Help! Your Favorite Letter Writers Wrote Back to Tell Us What Happened Next.

This is part of Help! Wanted, a special series from Slate advice. In the advising biz, there are certain eternal dilemmas that bedevil letter writers and columnists alike. This week, we’re taking them head-on.

After hearing from letter writers in the thick of their dilemmas, there’s always a lingering question: Well, what happened next? We reached out to favorite letter writers from the past year to get you some answers. Here’s what they wrote back.

Q. Still Confused: My boyfriend was in a wedding recently for his good friend as a groomsman. When we first got the invite (we live together and have for three years) we discovered I wasn’t invited and he did not have a plus one. We’ve met this couple before and they knew we had been dating for close to four years by that point. I was a little hurt when all the pre-wedding festivities started and still, no one said anything about him getting a plus one for me despite other members of the bridal party having a plus one. I was especially hurt when he was telling me about how he was expected to dance with the bridesmaids. The bridesmaids even got together to do his hair and gushed about it because they thought he was single. I trusted my boyfriend implicitly but he was just as uncomfortable and wished I was there so he would have someone to dance with and talk to at the reception (he only knew two other groomsmen but no one else at the wedding). Are we being entitled?

A: A huge part of young adulthood is feeling deeply wronged by other people’s wedding-related decisions, most of which are not really personal but rather attempts to manage the enormous costs associated with these events. It is not “entitled” to have negative feelings about something that leads to you feeling excluded or sets you up to have a bad day. But it is a waste of time to dwell on it a lot. My best advice for anyone involved in a wedding is to make a choice: Either go, put on a happy face, and decide to have the best possible attitude and best possible time given the circumstances or RSVP no. So that’s what I would tell your boyfriend. And you should reassure yourself that there was likely some formula that decided who got a plus one. Maybe only married couples were invited. Maybe only people the couple had known for 10 years. Maybe they prioritized those who they’ve been closer to in the past six months, or people who would make the dance floor lively. Whatever it was, it was probably a tough decision and doesn’t mean they dislike or don’t care about you.

Now, as far as your boyfriend and the bridesmaids: The fact that they thought he was single and he allowed them to gather around and style his hair—not really a traditional part of most weddings!—is on him. And whether a forced dance with them brings up jealousy or feelings about infidelity is fodder for a conversation about your relationship, not about wedding etiquette.

Original letter and response: Help! I Wasn’t Invited as My Boyfriend’s Wedding Plus-One. The Bridesmaids Took Advantage. August, 2, 2022.

Update from letter writer: We learned after the wedding from one of the groomsmen that the bride had to be persuaded to allow my boyfriend to be a groomsman because she doesn’t like him and by extension, she doesn’t like me. We genuinely don’t know why and it didn’t seem anyone else knew her reasons for not liking us but it is what it is. Her condition for allowing her husband to have my boyfriend in the wedding party was that he not get a plus one.

The groom is one of my boyfriend’s oldest and closest friends. They’ve known each other since elementary school and have been close friends since then as well. He would have been the best man if not for the groom’s brother coming back from Europe. The groom was apparently upset about the bride’s treatment of my boyfriend but ultimately, went along with it to avoid further stress and conflict. Understandable.

We aren’t holding a grudge or even upset about it anymore after learning this. We thought it was a mutual decision of the couple and felt hurt more by the groom because of his and my boyfriend’s long-time friendship. At the end of the day, you were totally right, it’s the bride and groom’s special day and they can do whatever they want, it might not even have been personal, who knows. My boyfriend says that he wants to avoid going to weddings from now on unless we are just guests and can go together. I agree.

Q. Need to Know When to Say When: I believe my nephew is on a three-year journey of faking his college enrollment. His financially strapped parents have paid for all his “college expenses,” except for tuition. They also suspect something is up. They’ve asked me to help. Things are coming to a head because he now has to invent reasons why he didn’t graduate with his class in the spring. The first reason was a made-up study abroad program he had to finish that prevented him from finishing his last class. He faked a lot of it well but didn’t know he was given away by his cell phone still having the U.S. ring, even though he was supposed to be in Europe for the semester. The excuse now is that the last class he’s about to start is really hard and he may not pass it. I’ve gone straight at it with him directly. With compassion, I’ve told him I don’t believe his stories and I want to help him extricate himself from the ruse so that he can get on with his life. He won’t budge. Do I go to him with proof that I know he’s making it all up or do I just let it play out? My worry is that he’ll dig a hole too deep from which to escape with lie after lie after lie.

A: What a mess! But you say you’ve already gone to him directly so your job is done. There’s no need for you to force him to fess up (and if you do, you risk damaging your relationship with him or his parents) when it seems things will naturally come to a head soon. If anything, I would advise his parents to protect their personal and financial information to prevent him from doing anything shady as he becomes increasingly desperate.

