that works.

         For Corporate, where do you usually shop if Red Fleece is working for you? I’m game to try out new things b/c my post-children wardrobe is awful and at the needing to be replaced / donated / stage for a lot of items.

         1. My go-to for years has been J Crew, but I’m so sad about their quality lately that I’ve been looking elsewhere. The one thing from BB I’ve worn consistently is their no-iron shirt in the slimmest fit (they have 3 fits), which is just a great shirt and always looks sharp. Other than that, my work wardrobe is almost entirely J Crew, from suits to dresses to blazers. I have heard good things about Ann Taylor, but don’t have anything from there myself. Talbots occasionally has some cute things, but I have to size down. Anyway, long story short, I’m in the market for other brands, too.

7. I need some advice ladies. How do you let the minor things go in your day-to-day relationship with your SO? I find I get annoyed about something minor (that doesn’t even need to be an issue), obsess about it while I’m at work and then create a huge fight about something so dumb. I really want to stop picking fights and giving him a hard time about minor things when he’s such a good partner on a daily basis.

   Thanks ladies!

   And p.s. I’m considering going back to therapy but right now, I’m looking for strategies that will allow me to let the little things go!

   1. Get more sleep. Drink less wine. Break up. Because some people are just really annoying and I don’t need to date them.

      1. +1. Ha! Except my list would be more like:

         – get more sleep
         – go for a run
         – leave work early to go hang out outide
         – drink less wine (although I generally get more chill when I drink)
         – break up (because yes, some people are annoying, and sometimes when you hate every little thing they do, it’s a sign of a bigger issue)

      2. +5 Get more sleep. I used to get so mad about everything in the morning and it turned out I was just tired, so cranky.

   2. Well you can take one of two approaches IMO. You can try to get to the root of why you are annoyed (you haven’t been spending enough QT together and are getting resentful, you feel like he is not expressing his feelings for you in a way that works for you and are getting resentful, you are stressed about work, you are stressed about money, etc.). That way, when you get annoyed over something that is not important, you can take a minute, step back, think about why you are feeling this way and realize it has nothing to do with the fact that he left socks on the floor and everything to do with the fact that you haven’t been having enough $ex lately and then address that.

      The other approach is to try to become more zen about things in general. Does the fact he left his socks on the floor in the morning really affect you? No, it doesn’t. You can pick them up yourself, or you can ask him to do it. What’s easier is to do it yourself and just realize that’s one of the costs of entry to this relationship.

      1. I think this is good advice. Figure out why you’re annoyed and if it’s a you problem or a him problem, or a combo. For certain things, even if they’re small, it may be good to talk about them. For instance, if your one pet peeve is the toilet paper being hung the “wrong way,” it’s okay to say, “listen, I know it’s silly but I have a strong preference for over vs. under and when you do it the other way it feels like a giant F.U. to me, even though I objectively know it isn’t. Can you try to be more mindful of that in the future?”

         I think everyone gets 3 things they get to be irrational about like that. But you have to pick your battles. And if you are getting upset about ALL the little things and non-issues, then that may be a sign of a bigger problem with either you and how you perceive things or with him and how he makes you feel generally. Address that.

      2. Yes! I have this philosophy with husband & with my roommates before that.
         If fixing the problem took less mind space than how angry I’d get over it, I’d just fix it.
         If I’m going to obsess for 5 hrs that my husband didn’t take out the trash (or my roommates didn’t do the dishes), I’d just do it in <5 min, and move on– and have the thing done and not get passive aggressive over it. It makes for a much happier life.
         Also, every time I'm about to nag my husband about something or say something negative, I really try to force myself to say something nice instead.
         If I've noticed that something is happening for a while & it's really getting to me, I'll just say at a neutral point in time (aka when I'm not in the heat of being super pissed), 'hey, I'd appreciate if you helped out with ___ more. I'm tired when I get home from work & it's not fun for me to have to do this, so it would make me a lot happier & less stressed out if you did it once in a while too.'

