Advice Columns

This guy seems to have absolutely NO self-awareness nor any humility. This guy just seems so self-delusional. But there was something rather telling in his letter. He spoke of his Father being his hero and that his Father died when he was 8 years old. He has this idealized version of who his Father was. (which isn't the worst thing in the world. As long as you recognize the complexities of every human.) Maybe he has this fantasy of "getting it right". But he fails to recognize that to be a parent (especially in the early years) is to give and give to a person who is a bottomless source of need. Would he be keen until things got real and then say, "yeah this wasn't what I signed up for. Too bad."
I would be curious to know if this man's Mother is still alive and what she might have to say about the situation and this man's history.

I don't have a problem with the fact that he would be an older Father. People can come to parenthood at all points in life in all kinds of way. My Great Uncle became a Father after the age of fifty. (he had been a priest and later left the priesthood and met a younger woman and they got married) It wasn't how he planned to things but it worked out well. He worships his daughters and is incredibly supportive of them. He is still married to his wife and it is a pretty happy marriage. But he isn't a self-centered jerkhole who lies to people.

I also assume that he is sane and didn't meet his wife while trolling pee wee soccer practice.

The father of one of my friends was 57 when he had her. He's still married to her mom and they're all good and functional. Well, as functional as me and my friends get :)

On top of being completely delusional and disconnected from the world and human women's needs, it has to be the most insufferable, pretentious, and thesaurus-based writing I've read in a long time. I'm all for good usage and breadth in one's vocabulary, but this is clearly a way to try to impress upon the reader what a superior mind he possesses. Whereas to most, he just reveals how conceited he is.

Ugh. I imagine him dictating that letter into a recorder while cradling a snifter of brandy with one hand and getting himself off with the other. And I really want that image out of my head.

I swear this guy sounds a bit like my friend's ex-husband. (though that guy did have kids with her)

Wow, Cary Tennis gets all the winners writing to him.

It's almost like they know he will indulge their bullshit. This guy writes:

Two weeks after she told me she was leaving, and a few nights before she was scheduled to move out of our apartment, everything fell apart. I was so despondent that I was irrational, and I threatened suicide and made her so angry and frustrated that we ended up having a screaming incident in front of our apartment.

And Cary responds

It’s sad. I wish you two could patch it up.

Dude, no. He admits he threatened to kill himself to make her stay, broke dishes, and had 'a screaming incident' but then later claims that he never raised his voice? And he hates it when she sees her friends and family? And Cary thinks she was "lucky to have you?" Am I on crazy pills?

I've never thought of Cary Tennis as giving good or sensible advice, so this doesn't surprise me.

Yeah, I really ought to know better. It just makes me mad every time.

"But it sounds like she really loves you and neither one of you has good relationship problem-solving skills, and there’s no reason to believe she’s going to find someone better."

I dunno, Cary, somehow I think she probably could find someone better with her eyes closed and her hands tied behind her back. But I'm just a girl.

You know, Dear Abby may have overused the "seek therapy" answer, but it would have been a million times better than Cary's nonsense. Then again I'm pretty sure Abby would've actually noticed the classic signs of an abuser.

Aw, how cute...wait, are you serious?

She is "horrified"? Oh god.

It seems like she handled it well, but not sure she is prepared for life with a teenage boy. Also, soda fueled naked lady looking rampage just amuses me.

'Soda-fueled naked lady seeking rampage' pretty much describes most of my straight male friend's lives, substituting or adding 'beer' for soda after age 18 or so. Mom sounds reasonable in her letter, but if she thinks teenage boys stay away from forbidden substances and naked lady pics...um...yeah.

Yeah. I kind of feel like, as long as the kid didn't go anywhere that gave the computer a virus, is it really a big deal? Maybe a chance to talk to him on an age-appropriate level about the objectification of women? Or...I don't know...to reassure him that it's normal for teenage boys to want to drink Mountain Dew and look at boobs? She can't be serious when she says she's shocked that he did this, right? What surprises me is that he confessed to his mother instead of his father. I would think most boys (and men) would rather die than discuss porn with their moms.

If he broke a house rule then he should have a consequence for it, but I'm glad she doesn't seem to have doled out any kind of harsh punishment.