Original letter and response: Help! I Caught My Nephew Lying About What He’s Really Doing at College. August 29, 2022.

Update from letter writer: The advice was spot on. My nephew never graduated and never came clean but he did escalate to helping himself to large sums of cash at his parent’s home. He also racked up credit card charges on accounts. We’ve never confronted him.

One year post “graduation” he seems to be coming around and is working full-time and talking about getting back into the swing of things with a community college class. His parents are devastated by the lies but they agree with Prudie. Letting it play out is the best way to go.

Q. Gift House in the Mouth: My partner and I are a queer couple in an expensive city. We are currently talking about moving in together and are both very excited about it, but my partner’s grandpa has promised my partner his house after he passes away and the house is right next door to my partner’s parents. I get along very well with his parents, but my partner hasn’t always had the clearest boundaries with his family. And I just know for certain his parents would 100 percent show up without warning and barge right in. I honestly wouldn’t even want to live next door to my own parents, let alone my parents-in-law. The other issue is that my partner’s oldest brother has been tried for child pornography and this brother still lives at his parent’s house. So, that raises questions about us having children or my baby sister coming to visit. Is that safe? I think a lot of this sounds petty. I don’t exactly have six figures worth of savings or a home to offer, but I can’t imagine a world in which living next to my partner’s parents wouldn’t involve weekly conversations about boundaries and lots of hurt feelings. How do I explain to my partner that I don’t want to live next to his parents for the rest of my life?

A: The easiest solution here would be to accept the house, spruce it up, sell it, and take the proceeds to move somewhere a healthy distance from meddling in-laws and the sexual predator brother. But I’m sure you two would have already made your plan and started looking at Zillow if you felt your partner might easily agree to this.

Personally, I think a FREE HOME would be worth the hassle of dealing with busybody parents. Now, don’t get me wrong: It’s worth saying to your partner, “You know I love your parents but I’m concerned about what it would mean to live right next door to them and have our privacy and enough time with just the two of us. Would you consider selling the house and moving a short drive away so we could still be close enough to see them regularly but also feel like we live on our own in a place we chose?” But if he pushes back, at least wait for the situation to be unbearable before you turn down a lifetime’s worth of housing security. Assuming you’re not already rich and you’re the kind of partners who share finances, this is a massive, life-changing transfer of wealth! You could use the equivalent of a single month’s rent or mortgage to bring in a family therapist for a few sessions and get everyone on the same page about boundaries. Or pay to change the locks and “forget” to give them a key. For decades.

Now, the brother is another story. You can have your sister visit and keep a close eye on her while she’s there, but raising kids full-time next door to a pedophile is a hard no. Tell your partner that you’re firm on this and if he doesn’t agree to sell and move before bringing a child into the family, cut your losses and part ways. If he does agree, just hang in there until that time comes. You can do it. Set some boundaries with the annoying parents, hide with the lights off, and pretend not to be home from time to time—whatever it takes to take advantage of the free real estate! I just really think it’s too good a deal to turn down before there’s a risk of actual harm to anyone. Nobody ever died from annoying in-laws but people have died from being poor.

Original letter and full response: Help! We’re Getting a Free House. My Only Concern Is the Pedophile Next Door. October, 22, 2022.

Update from letter writer: We actually just broke up last month over the issues of his brother and family boundaries. To thicken the plot, my baby sister is underage, and I made it expressly clear that his brother, a convicted child sex offender, and my sister were to never be in the same room together. While my ex understood this boundary, his family did not. I think my ex’s family is unfortunately in deep denial about the extent of the brother’s crimes (he was taking photos of children using public restrooms and was caught looking at child pornography on public WiFi). So all that’s to say, this family house was never going to be tenable, and given all the pressure he was receiving from his family, our relationship just kind of slow-motion imploded.

P.S.: I also found out the house wasn’t exactly free. There’s still a hefty mortgage on it too… not exactly ideal.

Q. Oh Baby: Over the past couple of years I’ve gotten to know my husband’s friend Alan. Alan is nice, smart, and a loving father and husband. His little ones played with my little ones before he and his wife recently moved. He’s also the only Black member of my husband’s college friend group (the college was rural and in a part of the South I used to avoid). I’m also a Black woman. Just last week my husband and a few friends got together to see another college friend named Amy who was in town for a few days. As I was getting ready to meet her, my husband mentioned that a little after college Amy told my husband something shocking about her and Alan. She had Alan’s baby secretly and gave him up for adoption. Amy is white and from a good family, and probably doesn’t understand the implications of putting any baby in the system, much less a Black one. I am upset. The kid is probably around 17 by now. He might be totally fine, but he might not be. My husband has no idea as to why Amy confided this information in him (she did try to date my husband unsuccessfully). I asked if Alan were abusive or incredibly different in college. My husband says he was pretty nice back then too. When I got even more upset, my husband said sometimes Amy is a compulsive liar, but he’s thought about her statement for almost two decades. He also told me not to “go do anything stupid.” So what is appropriate here? I want to tell Alan, or send him an ancestry DNA kit anonymously with a note about long lost family (maybe the kid will find him as an adult). That seems incredibly intrusive, but if this is true Alan has the right to know.