         1. Another thing-
            One thing that has also helped also is giving very specific time frames.
            I say something like- please do this by this date, I won’t remind you before then, but if you don’t do it by then, I have free reign to bring it up again or deal with it my way (like: If you don’t throw away this junk mail you are asking me to keep by Friday, and it hasn’t moved from the place it currently is, it is going in the trash- so if it’s important to you, please move it sometime before then).
            This has helped in terms of him feeling like I’m constantly nagging him & me feeling like, god damnit, why won’t you do it NOW!?!>!>!!!

   3. What if you wrote it down on a post-it before you left, stuck it somewhere your SO would see it, and really tried to mentally leave the subject at home there with the post-it? I find that writing things down can help me stop being anxious about them, because I know it them exists somewhere outside my head, if that makes any sense. Also if it’s pretty minor stuff it can help you realize that it is really insignificant once you see it in writing.

      1. Hahahahaha. I can’t imagine my partner leaving me post it’s about minor annoyances. Like, am I dating Beyoncé? Then no.

         1. I love the idea of Beyoncé doing this. But no one else.

      2. I like the idea of writing it down, but I don’t like the idea of leaving it somewhere where the SO would see it – seems passive-aggressive.

         1. I like the idea of writing them down so you can talk about them at another time. Especially if I am annoyed by things when trying to get out of the house in the morning it’s really helpful to just get to work and then to talk about fixing the problem another time (not at the same time I am trying to get to work on time).

            1. +1 write it down but bring it up at another (appropriate) time. I was going through a similar phase and I kept a note on my phone of the little things my husband was doing to drive me crazy (slamming the door when he leaves in the morning and I’m still sleeping, cap left off the toothpaste, whatever) with the intention that at some later point we would have a discussion about it. Turns out just writing it down got it off my mind.

      3. Might work for some (maybe? benefit of doubt?), but I would utterly freak out if a post it were the chosen mode of communication for something like this.

         1. Oh, I was picturing talking about it wih spouse first, and telling him you were going to try to write it down and not stew on it, as a way to kind of get it out in order to let it go. Like, “I’ll write it down and then not bring it up again.” Assuming it’s for pretty innocuous things, and that he was unhappy with the previous stew/blowout method of dealing.

   4. Make sure you’re not irritated by some other facet of your normal routine- an annoying alarm clock, a sense that you are rushed or running late.

      My husband and I commute together and he’s much slower than I am in the morning. I spent weeks inexplicably irritated at him before realizing that whilst I’m faster in the morning, I need a few more minutes to wake up. We set a wake-up alarm and a get up alarm and those extra 10 minutes of snuggles / waking up make a huge difference.

      1. +1. I used to get annoyed at my DH for going to bed so late, but it was partly because I was getting up too early so that I could exercise too much.

      2. Yay! I am late to the game today, but am VERY pleased to see how smart the other’s are in the HIVE on this issue.

         I learned to put up with MY SO’s faults while the relationship was good. He was always sloppy, late and disshevelled, and he was terrible in bed b/c of his drunkeddness, but I looked past all this to keep things goeing, as I thought he would get over them and become a CPA.

         After a while, I got more irritated with those thing’s and finaly had to give up the ghost and get rid of him when all he did was lay around and wait for me to come home and take him out to dinner, or to other places. Because he was unemployed, he was collecting money from the state, but that did NOT matter. I was the one with the paycheck, and that meant I had to carry him, and pay for him. Once Grandma Leyeh told me he was an ALBBATROS, I figured out I was better off without him. Once I dumped my SO, I was literaly freed and liberated. That should be a lesson to all of the HIVE. Do NOT stick with a lazy Sheketovits, like I did. Once you are free, you can find other fish in the ocean that do NOT smell. FOOEY!

   5. Thanks ladies. I’m not interested in breaking up with the best man I know or have ever been with because he leaves his socks on the floor (as crazy as that makes me).

      I think the other advice is great though – I’m going to try to be more zen and figure out why I’m annoyed and just let it go!

