Sunday’s column: Fill in the blank

Today’s column is online here, and the first question–well, see for yourself:

My sibling requested that my spouse no longer attend family get-togethers. My sibling stated that my spouse creates tension and causes others to be on edge and uncomfortable. The fact is my sibling is correct. My spouse does not like to visit or host family but says we should be together on such occasions. Should I share this request with my spouse?

Readers, can you spot what’s missing? Yes! The reason that Spouse and Family don’t get along has been utterly omitted by the LW! This puts Miss Conduct, perhaps intentionally, behind a veil of ignorance, required to craft an answer that would work whether the Spouse is the innocent victim of bigots, a miserable and misanthropic lout, or a complicated person who simply can’t mesh gears with another group of complicated people and it’s no one’s fault, exactly.

I posted the question on my personal Facebook (Miss Conduct is here: befriend me!) to brainstorm on possible causes of the Spouse-Family disconnect, and one of my friends replied with an extraordinary insight:

I am the tense one when my husband’s family gathers. It’s not because I am a shitty person … it’s because I am FUCKING TERRIFIED because my family dynamic is so very different from theirs and I have an ingrained distrust of family. I like them very much and I feel like I should be able to get over this – but it isn’t exactly easy even when you don’t have a mixed race or same sex relationship. There are tons of issues faced by abuse survivors and dealing with functional families can be one of them.

I was so grateful she shared that.

Anyway, no matter how I turned it over in my mind, the reason for the disconnect does matter, and I wound up offering the LW a range of choices.

The Peculiar Incident of the Missing Problem reminded me of a similar column from a year ago, in which a Letter Writer asked, briefly and tantalizingly, “How soon does one tell a prospective love interest that you are a conspiracy theorist? I did a little too soon, with dire consequences“–without mentioning exactly which conspiracy theory she held to.* I finally decided that the real question wasn’t about the substance of her beliefs, but about the tricky dance of revealing any controversial opinion to a potentially significant other:

The fact that you’re open to dating outside the fold?–not to mention the whole “willing to write to the mainstream media for advice” thing–suggests that your conspiracy beliefs exist in a kind of psychological silo. They might matter in your relationship to the world at large, but not necessarily in your relationship to other individuals.

Learn to tune in to that vibe in others, especially those with whom you’d like to conspire in that special candlelit way. Some people see politics (or religion or economics or science) as impersonal and vain, irrelevant between friends, lovers, family. Other people find these abstract ideas to be fundamental to their self and values and could never choose a life partner with whom they disagreed on the basic nature of reality. Some folks couldn’t imagine dating a creationist?—?or not dating one. Others couldn’t imagine … well, how to end this example without making a terribly tasteless joke about the big bang.

The column was behind a paywall when this was originally published, so if you didn’t catch it before, you can read it now here.

*There are theories so noxious I would be hesitant to facilitate the romantic lives of their adherents, but said adherents probably wouldn’t be seeking advice from the likes of me.