Help! My Cousin Thinks I Should Host Her Wedding, Just Because I Own Her Childhood Home.

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

Dear Prudence,

My late uncle tried to make a go of keeping our family farm up and running, but he barely ended up breaking even. Most of his income came from mineral rights and renting out the land to a RV park. I had a fast-paced career that paid well but was burning me up, so when he died, I offered to buy his wife and daughters out of the property. They agreed. I sold most of the acreage to developers but kept the main farm and barn, which I turned into an event center. I used my previous business skills to make it very successful. The pandemic put a serious dent in my business and savings; only now am I starting to get back in the black.

My cousin announced her engagement and her “dream” to get married “on her farm” at Thanksgiving. She did not ask me. And frankly, I have no desire to get roped into this. My aunt and cousins have all been very vocal about sticking their noses into my business about the farm, from selling off the land to remodeling the farmhouse. They all made a tidy sum off the sale and retained the mineral rights. They aren’t hurting money-wise.

I will be expected to comp and cover all the local expenses for this wedding because we’re “family.” This was their “home.” I would just lie and say I am solidly booked for the next two years but I have in the past offered cancellations to friends and other family members for their events. But they actually paid me. What are my options here other than being the family ghost for the next few years? My aunt and cousins will invoke the shade of my uncle and grandparents as a pure attempt at emotional manipulation—and my family will fall for it.

—Family Farm

Dear Family,

It sounds like you really don’t like this cousin and her mother! You’ve placed angry quotation marks around the words “her farm,” but it really was her farm: the place where she grew up and to which her late father devoted his life. It seems entirely unsurprising to me, indeed even a little sweet, that she dreams of celebrating her marriage in this special place, a place made even more special by your work in turning it into what I’m sure is a wonderful event space. She doesn’t need your permission to dream of such a thing. That’s not how sentimental dreams work!

I’m sure there have been tensions between you and this family as you’ve bought their farm and developed this business; money has a way of introducing friction into family relationships. Yet you’re presenting this situation as if you’ve been trapped into an all-or-nothing dilemma: Either you pay for her entire wedding or you alienate your entire family. But as far as I can tell, no one has yet suggested that they expect any such thing from you. Perhaps your impulse is right, and this family is tacitly assuming that you’ll not only comp the farmhouse but pick up the tab for “all the local expenses.” But what does that mean? You actually think that they would expect you to … pay the DJ? Buy the flowers? Frost the cake? I don’t know anyone who would expect a cousin, no matter whose farmhouse they own, to foot the bill for all of that. Nor do I think you should necessarily expect any such demand will be forthcoming.

But you know them better than me. So before they express any assumptions at all, I’d urge you to be proactive. Send your cousin a card congratulating her on her engagement, expressing your admiration and love for her father’s farm, and offering a deeply discounted rate for the farmhouse on an offseason Saturday. Be very clear about what you’re offering—but I’d encourage you to be generous and offer the very maximum discount you can stand, including considering, yes, comping the space. You have the chance to give this young woman an experience that is meaningful to her in ways that you might not be able to see just yet, and generosity with clear boundaries will likely pay dividends in the long run in your relationships with these people.

And hey, if they really are assholes about? Skip the wedding and wash your hands of them. The other benefit of being very generous in your initial offer is that then no one can reasonably accuse you of being the problem.

—Prudie, rustically

Dear Prudence,

I am a man in my late 30s. For the past several years, I have been going to a barber who does an excellent job with my hair and beard. I don’t care much for his conversation, but I am a very quiet person and most of my appointments involve a minimum amount of conversation. Recently, however, an incident occurred that rattled me far more than I expected. A father was waiting in the shop with his two young sons (perhaps 5 or 6 years old) while I was getting my cut, and the boys were being children—not particularly rowdy, but playing and jumping in the waiting area and chattering. I am not a parent, but I like kids, and I did not observe anything from the boys that would have struck me as unreasonable behavior given their age. However, my barber decided to share with me that he hated hearing children or having them in the shop, and if the boys had been his, he would have hit them until they stopped making noise and sat quietly in the chairs. He was rather graphic about his desire to bully, scare, and strike little children, and clearly expected me to agree with him.