      1. I pick up the socks and put them in the hamper – I still don’t understand why he doesn’t do it, but he claims it’s so he doesn’t wake me up at 4 am. I figure it bothers me if they are on the floor and if they are not on the floor, I am happier.

         I did train him to put the toilet seat down, though! ;)

         1. Agreed.. sometimes you have to pick your battles and just pick up the darn socks. My husband is a wonderful guy and he does a lot of amazing things and is so great with my (sometimes overwhelming) family. I wish he would also put his socks and underwear in the hamper instead of leaving them on the floor, but it takes me less than 5 seconds and zero energy to pick them up in the morning and it would take way more than that to nag him about putting them away himself.

            And to be honest, we all do things that annoy our spouses. They have to let some things go too – we aren’t actually perfect ourselves :)

            1. This is good advice BUT I will never understand why it’s so hard to put the socks in the hamper. It’s not that far away!

            2. Hahaha I tried EVERYTHING.. hamper placement right where he dresses, extra hamper just for him, reminder as he’s getting dressed/undressed, reminders that if the underwear’s not in the hamper and the hamper isn’t full, how do I know I have to do laundry? Etc. It’s been 4 years and I have finally given up and moved on. It’s some weird mental block. I try to reframe it in my head as a little thing I can do for him instead of a little annoyance I have to deal with every day.

            3. It’s not about understanding, it’s about accepting that this is how he is.

            4. Mine used to leave his dirty clothes all over the place. Now, he leaves them ON TOP OF the hamper. Rarely inside, almost always on top of.

               Why? Who cares. I count this as a win :)

            5. This *100. Almost 21 years have taught me that if its minor, and something I can easily do myself, and obviously it bothers me way more than it bothers him, I just take care of it. If it’s something I really can’t let go I talk to him about it when I’m calm. “Honey, I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it really drives me crazy when you leave your smelly socks on the floor For some reason I just can’t let it go, and because I’ve mentioned it a few times I think I’m starting to take it personally. Is there any way you could try and get them in the hamper? Would moving the hamper help? Or changing the position of your dresser?”

               You really do need to pick your battles, but make sure they are battles you really want to fight. I try to ‘save’ he battles for really important stuff and let the unimportant stuff go. It can be hard, but like other posters, it’s easier if you are getting enough sleep and are managing your stress well.

      2. Can there be a hamper closer to where he leaves his socks? If he could toss them in a basket nearby instead of having to take them all the way the other room would that work?

         1. Yeah, the hamper needs to be where the undressing is!

            1. And maybe the socks come off in the living room but the hamper is in the bedroom where everything else comes off, in which case you can have a second small hamper in the living room that he dumps into the big hamper when it’s laundry time?

      3. I never put my socks in the hamper. I also ate the last Popsicle and put the empty box back in the fridge. And I will step over a mess hundreds of times before moving it.

         You wanna be with me? Great. Let me be me. That means you don’t hassle me about minor stuff, and you don’t self righteously dig in to why you are right (honestly no one dies if there is a sock on the floor) and you really get that I’m actually an awesome person. And in return I put up with your obsessive pointless tidying because I love you.

         If you can’t let go of your conviction that your way is the one true and only right way it will be hard to be less annoyed.

         1. Yup. Plus I realized that I do things to annoy him. All the time. And he puts up with it, so I should too.

            That said, when I get annoyed with my SO I make sure I’m not depressed/angry about something else and taking it out on him. If it’s part of a broader issue, I address the issue, not nitpick all the little things.

            Finally, when I’m in full blown annoyed mode, I make a mental list of the things I love. Funny>>>>socks on the floor.

         2. You put the box back in the freezer after you’ve eaten the last popsicle? That would actually be a deal breaker for me.

            1. To be fair, that’s not as bad as putting the empty milk bottle back in the fridge.

            2. Yassssss. All the time. It’s obviously a deal breaker for some but I feel like that’s the joy of dating. I don’t need everyone to like me!

