Help! When People Find Out How I Grew Up, They Treat It Like an Idyllic Lifestyle. It’s Much Darker Than That.

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My boyfriend and I grew up in very different circumstances. His brother idolizes a type of political/physical back-to-the-land movement, similar to the circumstances in which I grew up. It drives me up the wall.

His family is from a small suburb with a mild climate and reliable public services. I grew up in an area of the U.S. known for remoteness and isolation. It was beautiful, but also required physically hard labor from the whole family to keep the household going. Think cutting, stacking, and splitting wood for heat; carefully preparing for dark, isolated winters with dangerous temperatures; regular, lengthy power outages during the winter (my parents refused to get a generator); and being alone in the winter dark with a small number of people for long periods. Our community was far from the closest hospital, so if the weather was bad, you just didn’t go. My siblings and I all have stuff like weirdly healed bones from lack of medical care, even though we could afford it. We just couldn’t get to it. We weren’t off-grid, but we weren’t reliably on it either.

Now that I’m an adult, I moved out of state and to a city where daily life is easy. I miss the incredible beauty of my childhood, but I love my soft life. I don’t talk about it because people from different backgrounds act like I grew up in 1910, or like it was some idyllic daydream to live that way. My boyfriend’s brother lives with his parents and talks nonstop about his dream of an off-grid house and life. Every time we visit, his brother talks at length about how perfect his life would be without electricity and when he can “go back to the land.” It’s also paired with some regressive politics. I don’t say much, but it drives me insane. Life without electricity isn’t romantic; it’s cold, damp, fraught with seasonal affective disorder, and babies get carbon dioxide poisoning from creosote buildup in the chimney. We’re visiting in February, and I’m already dreading getting a political sales pitch on my own childhood. How do I deal with this?

Dear Dazed and Confused,

I get the sense that engaging in this fantasy about off-grid living is meeting a need for your boyfriend’s brother that has little to do with an actionable plan to fend for himself in the wilderness. I think it’s probably all about imagining a world in which he feels stronger and more successful than he does now, and where he can leave behind some of the parts of his life that haven’t turned out the way he hoped they would. The regressive politics might have a similar origin. And I really doubt either of his passions will change in response to facts or informed perspectives like, “It’s actually not enjoyable to go without medical care.”

If it’s at all possible, try to see his off-grid fixation as a symptom of the sort of person he is and his situation. He could just as easily be focused on traveling to another country to meet and fall in love with a woman with “traditional family values,” or giving his life to an extreme religious sect that promised a richer and better life, detached from all worldly possessions. It’s easier said than done, but if you can get yourself into the mindset of being an interested observer (who may be rolling their eyes internally and collecting anecdotes to unpack at home later) of his behavior and where it comes from, it might feel less frustrating to hear him share a wildly inaccurate perspective on a lifestyle you know well.

You should also start to tell the truth about how you grew up. While the initial reactions may be annoying, sharing your experience—the interesting, the good, and the really bad and miserable parts alike—with your boyfriend, your friends, and even acquaintances might feel good. I say this because I suspect that part of your agitation with your boyfriend’s brother comes from your sense of being unseen. If you felt that your experience was understood, appreciated, and even honored in your daily life, you may be a lot less bothered by one mildly delusional, annoying guy who gets it all wrong.

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When my husband left his phone unattended while he went to the bathroom the other day, I decided to look through and found numerous recordings of women he secretly filmed out in public (asses and boobs). I haven’t said anything, but I think this is incredibly sleazy and creepy.  Do I have a right to confront him even though I learned of his activities through questionable means?

—Married to the Biggest Boob and Ass of All

Yes, you have a right. Your husband will almost certainly disagree with me on that and do everything he can to take the focus off his perverted activities and focus instead on your violation of his privacy. But you know that.

The more important question to ask yourself is probably about what you hope to achieve with this confrontation. You’re not going to successfully make him not a creep or sleazy. Is there a response he could provide that would truly make you feel better about what you discovered? I doubt it. I’m sure this is not the first time he’s done something to make you question his character or feel disgusted by his attitude toward women (including you!). I suggest that you keep the evidence, and if you do one day decide to leave him, include it as an exhibit when you explain your reasoning.

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My wife is about to start a war with our neighbor across the street from us for a reason that defies all logic. Our neighbor “Dylan” is a single guy in his early 40s. He’s the perfect neighbor—keeps his yard up, his dog doesn’t bark, and he isn’t loud or rude. Why then would my wife possibly have it in for him?

Because, according to her, he has too many cars! Dylan has a pickup truck and two sports cars.  Typically, one of the vehicles will be in his garage while the other two remain in his driveway.  The truck and cars are kept clean, and he uses each of them multiple times a week, so they aren’t sitting there collecting dirt. My wife says she is “tired of looking at them” and wants to raise the issue with our homeowners’ association. How do I stop this insanity before she turns Dylan against us?

I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with ideas about what could really be going on here, making up ridiculous plots like, “She’s having an affair with Dylan and wants to stop but can’t bring herself to, so her hope is that the HOA harassment will force him to flee the neighborhood before she destroys her life” but nothing is really resonating. I’m as lost as you are.

The good news is that she can report Dylan, and nothing will come of it. So you don’t have to do anything but keep an eye out for other strange and sudden fixations from her.

Last week, I was doing some work on our shared desktop computer while my husband’s personal email was still logged in, which I didn’t realize until a notification popped up, and I caught sight of his ex’s name. This is the beautiful, sparkly, outgoing woman who swooped down and took his virginity when he was 27, dated him for six months, dumped him out of nowhere, and broke his heart. She is the only other woman he’s ever been with, whereas I haven’t been with anyone but him. As much as I know he loves me, our 4-year-old daughter, and the baby we just found out I’m pregnant with, I’ve always felt insecure about how he still seems to put his ex on a pedestal and agonizes occasionally over losing her. Unable to control my curiosity, I skimmed the long message she’d sent him…