I caught my girlfriend’s niece stealing alcohol. She threatened me in a very disturbing way.

Dear Prudence,

My partner (wonderful, loving, etc.) and I are in our 50s. The pains and indignities of aging begin to rear their ugly heads. I grab a Tylenol, maybe stretch, and move on. My partner complains. All the time. Every time they sit down, stand up, or bring dog food delivery from the porch, I hear about it. Sometimes it’s just grunts and moans. Sometimes they want to tell me what hurts, how long it has been hurting, the presumed origin of the injury, etc. And I don’t want to hear it. It’s boring and unnecessarily negative and so repetitive. We are in good health. They go to the doctor as often as necessary. The things that can be fixed have been fixed. The rest is just age. What can I do (kindly, she’s a gentle and sensitive soul) to get them to accept that their knee pain/stiff shoulder/plantar fasciitis is not interesting and won’t get better by bitching about it. And hearing about it depresses me on a daily basis? I know it’s a habit that can be broken, but how can I communicate that it’s a problem? We still have at least a few decades to go, during which our bodies are unlikely to improve. I can’t stand another 30 years of “talk” about back pain.

—I also have back pain

Dear injured too,

I actually feel like it’s pretty normal to complain about strange and uncomfortable physical symptoms, especially with your own partner in the comfort of your home. If this is really getting you down, I suppose you can use a gentle “It’s not you, it’s me” approach by saying something like, “I realize that when I hear about your pain, it annoys me, perhaps because of what it represents about the reality of aging and how it reminds me that the problems we both face are unlikely to get better. Could you take this into account and reduce stiff shoulder updates? Of course I care about you and I still want to know if you’re hurt or if there’s something really worrying you. But I think it would help me a lot to spend less time thinking about how our bodies can fail us.

But I will give the suggestion that I often give in situations in which a person wants their partner to stop doing something boring: before asking them to stop, take stock of the habits you have and what maybe he doesn’t like it. (Do you provide a barrage of gossip about people he doesn’t know? Do you complain excessively about your enemy at work? Eat off his plate without asking? Leave your hair in the shower?) And make sure you would be willing to break one. at his request. It’s just.

Dear Prudence,

I have a truck, and it’s basically seen as an invitation to become a free moving company for people. I made an exception to my no moving policy for my new girlfriend’s sister. She was 18 and left one friend to move in with another. I rearranged my work schedule to help him.
When I arrived at the apartment, she had barely started packing. I got really annoyed and told him how rude and wasting my time that was. Despite everything, I was about to start putting the biggest items in the truck, when I heard him insult me ​​under his breath. So I left. And then I texted my girlfriend about the incident. She sided with her sister and said that an 18 year old adult was “basically a baby” and that I was a fool for abandoning her and breaking my promise.

We then took a break, but we’re trying again. My problem is that his sister continues to be arrogant about the whole incident. She says I owe her money because she had to rent a truck and had to take time off work to move. She manages to bring it up every time I’m around her, and all my girlfriend can do is tell me to ignore it. This is getting really boring. Should I purify the air or not?

-Truck

Dear truck,

You had every right to set a limit on the time you spent on this move. But for that, you could have simply said “I’ll take what’s packed in the next few hours, but this afternoon is the only time I don’t have work, so unfortunately I won’t be able to make any trips with the truck “. after this.” Maybe your girlfriend’s sister should have rented a U-Haul anyway. Maybe she’d still say you owe her money. But you’ll know you behaved wrongly. reasonably while ensuring that you do not do more than you promised.

For you to lash out and say she was being rude and wasting your time was pointless. And now, because you didn’t handle the situation like an adult, you’re fighting with a teenager! Don’t get me wrong, she seems entitled and obnoxious, but she’s an entitled, obnoxious 18 year old that you barely know. It was an opportunity to stay calm and be (or behave like) a bigger person. To be honest, neither you, your girlfriend, nor her sister seem to be in a very good mood and no one has enough emotional maturity to remedy this situation or get along well in the future. Take another break – permanently – and don’t make any more exceptions to your no-movement policy, especially if you plan to bring all your pent-up resentment and anger over being exploited with You.

Catch up with Prudie this week.

More advice from Slate

My wife and I have a female-led relationship. Before we married, I had accepted that she could “take other lovers”, while I would remain faithful to her alone. She said she might never see anyone else, but she liked me to know that she could. Well, now she’s pregnant, and I’m wondering what’s obvious. We have sex, but not often. She was on a business trip at the time she would have conceived. I don’t know if she ever had another lover. I could have asked this question before, but now I’m afraid of how it would come across. Should I ask or just wait to see if the baby looks like me?