            3. Putting the empty Popsicle box back is just mean! What if I really wanted a Popsicle and was really excited that we still had some and then it turns out that THEY WERE ALL GONE??

         3. This times a million. I’m at the age where I have no interest in taking on anybody’s annoying habits as a project, nor do I want anybody taking on mine as a project. Fortunately my lovely gentleman friend is of the same mind.

            I know I’ve said this about a million times on here, but I am a huge fan of Dan Savage, who talks about things your SO does that are annoying but not dealbreakers. You’re not gonna break up over it, the other person is not going to change them, so they are just the price of admission for being in the relationship. He leaves his socks on the floor? Price of admission. He hits you? Dealbreaker. And my own addition is this: There is no number three (things he does that drive you crazy but that you could get him to change if you just explained it carefully enough, often enough).

            1. This. And a guy trying to get me to change/fix those little quirks and habits or constantly complaining about them or denigrating me for them is itself a dealbreaker.

      4. The best advice I heard on this topic is that for day-to-day minor annoyances with spouse (not kids!), there are two approaches: (1) nagging and probably having it still not work, and (2) quietly dealing with it yourself, since you’re the one that cares. My husband is a trail of gum wrappers since he spits his gum out directly into the trash can. I could nag him about the random bits of paper that I therefore find everywhere, or I could just throw them out… he returns the favor by not hauling me back into the kitchen to close all the cabinet doors that I inevitably leave open.

         I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask politely a few times, or that you shouldn’t stand up for major concerns, but it saves a lot of mental energy to let the minor stuff go.

      5. I am trying to work on this too. The bad thing is, sometimes the more time we spend apart (due to rotating work schedules), the more I want to see him, and then when I do, I get extremely annoyed. I think it’s covering up other emotions (maybe insecurity? resentment that we haven’t seen each other, even though it’s not his fault?). I do think it helps that I’ve explained this to him and told him that I’m trying to work on it.

         Another strategy is trying to remind myself of some time in the recent past where he has really pulled more than his weight (made more dinners than I, done more dishes, whatever). It makes me feel more OK that even though I am constantly picking up his dirty laundry, these things “even out.”

         And despite what I said in the first paragraph, sometimes extended time apart (like, I get to take a weekend trip with girlfriends, or even a work trip) helps recalibrate, so I feel more lucky to get to spend time with him and less likely to dwell on minor annoyances.

   6. I am on sertraline (generic of Zoloft), and it changed my life. I am so, so glad that I’m on it and I would never go back to a life without it. I suffered for years.

      The side effects do look scary, and getting used to it took about two weeks, but I haven’t experienced a single side effect since then. Many of my friends have also had positive experiences. Worst-case scenario, it doesn’t work for you and you stop taking it. Just be sure you have a close relationship with your doctor so you can be in touch if you need to change your dosage. Good luck.

   7. I force myself to think about something annoying that I do (and to really picture it with mental images), and remind myself of how much I appreciate my partner’s kind tolerance of my occasional laziness, sloppiness, grumpiness, whatever. Our commitment to our relationship means we both make the effort to let go of the minor annoyances.

   8. Been married >25 years. We really have never yelled at each other. My rule about little pet peeves is thus: Whomever it bothers, gets up and deals with it.

      This also allows for individual differences in timing. As in, I see it and I do it. Others see it and will do it when they walk by it, get up the next time, etc.

      Okey dokey.

      This viewpoint also works well in that we are both capable of doing traditional housework that might be delegated to one or the other spouse. I also have days to do a small bit of cleaning and tidying up for every day of the week – so that an entire morning on the weekends is not spent doing the weekly maintenance.

