Help! My Wife Swears that Allowing Alcohol into Our Home Is a Slippery Slope. I’m Tired of It.

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Dear Prudence,

My wife comes from a family with more than a few drunks in it and refuses to allow any alcohol in our house. She’s never had a drinking problem—she actually doesn’t drink at all—but is adamant that no alcohol outside of the rubbing kind ever enters our home.

I’m not a regular drinker, but prior to getting together with my wife, I did enjoy a nice glass of wine every now and then. I realize alcoholism caused a great deal of pain in her life, but is there some way I can get her to understand that having a bottle of the good stuff around for the occasional indulgence doesn’t mean that I (or she) will end up becoming addicted?

—No Winning With Wine

Dear No Winning With Wine,

You’re making an assumption about your wife’s position on alcohol that might not be accurate. Is it really that she thinks a bottle of wine in the house means one of you will end up addicted? Or could it be that the sight of someone drinking, or even the smell of alcohol, brings up upsetting memories for her? Is it possible that it takes a lot for her to resist drinking, and she doesn’t want to have to use that willpower at home? Is there any chance that when she’s seen you have a glass or two of wine in the past, the subtle changes in your personality made her uncomfortable?

It’s worth talking to her—not to “get her to understand” but to learn more about what’s at the core of her opposition to having any alcohol in the house. Depending on what she shares with you, you might be able to reassure her, encourage her to lean on a therapist to learn some tools for dealing with her feelings about alcohol, or propose a compromise. Maybe you could drink when she’s not at home or after she goes to bed, or buy the wine and dispose of any leftovers on the same day, so it’s not just sitting around the house for weeks and months on end.

You love each other and hopefully, both want the other to enjoy life. So don’t let this turn into a battle over what is logical or what you’re allowed to do. Instead, gather all the information you have and then work together to get creative and imagine whether there’s an arrangement that could make you both happy—with one of you sober and one just the tiniest bit tipsy once in a while.

Dear Prudence,

I get around by subway and find it extremely offensive that people begin crowding into the car before the passengers have had a chance to exit. Is there anything that can be done about this?

—You Can Wait a Couple of Minutes

Dear You Can Wait a Couple of Minutes,

No. This just seems to be one of those unspoken subway codes of conduct that hasn’t totally rebounded after the pandemic. (Unless subway-riding readers have creative ideas that they’d like to share).

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Dear Prudence,

My wife and I adopted a very happy and healthy baby, but are at odds about what to reveal about our child’s horrible origins.

Our child was born from rape and incest and incredible mental illness. The biological father is serving a lifetime sentence, and the biological mother took her own life several months after birth. This is public record, and the family is still in the area. We moved to a different state, and the adoption and birth records are sealed, but in this day and age, when you can get ancestry tests at the grocery store, we are worried about the future. We got conflicting advice from basically every direction.

In my own family, there was a lot of trouble when my cousin found out as an adult that she was a result of IVF and not biologically related to her mother (donated egg and dad’s sperm), and it led to a bunch of heartache. But the truth is so ugly and damaging, my wife doesn’t even want to touch it, let alone tell our child when they get older. So what should be the game plan?

—Worried About the Future

Dear Worried About the Future,

You’re eventually going to need to tell your child at least a version of the truth, and you should have the guidance of a family therapist about when to do it and exactly what words to use.

To get your wife on board, assure her that you’re not the first family to face this and that many experts and adoptees have given thought to the best way to frame a really painful story. The idea that there might be preexisting scripts of guidelines—and that the information can be shared gently, in stages—might ease her mind a little.

I can imagine an initial conversation in the preschool years might involve something like “The mom who carried you in her tummy wasn’t able to take good care of a baby. We were lucky that we were chosen to be your parents, and we were so happy when we all became a family. We’re going to love you forever!”

When your daughter is older, you might introduce the idea that your daughter’s birth parents were “sick” or “had a lot of problems” and tell her that her birth dad had hurt people and her birth mom died when she was a baby. Of course, still ending on that positive note about how your family was created and how much you love her. Let her know that she can ask any questions. And be prepared to welcome any emotional reaction she might have. Don’t become upset if she gets angry or sad.

A teen might be ready for all of the facts, paired with a reminder that while she was conceived in an unsafe situation, that doesn’t define her, and assurances that anything she feels or says about the situation is OK with you.

Those are just my instincts. This is a delicate situation, and you’ll want the advice of a real expert with extensive experience with this. The two of you should also spend some time reading up on or listening to adult adoptees to increase your awareness of ways in which adoptive parents can unintentionally hurt their kids during these discussions.

Neither you nor your wife should expect this revelation—even if it comes in pieces over several years—to be easy for your daughter to digest, even if you present the information perfectly. But by telling her, you’re going to be communicating that she has nothing to be ashamed of, which will go a long way. If she finds out on her own, she may get the opposite message. That’s what you should really be trying to avoid.

Classic Prudie

My older sister knew she was gay since she was a kid while I struggled with my identity until mid-adulthood. I am asexual and a man. No doctor has found anything wrong with me physically while every therapist thought there was something mentally wrong with me until I found one that told me I am fine the way I am. My parents still don’t really get it and my sister willfully doesn’t. She kept saying I was in the closet until I threatened to lock her in one to shut her up. When my sister got married, she and her wife were determined to each have a biological tie to the children. Her wife is an only child so there was a ton of family pressure on me to help them complete their family. I folded and they ended up with eight embryos. Three were not viable. Four were lost in miscarriages. Leaving the last one.