Help! The Love of My Life Dumped Me Over an Impossible Ultimatum. Now She Wants Me Back. (2024)

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Dear Prudence,

I met the woman I thought I’d spend my life with, and we were together for four years. As we got older and her extended family died and we started talking about kids, she became much more religious. Her religion passes through the maternal line, and so she says it’s very important for her as part of the family. She eventually gave me an ultimatum: Convert or break up. I love her, but I’m an atheist and the best I would be able to do is lie my way through, which is a bad foundation for marriage. We broke up and it’s been two years, but I still miss her. Recently she reached out and said she’d changed her mind and wants to try again, and I don’t have to convert. I don’t even know how to start thinking about this. What should I do?

—Second Time Is or Isn’t a Charm

Dear Second Time,

There’s obviously something special between the two of you. Give it another try. For six months. Use this time to hear about what’s changed with her relationship to her religion, and whether she could truly be happy with someone who didn’t convert. And do your own check-in about whether you feel as excited about her as you once did, and whether you can trust her not to make any more major life changes that result in her saying “Do what I want or it’s over.”

Dear Prudence,

My late sister raised her stepdaughter, “Zara,” from practically her birth. The biological mother had a drug addiction issue, but still refused to surrender her rights to Zara. When my sister died, she and her husband were in a trial separation over his cheating. I know she was only staying because she was afraid of losing Zara. After her death, her husband took Zara out of state and has only allowed sporadic contact with our family. It particularly devastated my mother.

I am expecting my first. But rather than being excited and happy for me, my mother keeps bringing up Zara. Trying to get me to Facetime her, or talking about how Zara will be a great older cousin, or insisting that Zara writes something in my baby book. Every time, it feels like the shadow of my sister and her loss are just swallowing us up. Zara is almost 8 now and it is obvious that her father has moved on. He is engaged again and the writing is on the wall that our time with Zara is running out, given what little he allowed. My mother refuses to accept that. I miss my sister and Zara, but I want to be excited about this baby and my mother keeps dragging me down. How do I get through to her?

—First Baby

Dear First,

The shadow of your sister and her loss may be swallowing your mother up, but you don’t have to agree to be swallowed along with her. And you shouldn’t let her determine your level of excitement about your own baby, either. Use some of the time before the birth of your child to work on untangling your emotions from your mom’s and to allow yourself the space to be disappointed, pissed off, sad, annoyed, and whatever else about the fact that she isn’t able to give your child her full attention. (I do want to push back on your statement that she’s not excited for you—I think she is, but she’s also excited for your baby’s place in the family and she considers Zara to be an important part of that family.)

Consider that there may be a positive way to look at her attachment to this little girl. Your mom deeply loved a kid who came into her life under unusual circ*mstances. She is unwilling to give up on her. She is not interested in forgetting about her just because she is going to have a biological grandchild of her own. It’s tough to be too mad at someone for being attached to a child who they knew since birth, and I honestly think her reaction—refusing to accept the end of the relationship—is a pretty understandable and even healthy one. It indicates to me not that she cares about Zara more than she cares about your child, but that she has a lot of love to give and that love isn’t conditioned on who gave birth to a kid or where the kid lives. She sounds like good grandmother material, and I have a feeling that when your baby is born, she’ll show it.

Dear Prudence Uncensored

“Being super committed to a child and not forgetting about them as soon as you get a biological replacement would be an asshole move!”

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

Dear Prudence,

What do you do when a friend you were incredibly close to suddenly drops you, for no obvious reason? And what if you live near them, and your kids are close to them? What if you try to reconnect and try to repair whatever mysterious thing set them off, and they just keep ignoring you? (Trust me, there has been zero opportunity for me to have committed any sort of serious offense, so this is entirely based on something happening in her head, and I’ve observed her doing the same to other friends she’s told me about.) Do you call them on it? Walk awkwardly past them in the ‘hood and just let them go forever, without any answers or closure? I know I wouldn’t even trust her if we did reconnect, but I am just so upset and hurt that she’s done this, I don’t know how to let it go. And I’m tired of lying to my kids about what’s going on.

—WTH?

