My Sister’s Boyfriend Asked Me for Help With Her Proposal. Well, That Just Blew Up in My Face.

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My sister has been obsessed with her “future” engagement and wedding since she was a teen. She watched every Say Yes to the Dress and had an evolving Pinterest board with ideas. She always said she wanted a spontaneous proposal with her soulmate.

Enter, “Cesar.” Cesar was handsome, funny, and a bit emotionally dim. He came to me because he and my sister talked about marriage, but he was more inclined to propose over dinner at home than roses and a choir. I suggested a romantic weekend as a surprise and that he ask our parents for their “blessing,” if only as a way to include them and signal Cesar and my sister were really serious. My sister-in-law started the trend when she asked for our parents’ blessing, but they didn’t plan to get married until after graduate school. They have been happily together for 10 years and have two kids.

Cesar told my sister he had a “surprise” waiting for her after a weekend trip, and she needed to save the date. My sister decided to cancel at the last minute when she got a chance at overtime at work. She told Cesar to “enjoy himself” on the trip. Cesar spilled the beans and was very hurt, and my sister blamed me for her failed proposal. She just jumped down my throat, basically calling me ‘jealous and “controlling” because I don’t have a “man” and that no man would want me. I am gay.

Her boyfriend came to me, and I thought it was sweet, and I wanted to be helpful. After what my sister said, I don’t want anything to do with her. Cesar and my sister are on the outs, and my sister continues to blame me. She always had a temper, but this is getting into bridezilla territory, and the engagement hasn’t even happened. My parents continue to want me to placate my sister. It is difficult because I live at home, and it looks like she will be moving in when she is done wrecking her relationship. I can’t afford my own place. Help!

Readers of this column have often disagreed with me when I give this kind of advice, but I really believe in the power of a narrow, not totally sincere (but containing a nugget of truth) apology to calm down an unhinged adversary. It disarms the person, reestablishes your place as the bigger person, and gets everyone else off your back about your role in the conflict.

Here’s your script: “Can I talk to you? I really want to apologize for my role in what happened with the engagement. In retrospect, it really would have been better for me to tell Cesar I couldn’t help because I didn’t know exactly what you wanted. I should have minded my own business, and I’m sorry.”

I mean, should you really have? Probably not. He asked! He made the proposal—which I assume was an issue because it didn’t meet your sister’s Pinterest-inspired expectations—your business. But throwing your sister (who clearly is not a reasonable human and I’m sure has issues with 75 percent of people in the world, in addition to you and Cesar) a bone costs you nothing. It frees you of the mental weight of being in a conflict with someone who might live under your roof sometime soon. And it lets you say to your parents, “I’ve apologized to her.”

I want you to pledge to yourself right now, though, that when and if she does actually get engaged, you will not—I repeat, will not—be a part of her bridal party. Come up with your excuse now. Because that arrangement involves a million opportunities to be irrationally mad and offended, and your sister will take every single one of them.

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My boyfriend is a darling in every way, and he’s doing something that I want to stop. I dislike my job, but I got hired back when times were good, and I’m way overpaid for the current market. I’m in the union, so they can’t adjust my pay or easily fire me. The only way for me to leave this job and not take a huge paycut is to move up a tier. I am not qualified for the next tier. My guy’s reaction to this reality is to overhype me.

Every time it comes up, he tells me that I’m selling myself short, that he knows how brilliant and capable I am, that I could totally do my boss’s job, and that everyone fakes it till they make it. He’s wrong. This is a career that requires a specific skillset, and I have only some of it. I’m working on getting more! But I’m still a few years away from being able to perform in a higher role. And even if I could fake my way into a step up, I’d be miserable because I’d be lousy at it. Lacking the required skillset, I’d be at risk without the protection of a union and a good reputation and history with the company. He demonstrates in every way, every day, that he thinks I’m wonderful. He’s not lying or gaslighting, he’s just … wrong. Do you have any magic words to make him understand that if I’m so smart, I’m probably right about my own career prospects? He reminds me how women often underestimate themselves professionally, and says I’m “getting in my own way.”

—My Job, His Feelings

“I know you think I’m brilliant and capable, and it means so much to me. I also know you love me and are cheering me on because you want me to be happy. But what you’re missing is that when you push me to go against my own understanding of my career and accuse me of getting in my own way, it has the opposite effect and really gets me down. It sounds like you don’t trust my judgment. You may have some points about gender dynamics in the workplace, but please trust me when I tell you I understand my own professional situation. Thank you so much for believing in me. I just need you to extend that belief to this topic. Can you do that?”

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My sister, “Tiana,” died of anorexia complications a month ago. We were very close as kids, but her death now was a long time coming. She was very angry about how hard everyone pushed treatment and barely spoke to family or friends until the very end. Tiana got sick in her 20s, and meant no one could force care. About three years ago, the disease had all but swallowed her personality and interests.

I grieved hard then, and had to take leave from work because I was so distraught. I missed her so much. Then I grieved more about a year ago when it was clear she was actively dying. A close friend who is an emergency room doctor met Tiana a few times socially and gently, informally told me Tiana had low chances of survival at that point, even if she chose recovery. Tiana was gone before she was officially dying, and then her death was drawn out and terrible. I miss the Tiana I knew before the disease, but mostly what I feel now is relief that she’s not in pain anymore, and I don’t have to know she’s out there suffering and refusing help.

My parents and extended family accused me of not caring because I’m not crying or struggling, but for me, that stuff has already happened. I’m sympathetic to their grief and would never tell them I’m not sad anymore, but they’re angry. How do I deal with this? Even my friends seem to get it more than my family, and none of them have faced this type of long, drawn-out grief.

This is very delicate but I think you should give your family—and especially your parents—the “everyone grieves differently” understanding that you wish they would offer you. That doesn’t mean it’s OK for them to accuse you of not caring, which is wrong and also mean. But try not to take what they say personally, and remind yourself that a lot of this is coming from their devastation over Tiana’s death. Sometimes, when you’re grieving, everything feels incredibly painful, from the world continuing to go on as normal to individual people’s behavior. It’s probably very hard for them to think about the tragedy of Tiana’s life, how much she must have been hurting, whether anyone could have done anything different to help, and all the moments they won’t experience with her. You know this because you surely had some of these feelings yourself. It probably feels more manageable to them to be angry at you for not visibly struggling in the way they think you should than to grapple with all the other overwhelmingly sad thoughts.

At the same time, it’s fine for you to say, “As you know, I took leave and grieved intensely while Tiana was still physically here. I’ll always miss her, but I also feel relieved that she’s not struggling and suffering anymore. I respected that you weren’t as upset as I was when it became clear that she was actively dying, and it would be nice if you would respect that my grief has a different timeline than yours.” If they ever accuse you of not caring again, you can also say, “That’s not true, and it really hurts,” with or without adding, “We’ve all suffered a huge loss. It might be healthier to revisit this when everything is less raw.”

My friend “Carla” has this habit of asking what my plans are without telling me why she’s asking. While it’s annoying, I’ve thus far managed to navigate it with no issues. That is, until several months ago when she texted me on a Sunday asking if I was doing anything…