decisions decisions

Woman says husband will punish her if she attends gay nephew’s wedding, seeks help

Popular advice columnist Judith Martin, better known by the pen name Miss Manners, received a particularly cringey plea for help recently.

A woman wrote in expressing her desire to attend her nephew’s wedding in Washington, D.C. Seems pretty normal, except her husband is homophobic and her nephew is marrying a man.

“My husband said at the outset of the relationship that he would never attend a gay wedding because he feels it is not a real marriage,” she wrote.

Well, she could always go alone, right? Wrong!

“I have no qualms about it; to me, it’s all about love,” she continued. “He now says he doesn’t want me to go because D.C. is a dangerous place.”

And it gets even sadder…

“I feel I should do what I want to do, which is go to this wedding; on the other hand, he will make my life miserable about it for a long time,” she predicted.

She concludes her letter: “We have been married for 40 years and he has always pretty much had the last word on everything, but I know I will resent him if I don’t go.”

Miss Manners offered some fairly bland advice, opting to ignore the possibility that maybe it’s time to rethink her husband having “the last word on everything.”

“It seems…that either way, there will be resentment,”  Manners responded. “It is unfortunately up to you which form of it is more tolerable.”

“Not going to the wedding may well cause a rift between you and the rest of your family,” she continued. “And as a native and resident of Washington, D.C., [I assure] you that it is infinitely less dangerous than prejudice and intolerance.”

Our advice is a bit more simple: Pick out a nice dress and book that ticket.

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