Dear WTH,

This felt like a mystery right up until the point when you said she has a history of cutting people off for imagined offenses. If you believe she is the kind of person who will end a friendship over “something happening in her head,” and she has rejected your offer to try to repair whatever she thinks you did, there’s nothing more for you to do. The explanation to your kids is, “Ashley decided she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore and I’m not sure exactly why. I’m sad about it, but that’s her choice and it’s a thing that happens sometimes.” And the answer to how to let it go is: You don’t. At least not yet. It is normal to be upset and hurt by this kind of rejection, especially when there’s a sense that it wasn’t deserved in any way. What might help a little, after some time, is to remind yourself that you didn’t do anything wrong and to make it a point to make room for friends who live in reality, know how to navigate conflict, and can be trusted not to ghost you. The day-to-day experience with someone like this is going to be so much better than the one you had with your ex-friend, even before she decided to make up a story about you being her enemy.

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Dear Prudence,

My girlfriend and I have pretty separate social lives, and it bothers me. To add a slight layer of complexity, we’re both bi, and she typically hangs out with other queer women, often single and often at clubs and dance parties. She knows it bums me out that we can’t go to events together, but she says she dated a woman during her early twenties whom she shared a lot of friends with, and she didn’t like the lack of autonomy. I don’t want to restrict her freedom at all, and I wonder if this is more of just a relationship problem than an identity problem, but also my insecurities are rearing their ugly heads and wondering if there’s something else at play here? Like her wanting to be around queer single women and not have me there?

—Want to Feel Seen

Dear Feel Seen,

I know how hard it can be to determine whether the little voice in your head saying “I kinda hate this” comes from a healthy instinct or your own insecurity. One thing that’s unclear from your letter is your gender. So I don’t know if “can’t go to events together” means you’re not invited to the queer-women-only parties because you’re not a woman (which seems reasonable!) or if your girlfriend is excluding you because you’re a person she’s dating and she doesn’t want you around. If it’s the former, you certainly have a right to prefer a relationship that involves spending all weekend together, but you may also have some insecurity work to do with a therapist. After all, it’s fair for your girlfriend to maintain a connection to that women-focused world, though I would hope that you two could find other venues in which to socialize together.

If it’s the latter, and she’s icing you out unnecessarily, I don’t like it. You shouldn’t be paying the price for a relationship she had in her twenties. I don’t like that she knows you’re unhappy and isn’t compromising. And I don’t like that all of this is making you question yourself and what you deserve. Don’t get me wrong: It’s not a crime for two people who are in a relationship to have completely separate social lives. But it’s also not an arrangement that you should have to do mental contortions to figure out how to be okay with. If, after thinking it over and perhaps even doing some counseling, you simply can’t get there, you and your girlfriend may simply not be compatible in terms of how much time you want to spend together versus as a couple. I’d like to see you work through this because it seems you want to be around her and she wants to prevent a relationship crisis similar to the one she had in her twenties, so you obviously both value what you have together and want to protect it. It’s just a matter of figuring out what that looks like on a Friday night.

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Dear Prudence,

I am stuck in the middle of a relationship that I can’t seem to escape, and I’m only getting the bad parts. My two closest friends and I all live in the same area, and they have been dating for about a year and a half. We’re all in college, but school is out right now and so I have zero community besides them. I have almost no other friends in town, and despite trying, I don’t have many school friends. I’m trying to get work and I’m also volunteering this summer, but overall, I have hardly anyone in my life.

My two friends started dating when we were all stuck in a very queerphobic school and community, so I was literally the only safe person they could talk to about stuff. Things have changed, but not much, and at the end of the day for three lonely queer kids, we don’t have many options for now.

I am going crazy. They’ve had a lot of relationship issues recently, and they’ve both been leaning on me a lot. I try to keep boundaries (I make sure I’m never a go-between or trying to tell them what to do), and to their credit they do care about me and listen when I need something, but I’m still exhausted hearing about it from both of them. .

I feel really bad because I know they don’t have much support, but realistically, I am not a romantic person at all, and I have a lot going on in my life. I want to be there for them, but it’s become less of a welcome distraction and more of a tedious “why can’t they just figure it out” mindset for me. This is the biggest thing in both of their lives right now, and I’m trying not to scream “please just break up and spare everyone the struggle.” Sometimes I just mute their texts to get some me time, but I want friends!

I know the answer is probably to talk to them about it, but I feel like there’s nothing any of us can do since we’re all we have. Is there a way to shift the vibe of our friendship without just losing each other? I don’t know how much longer I can be a shoulder to cry on for both of them at the same time!

—Monkey in the Middle

Dear Middle,

Muting their texts to get some me time is a great first step. Next, you should address how overwhelmed their nonstop complaints about their relationship make you feel by diluting their importance in your life. That means not just taking time away from these two and from your phone, but filling that time with other people and activities. Put as much effort as you can into making your life busy! I guarantee that a message about the latest miscommunication is not going to bum you out as much if it comes when you’re at your volunteer gig, working a shift at your new job, or having coffee with someone who is talking about something other than relationship woes.

