Polite Paradise

Slate's Dear Prudence had several interesting letters:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/03/waiting-for-partner-want-kids-advice.html

1) A 32-year-old woman has been with this guy for 4 years and they're about to buy a house. She ended a previous long-term relationship when her partner couldn't commit to having kids like she wants, and she feels the current guy is waffling. What should she do?

2) A woman doesn't want to have sex with her boyfriend when he's high on pot. Is this an appropriate boundary?

3) Roommate always offers unsolicited advice, including interrupting phone conversations!

4) Woman shares her Netflix password with younger sisters, one who is responsible and one who spreads it around to everyone she knows. Throw in lopsided treatment of the sisters when younger. The parents seem to side with the irresponsible one.

5) Anxiety over firing employees

6) Woman's boyfriend goes through her phone and finds flirty texts she sent to someone else.

Agreed! For 1, I think it's almost too late already for the second relationship. 32 isn't ancient, but it could be significantly harder for her to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term than, say, when she was 28; and what if he says, "Let's wait 3 years," and suddenly she's 35 and I think that's automatically a high-risk pregnancy, isn't it? Plus, even if he has a definite answer like, "Let's wait 3 years," who's to say that in 3 years he won't be like, "Eh, let's wait another 2." The real issue is not that there's no deadline; the real issue is that she's ready to start very soon, and he gives no indication of agreeing. I think she should have set a deadline when she started dating the guy, but of course she can't time-travel and redo that.

And, I think it's a really bad idea to push someone into agreeing to have kids, or have kids without their enthusiastic and whole-hearted excitement. I know a number of couples who have gone that route anyway, and maybe they have "made it work" in the sense that they haven't gotten divorced (yet) and maybe the reluctant person eventually came around (allegedly), but it's such a shaky foundation to build the most important thing ever (a human being you have to raise) on.

It kind of sounds like, yeah, she's been vocal about what she wants from the beginning of the relationship, but she hasn't really been listening to and understanding his (lack of) response. And he's just been skating along, hoping she won't keep bringing it up. I really think this is one of those issues where if you both aren't immediately on the same wavelength, you need to seriously rethink even starting a relationship, especially if you're already 28.

For 4, I wasn't quite sure what the letter-writer meant when she said the younger sister spreads the Netflix password around "like her bed." Prudie took it to be a rather mean-spirited jibe at the sister (who is 19) having a lot of sex and/or boyfriends, but I initially thought it just meant the sister was messy... like, she's careless with the password the way she's careless with all her things, and has them strewn all over her bed. I'm probably wrong, though. But, this sort of situation always makes me curious about the living situation--like, are the younger sisters actually living with the older one in the same house? Where do the parents live? I would only share my password with people living in my same household, and anyone else who doesn't live there and doesn't pay the bill can butt out of the conversation. And anyone who gets the password and abuses it doesn't get the next password (which would be immediately changed the second I noticed unauthorized viewing, and I would be monitoring). That seems pretty obvious to me. But, the deeper situation does seem to be unresolved issues about favoritism, and even if the letter-writer set a boundary on this particular issue, others would almost certainly crop up if she doesn't address the root problem.

For 5, yeah, I thought Prudie raised some good points. It does feel bad to fire people, even if they deserve it, and that's just a sign you are human. Holding a position of responsibility means doing unpleasant things sometimes, because the buck stops with you. If you don't want to be in that situation (and I don't, personally), then you can't be the boss and have the privileges of that position. I am kind of assuming there was a process of documentation and feedback and opportunities for change--the letter-writer doesn't mention it, but since she does mention HR having to go through some steps before the person can be fired, that suggests it's a sizable company with rules to be followed, and usually those rules include documentation, etc.. If she were the owner of her own small business or something like that, it would be different. But if you can say that you warned the person fairly and supported them in attempts to improve, and they still didn't, it still stinks but at least you gave them a chance.

For 6, I thought that was a good situation because both people did something wrong, and while there were certainly hints that the letter-writer was trying to get HER wrong cancelled out based on her boyfriend's wrong, she wasn't super-focused on that. It seemed more reasonable, like what a real person would think. And, I think Prudie was right to say, "If he had asked you why you were being distant, without checking your phone, would you really have confessed to him you were flirting with someone else? Doubtful, since even when he confronted you with evidence you tried to get out of it." Not that the boyfriend's snooping was okay, but it seems like the girlfriend really did do something first to raise his suspicions--it wasn't just him being controlling or nosy.

Honestly, I think I'd just break up and vow to do better with the next partner--the whole thing is tainted now. But, I heard some advice in a random place the other day, that one reason marriages don't last "nowadays" is because people don't talk about problems--you need to talk about them, not just sweep them away until they build up and break you. And I thought, yeah, that is exactly my problem, I don't like to talk about problems, I'd rather just leave the problematic person behind. Except, in my case, this has always been a good strategy, in the sense that I've never so far regretted leaving those people behind. If anything I should have done so sooner, and wasted less time on them.