      THE KEY IS THE Daily – all clothes and jewelry are put away by both of us, anything taken out to use, goes back into place

      Mondays – bills, shredding, filing
      Tuesdays – bath room, kitchen, towels (used to clean with as well), kitchen counters
      Wednesdays – dry cleaners to/fro and putting all that away
      Thursday – lawn work
      Friday – usually a freebie!
      Saturday/Sunday – laundry, cooking for the week ahead, every other week indoor plant watering

      Once a month, solid dusting of all rooms
      Every three months, dusting everything in the house (shelving, knick-knacks, tops of furniture)

   9. If you’re getting so spun up about things that you recognize are small and insignificant, it sounds like you might be attaching meaning to them beyond the actual incident. When you think about your partner’s intentions behind those actions, are you assuming negative intentions that aren’t there? For example, if the issue is socks on the floor are you thinking that he left his socks on the floor because he’s being mean and rude and doesn’t care that it bothers you? Or are you giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he just forgot to pick them up and didn’t realize it would bother you? This was something I read about, I think in The Happiness Project, and immediately realized that I was making negative assumptions about my truly wonderful husband without even contiously thinking about it. Once I became more concious about assuming my husband had the best intentions I found it a lot easier to ignore small annoyances that would have disproportionally upset me in the past.

8. Would anyone be willing to comment on their experience with Zoloft? The side effects sound terrifying.

   1. I am not on Zoloft (though I do take a low dose of a different, common anti-depressant), and I just want to tell you, having been there, not to read Internet message boards about the side effects of these drugs. It will only scare you. It is more likely than not that you will not experience these terrifying side effects.

      1. +1 SOOOO much. People take anti-depressants for a variety of reasons (mine was moderate anxiety) and experience radically different results, so reading about the effects of someone else who took it for severe depression/schizophrenia/to cope with severe trauma and had a laundry list of experiences was not helpful in the slightest. I ended up having zero side effects, but had freaked myself out so badly that it was going to ruin my sleep, appetite, and relationship, and possibly kill me.

   2. I have taken it twice, at two different points in my life. The first time was in my teen years, combined with therapy, to help me through a severe depression and suicidal thoughts. For those goals, it worked. The second was post-graduate school. I will say that there is no way to predict what side effects you will experience or how severe they are. The dosing of antidepressants is very, very important and the only person who can help you evaluate what drugs will work for you is your doctor. Seriously. I know you’re seeking reassurance (understandably so!!), but the anecdotes simply won’t tell you what you want to know. The message boards are a dark place. Don’t scare yourself.

   3. I can only speak from my best friend’s experience, but she was blindsided by the breakup of a LT relationship (very few warning signs and poof! it was over). She just _couldn’t_ stop crying. The doctor put her on a temporary course of Zoloft and the clouds lifted. He weaned her off about eight weeks later (in steps) and she is a HUGE advocate for taking pyschopharmaceuticals when you need them now.

      Obviously, this might be fore something else, but she was just so in the dumps (and vehemently anti-drugs before), and now she is a huge proponent of how they can help with a brain chemistry reset.

   4. If you read the side effects of almost ANY drug…. they sound terrifying. It is actually frustrating, as it makes it hard to sort through what is actually relevant for you.

      That being said, this SSRI class of drugs has been around for a very long time now, and seems to be very well tolerated and quite safe. With any new medicine, pay attention to how you are feeling because everyone reacts a little differently based on your personal chemistry and other medicines you might be taking, as well as hormonal changes. Of the SSRI class, usually Lexapro is thought to have the least side effects, but often insurance companies will require you to try one of the others before jumping to this one. So it may be worth asking your doc, “Why Zoloft instead of Lexapro?” And trust your doc to fill you in on which side effects are actually the most common/relevant for you.

      Also realize that we (humans) are HIGHLY susceptible to side effects when someone tells us we might have them. Especially things like fatigue, headaches, GI changes etc… And with some medicines like SSRIs, they take some time to kick in and side effects may fade if you stick with them for awhile.

      I hope it works for you. Good luck.

   5. I love it. LOVE it. Going back on it soon. It’s the only way I can function when $hit hits the fan apparently. I get a little bit of headache when I taper down, but that’s about it.

      The thing to realize with SSRIs is that you are changing your ‘chemistry’ for lack of a better term, which is generally a good thing (yay, no depression!). The downside is some people feel better and then stop taking them, which can lead to a drastic drop and that’s when you get the awful feelings. Follow the instructions to a tee and call your doctor ASAP if you don’t feel like your normal self.