In fact, the sentence that stood out most to me in your letter had nothing to do with your friends and their struggles. It was “I have hardly anyone in my life.” That puts you in a really tough position, and it makes you especially vulnerable to the few friends you do have going through phases when they can’t be there for you the way you’d like them to. Or phases when they simply annoy you! But we’re all human, and these things happen. People occasionally withdraw, or lash out, or become less pleasant to be around, or get really needy. It’s best to design a life that means a situation like this, when a couple of your friends are bumming you out, doesn’t totally derail your happiness.

So instead of telling them to stop complaining to you—which is an option, but not a great one because you do want to be there for them and you do want them to be there for when you’re the one venting—you need to put your focus elsewhere. Sure, it’s summer and people are gone, but you can call, text, and Facetime your friends from the school year. Go visit someone in another town or city, if you can. Reach out to an old high school classmate. Ask a fellow volunteer who you meet if they want to go to the beach one day. Connect with queer communities online. The people you connect with don’t have to be your best friends—they can just be people who provide enough distraction to allow you to get through this tough patch with the people who are. When you are inevitably asked to become an unpaid breakup therapist to your two close friends (and I think we all know a breakup is on the horizon), you’ll be even more relieved that they aren’t the only people in your life.

Dear Prudence,

I am a fit, active 66-year-old woman, and I’ve been with my husband “Jon” for 22 years. I do all the emotional labor in our relationship, including scheduling all his kids and grandkids’ visits. Jon is good with “helping” and yard work, but requires a list. He pays almost no attention to me as a person, and we do not date, travel, or have any fun, and if we do anything, I have to plan it and he just goes along. Zero initiative. I have my own money and I could leave, but that would still be very hard, as it’s a massive life change.

I feel I have tried everything. We even did a weekend workshop last year with a well-known couple who wrote books on marriage and relationships. Jon talks a good game, but almost never follows through on things like going on date nights or planning anything for us to do. Two years ago, I asked him to plan one thing to do together for the summer. Zero. After the counseling workshop, it was up to him to plan weekly date nights. Zero. He spends all his time on his pet projects. He is essentially working full-time in retirement but not getting paid. Looking back, I recognize that he was a workaholic. I really looked forward to retiring and doing all the outdoor things and travel, etc. We live on a lake and our boat sits there—our kayaks are 8 years old, and you know which one is his since it is still brand new.

Divorce is not what I want, but I don’t see any other option But before I blow up our family, I wanted to ask if there is anything else I can do. I told him yesterday that if he doesn’t start doing the actions outlined in the counseling weekend, I would be ending the relationship in September after his kids leave from a visit. I also told him that if he is not here to host while his own children are here, I will be taking a vacation because I’m not doing all the work by myself (again). We haven’t had sex in months, because what on earth is there for me to feel like it? It’s torture being in a relationship where one feels so unimportant. I stopped complaining so we don’t fight, so he likely thinks that means I’m happy. Does he even like me? I’m not sure.

—Heartbroken but Ready for Change

Dear Ready for Change,

I don’t say this lightly because you’ve been married for so long, and I know splitting up will turn your life upside down, but it’s over. It’s over whether you decide to get divorced or stay together, feeling tortured, ignored, and so hopeless that you’ve given up on complaining. If you want to ease into it, and maybe give Jon a wake-up call about how seriously unhappy you are, to see if he responds by turning into a different person (which seems very unlikely, but you never know!), you can move out without immediately filing divorce papers. Just try separating for a year or so. My suspicion is that rather than thinking about how bad your life is with him, you’ll actually experience how great it can be without him, and the right decision will become much clearer.

Classic Prudie

I was first diagnosed with endometriosis at 18 and believed I was infertile for 17 years. My ex-husband and I split after several heartbreaking miscarriages and failed rounds of IVF pushed our marriage to the breaking point. However, I came to terms with being infertile, and I find that I actually prefer being single—it allows me to focus on my job, which I love, and I’m the “cool aunt” to all of my friends’ children. I also have casually dated and had friends with benefits, but after my divorce, I realized I didn’t want another committed relationship. A few months ago, I matched with a man on Tinder, “John,” who was in town on a work trip for a few days. We met for drinks, ended up sleeping together (with protection), and agreed that this wasn’t more than a one-time hookup. However, the condom must have failed because Iveryunexpectedly discovered I was pregnant.