I feel bad for the kid that he thinks drinking a can of pop is part of "going crazy." And just feeling THAT guilty for something so normal.

(The dad's not mentioned in the letter, so I'm wondering if he's in the picture at all? Because yeah, that does seem like something a boy would confess to his dad. I'd also assume most fathers would remember doing something similar.)

I'm bothered by this part of Amy's reply (emphasis mine):

He will make mistakes as he goes, but his honesty and how he handles his mistakes will be the most important determination about the kind of man your boy will grow to become.

Mistakes?? He's ELEVEN. He got CURIOUS. It's not a "mistake"; it's a natural impulse.

I went through exactly this same scenario with my daughter when she was about that age. Like that boy, she was worried and guilty and upset and finally came clean with me when she couldn't handle the guilt anymore. My response was "You got curious. It's not a crime. It's human nature. Did you see anything that upset you?" (Because, as we all know, there's "adult sites" and then there's the OH MY GOD BLEACH MY EYEBALLS sites.) She said "No, not really." And that's where we left it.

Sars had a big one this week. LW's sister knowingly married a guy who has served time for possession of child porn, and is now throwing a fit that the LW doesn't trust in his innocence (he was found guilty and served time!) and threatening to never speak to the LW again because the LW won't let him babysit her child.

I usually find the comments on The Vine more interesting than Sars' initial reply. I agree with the people who asked how, exactly, should the letter-writer have told her sister she thought the husband might be guilty? If the sister had such an attitude about it from the beginning, when was a good time? And that the sister was surprised that her sister had doubts about the husband, after 18 months of dodging babysitting situations? That woman has such a huge case of denial going!

VodouDoll wrote:Sars had a big one this week. LW's sister knowingly married a guy who has served time for possession of child porn, and is now throwing a fit that the LW doesn't trust in his innocence (he was found guilty and served time!) and threatening to never speak to the LW again because the LW won't let him babysit her child.

Yech. I think the sister has decided to pretend that her husband's childporn conviction didn't happen and actively refuses to live as if it did. I really don't know if LW can ever have a relationship with her sister if they live in two different realities. LW's strategy of keeping her son from being alone with the uncle is perfectly acceptable and I don't know how she can have a relationship with the sister if she doesn't get that. That the sister has been insisting on babysitting with her husband makes me think the sister knew what the LW was doing for a while now.

The fact that the sister always wants to babysit along with her husband pings as hugely sketchy for me. I don't bring my husband along when I babysit for friends or family, and the sister's insistence on that coupled with her "you're with me or against me" attitude about a crime her husband was *convicted of* really makes me question the sister.

Honestly, I'd be willing to torch every relationship in my family to keep my daughter safe, so I thought Sars' advice was way, way too conciliatory.

The LW posted an update in the comments section. Basically, they... went to therapy and put in writing the exact conditions of the BIL's contact with the child. Good luck with that.

PrincessCleo wrote:The LW posted an update in the comments section. Basically, they... went to therapy and put in writing the exact conditions of the BIL's contact with the child. Good luck with that.

If the conditions aren't something like, "If your husband comes near my child I'll make him regret every second of his existence," then I don't see the point.

I think Sars is way off the mark here. He wasn't convicted and served a sentence for bank robbery; he was convicted of possessing child porn. Even if he was innocent, he's still a convicted sex offender and, depending on the state, is probably a registered level 2 or 3 sex offender. I would think that part of his parole would be that he has to stay away from children under the age 14, regardless of innocence.

I thought it was telling that the sister is the one really driving this...the sex offender husband doesn't seem all that interested in being around the kid either. I can't imagine why the sister is this determined to babysit when it makes everyone else so uncomfortable, unless she's so damn determined to act like nothing at all is wrong. Which, no.

Unlucky Bear wrote:I thought it was telling that the sister is the one really driving this...the sex offender husband doesn't seem all that interested in being around the kid either. I can't imagine why the sister is this determined to babysit when it makes everyone else so uncomfortable, unless she's so damn determined to act like nothing at all is wrong. Which, no.

The issue isn't that the LW doesn't want her son alone with the man convicted of child pornography, it's that she also doesn't want her son left only with her sister and him. She doesn't trust her sister to supervise, precisely because the sister doesn't think there's anything to watch for. Which, to repeat you, NO.