      And finally, companies are required to list basically every possible side effect. What you want to ask is what side effects are most common and if you have any other conditions/medications that would make you more likely to have X.

   6. I was on zoloft for a short period of time during law school. I think I felt that it helped. remember, these types of pharmaceuticals can take up to 3 weeks to really kick in, so be patient. Also, forget the list of side effects that you read online. Make note in your planner, on a note in your phone, whatever, about any physical and psychological changes you notice. If something seems odd, talk to your doctor. Worst case, you come off and try something else. Just keep taking care of yourself and try not to make too many dramatic changes in diet, exercise, etc. at first so that you can pinpoint whether it’s the medication helping or those other changes you’ve made. Slowly incorporate any other changes you are thinking of making.

   7. I was on a low dose of Zoloft for about 9 months with no side effects except a moderately decreased $ex drive (about the same as I’ve had on some hormonal birth control pills). On the other hand, Zoloft worked wonders for me. It isn’t a magic pill that makes you happy, but it smoothed out the lows and just generally made things seem less overwhelming and more like I could handle them.

   8. Thanks all, this makes me feel so much better.

      1. I’m going to be the voice of the super small minority that has very severe side effects to SSRIs and SNRIs (like 0.1% of patients have my particular side effect). I found the medications to be helpful for my depression and worked within a short time frame. That said, I encourage you to pay attention to your body during the first few months of treatment, when side effects are most likely to become noticeable. If something seems off (in my case with Zoloft, I developed a slight tremor that over time became much more pronounced and uncomfortable over time), talk to your doctor promptly to evaluate if this is the right medication for you. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s important to at least be aware of. When I was on it, the message boards weren’t really in existence the way they were. Stick with information from a doctor or pharmacist. Good luck and I hope you have a good experience with no side effects at all!

         1. +1 to communicating with your provider. I either have no side effects to medications or severe side effects. Wellbutrin didn’t work for me because of severe side effects; Zoloft didn’t work for me because of severe side effects; Celexa works fantastically with no side effects. It’s a matter of working with your provider to find something that works. Maybe the first drug you try won’t work, but a subsequent one will. Read and keep the drug information provided with the prescription, talk with your provider and pharmacist about what to expect, and give it a go.

         2. I love your name.

            1. Thanks!

         3. I agree with this. Never took Zoloft, but I have taken other antidepressants, and it’s important to remember that different drugs work better for different people and have different side effects, so don’t be afraid to try another if Zoloft doesn’t work for you. Lexapro made me horribly sleepy all the time, but Wellbutrin was much better.

      2. I just started it about 7 weeks ago. It has changed my life. Definitely try your best to be in tune with your body so you can try to see whether you’re having side effects, but please don’t your fear of the unknown keep you from trying it.

   9. Obligatory disclaimer: IANAD, all things medical are YMMV, especially something so dependent on personal chemistry as antidepressant meds.
      I took Zoloft for a year or so in my early 20s, but switched to Wellbutrin with much better results. The only side effect I remember being annoyed by was the way it completely killed my libido. And even when I could get myself in the mood, I couldn’t org@$m (is that one of the words the filter catches?) and it was hurting my relationship with my boyfriend. It worked well for leveling out my more intense mood swings and helping me bring my baseline level of peace/happiness/non-depressed-ness up, but the s3xual side effects were more than I felt like dealing with.

      The only way to know how a particular drug will work with your individual chemistry is to ask your doctor and try it. Finding the right meds for a mental health condition is a very trial-and-error process, and I wish you the best of luck at it. Keep your head up, because it gets easier – been there, done that. :)

   10. I have taken Zoloft for two very long periods of time, and I would say it saved my life. Overall, I’ve taken it for about 12 years. I finally changed from it last year to Wellbutrin, and the main reason I changed was because Zoloft gives me diarrhea. They told me to take it in the morning, but then mid-morning I’d be in the bathroom at work, highly embarrassed, like every day. But it was worth the improvement in my mood and outlook to have diarrhea every day for 12 years, so it must not have been that terrible a side effect. And in fact, it may have been the generic that did that to me, I think it was the one manufactured by Green.