A: Stay as far away from this situation as you can. There are just so many red flags—Amy’s purported lying, the side quest where she tried to date your husband, the casualness with which your husband is dropping these tidbits. It’s a mess. And from your letter, it doesn’t seem like you know Alan well enough to be the bearer of shocking, and shockingly incomplete, news. You don’t have any information about the child, you can’t point him in the right direction; respectfully, you will not be helpful in this situation. You can encourage your husband to tell Alan, as they have a long relationship and he’s the one whom Amy actually told. But this situation is ultimately between Alan, Amy, and the child.

Original letter and advice: Help! My Husband’s Friend Did Something Unforgivable in College. July 29, 2022.

Update from letter writer: I followed Prudie’s advice and clammed up. My husband won’t tell Alan either. Not much more to report than that. I hope Amy made this all up.

Q. The Unfamous Friend: I have a slightly older friend who is successful in a certain creative field and often in the public eye. We started talking because of unrelated mutual interests and while we’ve never met in person, I look up to them a lot, received advice and emotional support from them during some personal crises last year, and have been inspired and encouraged to try my hand at their form of art. I’m glad to have them in my life, but I keep worrying that I’m not worthy of calling myself their friend. Part of this is low self-esteem and thinking I don’t measure up, but they’ve also dealt with creepy and invasive “fans” on multiple occasions and I fear ending up like those people in any way. Talking about their work to anyone else I know feels like namedropping, and I don’t know where the line of acceptable behavior is or how to know if I’m overstepping when I call them a friend. Obviously, it would be weird to just ask them that, and I have a feeling that to any other person (who’s not autistic as all hell like me) our friendship would not be something to question, so how do I shake my insecurities and manage being in this position?

A: Just follow the three Ds. Demystify: Regardless of their fame, your friend is still just a person with regular human needs, including companionship. Stop fixating on their celebrity (and the attendant problematic fans) and stay focused on your own individual relationship with them. If you value this person for their kindness and creative spirit—as you obviously do—you won’t “end up” like an invasive fan, so put that, and similar insecurities, out of your mind. Instead, think about your friend as one human being among eight billion, who just happens to have talents that draw adulation from the public.

Disentangle: Admiration and friendship often go hand in hand, but I sense that you are struggling to identify a border between the two. I suggest that you frame this individual in your mind as a friend first and an inspiration second. Any emotions that arise out of your friendship should be presumed reasonable and acceptable. Any emotions that arise out of your inspiration might merit a gut check: “Am I over-stepping or over-adulating? Am I putting this person on a pedestal rather than acting as a confidant and buddy?” If yes, try to recenter your intimate personal connection and put the artifice of celebrity out of your mind.

Demonstrate: As you note, your fears about this friendship are fueled largely by low self-esteem. To overcome this problem, I advise you try a time-honored solution: fake it ‘till you make it. Think about who you would be with high self-esteem. How would that person navigate the world? How would they settle into the comforts of friendship with a creative person who happens to be famous? Then try your best to act like that image of yourself, even if it feels strange and unnatural at first. Act like you might if your insecurities fell away and you believed deeply in your own goodness, confidence, and strength. Demonstrate to yourself that you can be that person, with some extra effort, and you may well become that person with time.

Original letter and advice: Help! My Friend Is Famous. I Don’t Want to Act Like a Creepy Fan. May 24, 2023.

Update from letter writer: Hi! So, I have been trying to put in a lot more work to love myself and have fewer doubts about my life. I think that was a big reason why I had convinced myself I wasn’t worthy of having a friend who I considered so cool and talented. And I compared myself to others too much even though it only ever made me feel worse. Sometimes I still do but I think I’ve started to have a clearer head and see that behavior for the unhelpful thing that it is. Plus, me and that person still talk. I may not be able to go to their big birthday parties because I live far away, but that doesn’t mean they think less of me. It’s not always easy but I am trying to improve myself and be around people who support me in that.

My two sisters and I are all close in age. “Chloe” got engaged first but has put the wedding off due to grad school. “Zoe” got engaged a few months afterward and was looking at a whirlwind wedding. She bought the dress and then caught her fiancé cheating on her. I was with Zoe at the time, and she was devastated. We got drunk and emotional, and Zoe decided to burn the dress along with some of her ex’s things. I was just happy to see Zoe stop crying. We held a “ceremony” where she cleansed herself of everything that came from him and posted a picture to a private social media account. Chloe texted me in a rage.