I think at this point LW1 should break up with this guy. He's had four years and he's not on board with more than vague handwaving. Definitely don't buy a house with him!

Netflix says,

Once you have an active Netflix membership, you can have six (6) devices registered to your account at any given time, and you may stream up to two (2) movies or TV shows at the same time by default. There is also an option to upgrade to four (4) streams at the same time from the Your Account page.

So you could share it with your parents if you wanted to. Whereas here, it sounds like YS is sharing the password with a lot of other people and the LW isn't able to get access to the service she's paying for when she wants to use it.

Oh, so maybe someone says, "I want to finish watching that movie on my phone, what's the password?" Or "Bobby and I want to binge-watch a show at his house, what's the password?" And then I suppose you don't anticipate breaking up with Bobby, so you don't say, "Oh, wipe that from your TV now," because maybe next weekend you want to continue your TV marathon together. Seems kind of obvious he would take the opportunity to watch Netflix on his own, though, now that he has access to someone's account (presumably he doesn't have his own).

Yeah, that seems so presumptuous to me, but maybe younger people find it normal? Like, I don't sit around thinking, "How can I take my TV/movies with me everywhere I go, and watch them wherever I want? That should be something I can do." But maybe technology has made that normal in some places?

Still, I think this is a pretty clear boundary to set. From your Netflix account, sign out all devices (I had to do this once when my account was hacked) and then change the password. Then enter the password yourself only into approved devices and explicitly say the password is not to be given out to anyone outside the house (in case there's a way to view it still). Anyone who breaks those rules or misuses them gets even further restrictions, like NOT getting the password on their own TV or phone at all.

Are the younger girls contributing towards the cost of the account, I wonder? On the other hand, that could make them feel more like it belongs to them, so they can do what they like with it.

I think it would be weird for a parent to subscribe the house to cable, but then not let other people in the house watch it, especially if it's on the main TV everyone uses (unless it's a temporary punishment situation, or age-related restrictions of certain channels). So this is kind of analogous. Except, the letter-writer is NOT her sisters' parent, she really doesn't have any kind of obligation to "provide" for them at all, except what others have pushed on her. So another valid option is to just keep the password on her own computer/TV in her room, NOT in any common space, and tell the others that if they want to watch, they have to pay for their own.

Re: the password thing, I wonder if one consideration is that in this scenario, the younger sisters have never had to pay for the service themselves, or been in a situation where they were expected to (like, pay for it myself or I don't have it). Often you value things more if you see the bite it takes out of your budget each month. Like how kids leave the water running and the lights on when they don't understand how that usage adds up. In this case, an extra person using Netflix wouldn't change the cost per month, but if all these extra people are trying to watch at the same time, they will block access to the people in the actual household.

Another thought--I just have the one Netflix password. So if ex-boyfriend Charlie has the household Netflix password, it's not just that he can watch it on his TV, he could also mess with the account--change the billing settings, delete "my list," etc.. He could even use that power to disconnect all the devices, that is, the paying household's, and change the password so ONLY he can watch it. If the bill still goes to the letter-writer, she could stop paying it and that would cut him off, but what a mess that would be! So you actually have two issues here, unfair usage and also compromised security.

As for kids/no kids: I think people have to decide on their dealbreakers for a relationship. This lady is absolutely clear in her own mind that she wants kids, but she has NOT been good about communicating that to her last two partners. That is, she might THINK she has clearly told them what she wants, BUT her actions belie that, as she has continued to stay with them and build a solid life with each despite NOT getting reciprocal enthusiasm on the subject. That is fine if we're talking about a hobby that mostly only affects one person--you don't have to LOVE your partner's commitment to quilting, you just have to accept it and put up with it--but it's simply not healthy to be that way about having children. I think the main problem is that she doesn't SEE that her partners ARE replying to her, and they are saying, "No, not really." I think having kids is one of those issues where both people have to be at about the same level of enthusiasm, and you should have no doubt about that before you even get to the point of trying.

Quote from: Lynn2000 on March 13, 2019, 02:04:39 pm

For 4, I wasn't quite sure what the letter-writer meant when she said the younger sister spreads the Netflix password around "like her bed." Prudie took it to be a rather mean-spirited jibe at the sister (who is 19) having a lot of sex and/or boyfriends,

Yeah. My mind didn't go there either but I thought, hmmm... maybe that's an expression that means that but that I'm not familiar with so, ok.

I took that to mean “She spreads the password around as often as she makes her bed” which, if she’s relatively neat & tidy, would be a lot.

To be fair, there is not a lot of awareness about early menopause, and the Wikipedia page says it "typically occurs between 49 and 52". Because of this, I can understand the expectation that a woman in her late thirties should have plenty of time left. It's a lack of education.