       I would also say that in combo with the pill, my libido was pretty much dead. I changed to an IUD and that improved the problem enough that I continued with Zoloft for years after that. So I did experience side effects, but it was overall worth continuing the medication.

       1. One side-effect of Zoloft is lactose intolerance. It lasted a year with me, then just went away. I drank almond milk with my coffee, but mostly just didn’t have much hot caffeine until the side effect wore off.

          I also became very alcohol-affected. One glass of wine would send me to the bathroom half a dozen times in the course of the evening and get me pretty tipsy.

          I also slept about 9.5 hours a night, which didn’t bother me at all!

          Your digestive problem might have been a reaction to a coffee-with-cream.

9. Has anyone had luck reducing or eliminating dry cleaning with a washer and dryer that have a steam feature? I’m dreaming of no more dry cleaner but I think my expectations are too high.

   1. It’s a little more work than regular clothes, but totally doable.

      I don’t have a steam function and I have still eliminated dry cleaning. I wet wash merino wool sweaters in lingerie bags (knit/delicate cycle, cold, lay flat with a little stretching to dry), wet wash silk (expecting it to shrink a little the first time, same settings as the wool and hang to dry). I even wet wash my wool suits (same settings as wool sweaters, using lingerie bags) and then hanging to dry and ironing.

      I hand wash any cashmere or pieces with delicate work, but that’s just having a basin with cold water, a little soap, swish a bit, let it set and then rinse and dry. I’ve found The Laundress website to have good tips for all of the above.

   2. I love love LOVE my steam feature on my dryer. I use it to ‘freshen’ a lot of items, but most often use it to take the wrinkles out of knits- I’m looking at you BR Gemma wrap dress. I also do a lot of spot cleaning where I wash the neckline and the underarms and any errant spots and then throw them through the steam cycle.

      My mother was a fiber artist and when I buy dry clean items, I check the materials. I also have found that most things made from natural fibers can be wet washed and then rolled between two towels to remove moisture and laid flat to dry.

      That being said, I do still dry clean some items periodically- especially lined suit jackets and lined dresses, but I probably was able to cut down on my dry cleaning bill by about 60% with these techniques.

   3. I have the steam function on my dryer and have not used it for anything other than dewrinkling. What do I do???

10. Anyone see this article? It made me think of all the short suits out there. I think this girl just needs to accept that shorts aren’t “career wear” even if JC Penney’s tries to market them that way. She also probably needs to learn and follow her company’s dress code.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/penney-worker-home-revealing-shorts-article-1.2308863

    1. She’s 17 and works retail AT the store that was selling them as career wear.

    2. That’s the stupidest thing. If the dress code is no shorts, it’s no shorts. I’m pretty sure a victoria secrets employee would be fired for wearing just their wares to work. Just because she bought it at the store doesn’t make it appropriate to wear to work.

       1. Agreed. And it annoys me that she’s making it a feminist or discrimination issue. Men aren’t allowed to wear shorts either, and that means they are NEVER allowed to show their legs, whereas she could wear a skirt. And that outfit is just much too revealing.

    3. Yeah she needs to get over it. Sounds like she was out of line when they asked her to go home.

       1. She’s 17 and quit her summer job at the end of the summer. Her next job will be as a work study research assistant at Wesleyan where she’ll get a scholarship writing her application essay about the ridiculousness of suit shorts, and will not require a reference from the Sioux Falls JC Penny Juniors Department. She won’t wear shorts to that job, but will be a wildly successful adult. What does she need to get over?

          1. “he asked her how long it would take to go home and change into something more professional, the teen responded “probably the whole day” and announced she wasn’t coming back”

             That quote from the linked article makes it sound like she quit on the spot, probably after some snark. She quit after two weeks. She needs to get over all of this fussing, calling it a feminist issue, sexism, complaining on twitter, et al, that other posters have mentioned. She’s being a childish infant. I mean, good god, this meaningless episode made it into a news article. Dunno why you’re going on about Wesleyan….

