I Want to Visit My Family, but They’re Making It Very Unappealing—and Other Advice From the Week

Slate publishes a lot of advice each week, so we’re pulling together a selection of our favorites. Here are a few of the most compelling questions from the week and links to hours of advice reading. This week: stressing about visiting family, discussing unequal childcare responsibilities, and more.

Dear Prudence

Visiting Woes: My older sister got pregnant (twice) and dropped out of school. She lives with our parents and works part-time at a fast food joint. I go to college about two hours away. I love my family but I hate visiting. The house is always a mess and I am stuck on the sofa because the kids have my room. Either the kids are screaming their heads off, my parents are fighting about bills, or my sister is complaining about how hard her life is. I juggle school, a full-time job, and my scholarship. I don’t even have time to socialize when I am there, which makes my weekends so precious.

I still have a lot of friends in town and prefer to stay and see them rather than deal with the chaos at home. My family finds this offensive. My mother claims it hurts her heart that I don’t want to “spend time” with them. And my sister makes snide remarks about me being a shitty aunt and not loving her kids. The minute I enter the door, my mother is banging at me to help clean up, my sister is shoving her kids at me so she can go out, and my dad locks himself in the garage to tinker. They don’t even ask me how school is going. I would just not tell them when I am visiting, but most of my friends either live at home or are family friends. The last time that my family found out I visited without telling them, I got the mother of all guilt trips. I love my family, but visiting them isn’t worth the gas every weekend. Help!

Care and Feeding

I Kind of Thought He Knew Already: After we put the kids (1F and 2M) to bed the other night, my husband asked me if there was a default parent in our relationship. I told my husband that yes, we do have a default parent and it’s me. He asked what that meant for me, and I said I’d ask him a list of questions to give him an idea. I asked him if he’s ever thought about needing to buy diapers, wipes, diaper cream, or any medication our kids ever need or if there’s just always more of each in the spot it’s kept; if he’s ever needed to switch the clothes in the kids’ dresser because they’re not the right size and season or if he can just reach in and grab something because it’s right; if he’s ever looked through their wardrobe for a season and determined what is missing and needs to be purchased, then bought it; if he has the phone number for the desk at the doctor’s office instead of the answering service and knows which receptionist to ask for when you need a last-minute day-of appointment; if daycare had ever called him first even though we listed his number first; if the kids come to him when they want a pouch opened or if they’ll walk past him to find and ask me; and if he has ever automatically assumed he needed to get up when one of them woke up at night or if he waited to see if I was doing it yet.

He told me he just assumed I didn’t mind taking care of most of that stuff because I’d never said anything and that he’d take some of that on if I just told him what I didn’t want to do. I thanked him for being more aware of it and told him he could take on keeping us stocked with all diaper change supplies and medicines. He asked me what size diaper each is in, which store I usually buy them from, how often I usually do it, and if there was a certain brand for each medicine because he sometimes noticed the bottles were different. I kind of laughed and told him the fact that he needs to ask all those questions is why I’ve just always taken care of it. It’s easier to do it myself than “teach” him how to do it and then also check and make sure he’s continuing to do it (or maybe find out he isn’t when there suddenly aren’t any more diapers). He got mad and said it sounds like I think all he does is make my life more difficult.

It’s been a few days and he’s been pretty quiet, but he did come home from work yesterday with diapers and wipes in the correct size for each of our kids and said he has a reminder in his phone for every two weeks for more. Should I specifically talk to him about this more?

How to Do It

Not-So-Sexy Nurse: My husband and I are in our early 30s, and our sex life has typically been enjoyable and satisfying. Late last summer, he was diagnosed with cancer (fortunately, at a very early and treatable stage) and began chemotherapy. The experience was very hard on him physically and mentally, and during his treatment sex was off the table for totally understandable reasons. Instead, I relied on my favorite vibrators and tried to focus on being as supportive a spouse as I could.

Now, after months of chemo and then the drugs he had to take to recover from chemo, he’s finally starting to feel like his old self and wants to have sex again. Although his drive has returned, his energy and stamina have not and our encounters are short and lacking in real enthusiasm. His medications have also led to some significant physical changes, which I know he feels very insecure about because he talks about them all the time. While I admit that this is not, for me, the sexiest version of his body, I could easily suppress that thought if he wasn’t constantly telling me how ugly and unattractive he is. Of course, I always reassure him that I think he’s good-looking no matter what, and I do want him to feel desired, but I have a hard time getting aroused when I’ve just spent the day hearing all the reasons he’s unattractive .

How do I balance my sexual needs with the need to be a supportive partner during a difficult time? At what point is it OK to gradually start re-prioritizing my own pleasure, and how do I talk about my needs without making him feel unloved or not enough? Is there any way to tell him I don’t want to hear about his insecurities anymore without coming off as a heartless jerk?

Pay Dirt

Friendly Fireback: I’m getting really frustrated with some of my friend’s financial stances on housing. All of them complain about the housing market, which I think is a legitimate concern for many people, but not my friends. Most of my friends make six figures or close to it. We live in a medium size city where the cost of living is less than the national average so six figures is a really good salary. Several years ago, I had a crisis and realized I didn’t want to be in my high-paying career, so I made some major changes to my budget, which mostly consisted of living with elderly women who needed a little help around the house. This has helped me save up quite a bit of money. My friends, however, have been less than supportive of my life changes and some of them mock me for being “basically homeless.”

This weekend, we all got together and I found out that the reason my friends don’t think they will ever be able to buy a house isn’t because of the mortgage rates but that most of them aren’t seriously saving up down payments.

I told them all about all the cost-saving measures I had implemented and then they all started saying things like, “Oh yeah, you’re depriving yourself,” and “I could never give up X, it helps keep me sane.” I finally snapped and said, “Yeah, and that’s why you can’t even save a down payment for a house and I’m about to buy one.” I stood up and left. I know that comment was mean, but I couldn’t take it. Some of these friends are pretty supportive of me, but most in the group aren’t. I’ve tried arranging social outings with just the supportive friends, but the others always find out and end up crashing. I’ve tried to find more frugal friends over the past several years, but I can only seem to find frugal friends who don’t like to do most of the things I do. I still like going out, just frugally, and these friends are the ones I go out with. I’m at my wits end for what to do. I considered asking for a moratorium on housing talk, but I want friends who will celebrate with me when I eventually buy a new house. Do you have any advice on what I can do?

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