Prudie, I feel like people don’t look at men and think of the possibility, but I was an abused child, and part of my habitual quiet stems from being treated very much as my barber was proposing to treat his hypothetical children. I found the incident extremely upsetting and probably didn’t say more than three words the rest of the appointment. The thought of someone like the father who abused me growing up holding sharp implements near my face was … well, I was afraid beyond reason. I don’t really think he would have gone all Sweeney Todd on me, but in that moment I was not particularly able to reject the fear.

Now I am coming due for another haircut. A part of me feels that I am being very irrational in not wanting to go back to this man; it isn’t like he was describing actual abuse he was performing. Additionally, I know there is some etiquette around going to a different barber than your usual in the same shop, and I like the shop, even if I no longer like that man. I would not want to cause bad blood among co-workers by changing my allegiance. But I do not want him near me with sharp objects! What is the most peaceful and undramatic way I can handle this?

—No Trips Down Memory Lane, Please

Dear Trips,

What a drag that this guy thought a fun and funny way to relate to a male client was to riff on cruelty to children. It’s hard for me to imagine any customer who would find that charming or enjoyable, and for you, of course, it was disturbing and frightening. You owe this guy absolutely zilch. Dump his ass.

Don’t go to another barber at this shop. (Sorry, I know you like it.) Possible bad blood between stylists isn’t your problem, but you would not enjoy a haircut knowing that this weirdo is glowering over in a corner. Go to another barber shop, where I can assure you that no barber is going to say such a thing to you ever again, because that is extremely unusual, unpleasant, and weird.

—Prudie, bewilderedly

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Dear Prudence,

My partner and I are going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment. They just got a new job across the country (we knew this was a strong possibility several years ago). I’m feeling totally crushed at the idea of leaving our current city: I’m from here originally, and after bopping around the country through my 20s, it’s been incredible to find home here again.

I’m having very strong conflicting feelings of wanting to go with my partner to their new city and wanting to stay here. I’m not quite sure how to resolve them. I’m having a lot of trouble because if I’m picking myself, I think I will stay here and break up with them, but part of me thinks I’d be so stupid to throw away what has been a years-long, fulfilling, and enjoyable relationship with a person I love.

If we move, we’re looking at a minimum of four years (a substantial percentage of my life!) before we can move back, and I know that inertia will make it harder and harder to do so. I’m daunted by four years, but more daunted by how it could just never happen. I’m scared that if I leave now I’ll never be able to come back. In short, I’m not sure what to do about this. Am I out of my mind to end a loving relationship because I don’t want to move with them? Do people do that? Do they regret it?

—Home or Them

Dear Or,

Right now you’re floundering because it’s very, very difficult to anticipate how a big change is going to make us feel. We don’t know! We only know once the change happens, and we can live our lives and understand what that change has wrought. So you’re going to have to make a decision, and soon, and you’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that actually, you have no idea how either choice—staying in the city you love without the person you love, or leaving the city you love with the person you love—will affect you, in the long run. So choose. Flip a coin if you have to.

But I also think there’s a third way here that is worth at least considering. Have you shared with your partner your feelings about your city and your ambivalence about leaving? If not, I urge you to do so, and for the two of you to consider a trial year of living separately but still maintaining the relationship. After all, it is not 1823! It is 2023, and you have a good data plan and (hopefully) a frequent-flier account. FaceTime daily, visit monthly, try some phone sex. And why not—write some letters, as if it was 1823.

During this year, check in with yourself. Do you miss them more than you thought you would? Does your life in your hometown still feel as wonderful as it did, now that your loved one’s not sharing it with you? Have the challenges that manifested in your current rough patch grown, or evolved, or gone away? Do you like this kind of relationship?

It’s not at all unusual to make a choice between the life you want to live and the person you want to live it with. People do it all the time! It’s important for you to recognize that it’s totally legitimate for you to feel these conflicted feelings, and also that there is no “right” choice or “wrong” choice. Whichever of these options you choose, you’re in control over where your life goes and how you live it, and whichever of these paths you follow, you’ll feel both some happiness and some regret. They’re all the right paths, that is to say—it just depends on how you embrace the opportunities your path grants you.

—Prudie, unresolvedly

My husband and I are planning a lovely weeklong staycation with his relatives—eight adults in total, all from the same bubble. My mother-in-law loves having meals together and usually makes the food, but she’s a terrible cook, bless her. She tries, and we get by with basic staples like tacos and prepackaged lasagna.