          2. Hee hee. Seconded! I think it’s amusing that people think this was not a cold, calculated move on her part. I don’t know her but I’m convinced that it was (and that doesn’t bother me one bit, other than the fact her actions (not the stupidity of shorts as career wear) have become a media discussion point).

    4. Imagine that your dress code is “black slacks or a black skirt.” You then proceed to wear a yellow skirt from the Careers section. Stupid, right? Same deal here.

       Imagine that a male sales employee bought shorts from the Careers section. He would be sent home, too.

       How is this a “feminist” issue? Can we get over the idea that every single thing said about a woman’s clothing choices is “anti-feminist”? If you really want women to get ahead, teach them why it’s important for both men and women to dress professionally.

       1. It’s probably because she’s in high school and there’s a lot of talk about how girls are held to school dress codes because it’s “too distracting” to the boys to wear things that might be deemed revealing. That isn’t the reason that it’s unprofessional, but she’s 17 and still figuring these things out.

          1. I agree that that *is* a feminist issue. But not wearing shorts to work when it violates JCP’s dress code really just isn’t. I’ll agree that she’s young and is figuring stuff out. She seems like a pretty inquisitive chick based on her tweets.

    5. I have a real problem with people like this. You are not a special snowflake. No one cares what your opinion is. Creating “controversy” and then trying to play a “card” is BS. You can’t follow instructions, that doesn’t make you a feminist. Ugh. What a privileged spoiled rotten brat.

       1. I was also not perfect at age 17. I’ll be at Costco in my yoga pants if you want to come criticize an adult.

          1. Wildkitten, you’re taking this really personally. This chick, and those on her side, are overreacting. No one’s saying she has to be perfect at 17, but there are obviously some adults out there who are on board with her. She’s not dressed professionally. I don’t see how that’s related to your weekend sartorial choices, which are, of course, no one’s business but yours.

          2. I actually don’t care what she wears. I don’t care what you wear. Hell, most of the time I don’t care what I wear. What I care about is someone creating faux controversy and slapping a label on it to get attention.

             1. Isn’t that basically the whole point of being a teen? Though if she convinces the store to pull shorts out of the career section, she is doing the world a service.

    6. I would appreciate a Corpor3tt3 policy of not talking shit on named minors.

       1. Me too. Was this young woman’s move the smartest idea ever? No. Is it exactly what I would have done at 17? Yes.

       2. She put herself in the media and named herself. And 17 isn’t a minor in a lot of states.

          1. There aren’t any states with an age of majority below 18, unless you’re referring to “or upon graduation of high school,” which does not apply to the state this girl lives in. What exactly do you mean?

11. Is there a reliable way of determining whether the garment manufacturer of a brand has relatively good labor practices?

    Background: One of my goals this year was to shop more ethically. I know it is not possible to avoid labor practice issues 100% (e.g. even if the clothing was made in a decent facility, the fabric could have still come from a sweatshop), but I would like to at least try. I have been only buying stuff made in the USA, UK, France, Italy etc. However, there are some staples brands I am rely on (e.g. Theory or Phillip Lim), and their items are made in China…..

    1. It’s hard to find a comprehensive resource but having worked in labor law for awhile I find this group’s methodology pretty solid……http://www.free2work.org

12. I think the answer is no. CapHillStyle had a good article about this a while back. Let me see if I can dig it up for you.

    1. Thanks for the rec; I will look it up as well. There has been so much written on this issue that I just don’t know where to begin. I just wish there was magically a database somewhere…

       1. I didn’t have a chance to go lookin sorry, but it’s in there somewhere! I think the main topic of the article was that the outcry about the practices caused it to go even more underground in a way, and that going after the big guys didn’t always get to the root of the issue (more a surface fix). I am not explaining it well, but hopefully that helps you find it!

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