Help! My Family’s Behavior During the Holidays Makes Me Want to Quit.

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Dear Prudence,

I don’t know if I should get the family together for the holidays this year. It’s just me, my brother, and my sister. We’re estranged from our parents, who were abusive addicts. My sister has no car and lives closer to my brother, so we always come to my brother’s for the holidays. Because of busy/conflicting schedules, financial issues, and living far apart, we rarely see each other outside of the holidays, but text often. I’m the oldest and often stepped in where our parents weren’t. This has continued into adult life in some ways. I coordinate the few times we see each other every year and provide financial help when I can, mostly to my sister.

Last year, we showed up at my brother’s house for Thanksgiving, and he had just been in a fight with his partner and the house was a mess. My wife, sister, and I tidied before guests arrived, and his partner took the hint and helped with this. After dinner, mostly cooked by my wife and me, my brother went to play videogames, leaving us and his partner to make awkward small talk with his in-laws and guests. My sister spent most of the time on her phone. I thought it was a one-off, but Christmas was more of the same, and I feel bad putting the expectation of gifts on them when I know what their finances are like. It was stressful and depressing.

Neither of them has mentioned getting together for the holidays yet, so I don’t know if I should bother at this point. It feels like I’m forcing everyone to do something they don’t really want to do. They’re both very conflict averse so if I asked them directly, I would never get an honest answer. At the same time, we are all we have left and maybe it will be different this year?

—Not So Happy Holidays

Dear Happy Holidays,

“We are all we have left” is a powerful statement and a great insight that should guide your planning. It’s worth pushing through the lack of enthusiasm, and even some awkwardness, to maintain a connection with your siblings. After all, there’s no animosity here—just three people with significant shared trauma (and probably a sprinkle of the personality differences and varied preferences that make holidays tricky for all families). It sounds like you have what it takes, emotionally and financially, to take the lead here—to play the role of cruise director and offer a little extra enthusiasm to make up for what your brother and sister may be lacking. That’s great. Every family needs someone who is willing to fill the gaps left by other people’s challenges or shortcomings, whether that means bringing enough positive energy to make up for those who lack it, or by shouldering the planning burden.

But your connection with your loved ones doesn’t have to take place over a traditional meal, with a traditional gift exchange. You sound like great candidates for an unconventional holiday routine that works better for everyone. It doesn’t even have to take place on any special day. Why don’t you send a text or email to your brother and sister and throw out some ideas? “Hi you two, just thinking about the upcoming holiday. We would love to come out to wherever is most convenient and I was thinking that instead of a regular holiday meal we could do something different: 1) Have a Hallmark movie or Star Wars marathon 2) Have a competition to see who can make the best mac and cheese 3) All go together to volunteer at a soup kitchen 4) Attend an Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting followed by a funny movie. Let me know if any of these things or a combination of them appeal to you at all. I can cover all the costs. I know we all have a lot going on and with a family like ours, holidays can be tough, so I would really love to create a new tradition that helps keep us close but isn’t stressful for anyone. Let me know what you think!”

“She probably should get a plane ticket and some good hiking boots and take a chance on herself.”

Jenée Desmond-Harris and Joel Anderson discuss a letter in this week’s Dear Prudence Uncensored—only for Slate Plus members.

Dear Prudence,

The last few years were really difficult. I got COVID early on and suffered from long-COVID for almost a year. During that time, I reassessed my priorities and decided I wanted to take 12-18 months to travel the world. I started saving up and finally hit my minimum goal a couple weeks ago. I had always planned to start traveling no more than a couple of months after I reached my money goals. I had always wanted to travel around New England during autumn, so now’s the time.

The only problem is that during the spring I met a guy. We definitely hit it off, but I was busy working and not very social, so nothing really came of it until about three months ago. I expected it would be a fling. It’s gotten more serious. I’ve never really wanted to get married, but I see a future with him. I love him in a way that I didn’t realize was possible. He, however, cannot travel with me. He has not been saving like I have and even if he did have the funds, he’s a teacher and can’t travel for most of the year. Neither of us want to have a long-distance relationship at this stage.

I’m feeling very torn. I’m worried that the best possible future I could have is with him. A part of me is also worried that denying myself my travel dream will cause me to have some kind of a mid-life crisis. I don’t want to wait until retirement to do my dream trips and most of the trips I want to take wouldn’t be possible with time off I would get at a regular job. I know this guy could still be there when I get back, but he also could not be, and I’m worried he might even resent me for leaving him, not for anything he’s done, but just because that’s how people are sometimes. How do I go about making this decision?

—Travel Decision

Dear Travel Decision,

Go on the trip! Keep in touch during your travels. You don’t have to be in a long-distance relationship to do that. If this kind of adventure is really your dream—and it sounds like it is—a wonderful test of whether he is the right partner for you will be whether he encourages you to go live it. There’s a really good chance that he’ll still be single and interested when you return. There’s also a decent chance that you’ll meet yet another person who you can see yourself married to in an apple orchard or something. Enjoying this process is going to require you to muster up a little bit of belief that things will work out in the end.

Dear Prudence,

I am feeling extreme remorse about how I treated a once-close friend. I was envious of her appearance and relationship, and when she made a mistake in her personal life, I turned on her and used it to make her look bad for years. Remarkably, and as a testament to her character, we have reconciled and I am trying to do what I can to make things right—as much as I can after obliterating someone’s trust and reputation. I am just so ashamed that I performed the classic woman-against-woman viciousness that I thought I was above as a progressive and smart woman. What do I do with this knowledge that I fell victim to one of patriarchy’s greatest ploys and hurt someone in the process?

—Consequences of My Own Actions

Dear Consequences,

This might be more manageable to think about if the story you tell yourself is less about being a foot soldier of the patriarchy—which feels overwhelming—and more about someone who was a jerk, has changed her ways, and has been lucky enough to be forgiven. I agree that it’s a testament to your friend’s character that she reconciled with you, but it may also be a testament to yours. Clearly, she sees some redeeming qualities in you and believes that you’ve grown. Can you look at yourself through her eyes? At the same time, you have to address the envy and poor self-esteem that made you into such a massive hater in the first place. Are you aggressively working to heal whatever fueled you to turn on your friend in the first place? You need to. Not because of what you owe to all the other women in the world, or even the specific woman you wronged, but because of what you owe to yourself.

When my friend “Sally” got engaged, she had suspicions her now-husband was cheating, but married him anyway. On the night of her wedding, one of the groom’s friends got drunk and told me all about the infidelity. He carried out an affair with a close friend of theirs for their entire dating relationship (they’re still close friends and she’s over at their place all the time). Now Sally has a baby with him too. I have been keeping this secret.