Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Delia Cai is filling in as Prudie for Jenée Desmond-Harris while she’s on parental leave. Submit questions here.

Dear Prudence,

My friend is getting married this year. I’m so happy for her, and I can tell how happy she and her fiancé are. The issue is her fiancé’s family. We are all very liberal and his family are intense MAGA Republicans. She has been great at setting boundaries with them (her fiancé less so, his family mistreats him and he doesn’t stand up to them when they come for her).

Now, to the situation at hand. I have a signature jacket that I love. It has a very leftist political message on the back. My friend, the bride, has asked that I wear it to the wedding. I am THRILLED to do so. Most people on her fiancé’s side will definitely be less thrilled. I’m fine with this—I firmly believe in making bigots uncomfortable, especially in public spaces since the current administration is making public racism, transphobia, and general bigotry “cool again.”

My friend told me that if anyone comes up to me and says anything about my jacket, I can send them her way. I don’t think I’ll do that for two reasons: She’s the bride and should enjoy her wedding and not deal with bigots whose precious feelings are hurt by a jacket, and also, I have zero problems fielding any complaints. So, what’s the etiquette around honoring a bride’s request for her wedding even if it might make other guests uncomfortable or angry?

—Go to Hell

Dear Go,

Personally, I’m not convinced that it’s ever a good idea to use a wedding as an occasion for anything other than celebrating the happy couple. Previous letter writers have asked about whether they should reconcile with an estranged parent for the sake of a more picture-perfect ceremony, or alternately, whether they should add certain charitable giving options to their wedding registry that risk incensing MAGA family members. I advised them both against it. I don’t think weddings are too sacred to be mixed with politics or thorny family dynamics. But in my experience, no one is truly prepared for how stressful weddings become all on their own—without these added stressful factors into the mix.

If you were the bride in this scenario, and you yourself wanted to wear this jacket, I would ultimately allow that you should get to wear what you want on your and your soon-to-be-spouse’s day. (Still, I would interrogate your desire to upset your in-laws on a day that’s significantly important to them, too—it’s simply not going to set a great precedent for in-law relations, or even the potential for amicable relations, going forward.)

But in this situation, you’re not the bride, and so I feel strongly about cautioning you against this role that your friend, the bride, is somewhat recklessly asking you to take on for her wedding. It sounds like your friend is using you to upset her in-laws (again, on an important occasion), and I doubt she has fully considered the consequences of, so to speak, coming that hot out of the gate on her wedding day for herself and the consequences for you as the person who everyone will remember as the “person who ruined the wedding’s vibe.” You should consider the possibility that this jacket choice could go over quite badly; even if you personally don’t mind that kind of attention, at the end of the day, it is still attention that is being taken away from the whole purpose of the nuptials. You should tell your friend that you appreciate her request, but that you’d rather not distract from the point of the day. There are 364 other days in the year that your friend (and you) can spend confronting bigots. There will be no shortage of opportunities. On this one day, I urge you both to consider celebrating unity—at least that of this couple—over division.

Dear Prudence, 

I have been with my husband for five years. We’ve been married for three. We both have jobs we go to during the day. After work, I go home to cook and clean. He hangs out with his friends and comes home to eat. He immediately wants to get in bed, have sex, and go to sleep. Sometimes when I can get him to watch a show with me, he ends up paying more attention to me than the show. We hardly go on dates anymore. We always end up at home in bed. He does like dates to the club, casino, or his friends’ houses. I do not care for those places anymore. He wants me to dress sexy when we go out. I do not feel comfortable showing off.

Lately, we keep getting into arguments that boil down to man versus woman. He keeps telling me that what I think is stupid. Sometimes I think he does not care about what he’s saying as long as he wins the argument. He will say things like, “She probably deserved it because her roast was dry” or “She wasn’t giving enough blowjobs.” I love him—he was not always like this. This is a complete change from when we first started dating. He would tell me how smart I am. He is dead set against couples counseling. He thinks only weak people need counseling. He says if I went along with everything he says, we would be fine, which I don’t mind doing mostly. I just don’t want to be called stupid if my opinion happens to differ from his. What can I say to him so he doesn’t call me stupid or should I keep my mouth shut from now on?

—Opinionated Wife

Dear Opinionated,

“He says if I went along with everything he says, we would be fine.” I want you to reread this sentence you wrote in your letter, and I want you to consider what you’d say if a friend said this to you about her marriage.

Your husband might not have always been “like this” in the past, but it’s clear that right now, in the present and foreseeable future, he is extremely controlling and unwilling to consider your personhood in any way. There is no room in this relationship for your needs or desires; it’s his way or the highway. If he can’t afford you a basic degree of respect (regularly calling your thoughts “stupid” is unacceptable and counts as verbal abuse, in my opinion), I feel strongly that this marriage is not good for you and you need to get out.

A healthy relationship of any kind requires mutual respect and acknowledgment of both people’s needs. That is the baseline requirement of a partnership, not a “nice to have” aspect of a marriage. There is nothing you can say to someone who refuses to treat you as an equal that will suddenly convince them to act differently; if you simply keep your mouth shut and try to do what he says, your life will only feel smaller and more suffocating. You need to tell him that you’re fed up and exiting a relationship that so obviously does not serve you. Find the people in your life that can help you draw up a safe exit plan. Remember: You don’t even need to warn him. You can absolutely just leave.

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Dear Prudence,

I met this guy on an online dating site. We got along great and we’re into the same things. We’ve been messaging each other for almost five months but we haven’t met up yet. Turns out the guy is in jail! My friends and my family say I should drop him and find someone better but I feel a real connection with this man. What should I do?

—Hopeless Romantic

Dear Hopeless,

I don’t think the fact that this man is in jail is the actual problem here. He hasn’t been upfront about himself or his life with you during these past five months! Any relationship that begins with deception (which includes conveniently leaving very important details about yourself out) is never a good idea, which is what I think should unnerve you the most. People are imperfect and make all kinds of mistakes, but being dishonest to someone they’re trying to pursue romantically is not the kind of behavior you should ever excuse.

Dear Prudence,

My marriage ended a decade ago because my husband was having an affair. He eventually married the woman. It was a very difficult and stressful time for me, especially as my daughter had just gone away to college. But that was 10 years ago. I have since moved on. I went back to school, started a great career, and am seeing a wonderful man.

My daughter never had a warm relationship with her father’s wife, but her recent behavior is disturbing. My daughter is engaged and planning a destination wedding. However, my ex’s wife received the horrible news that she has cancer, and it is aggressive. She will need serious and immediate treatment and the prognosis isn’t good. My ex has begged our daughter to consider having the wedding stateside because he doesn’t want to leave the country while his wife is sick.

My daughter refuses. She says she doesn’t care and that if he doesn’t attend, it is proof that he doesn’t love her enough. My ex called me asking me to intervene and when I talked to my daughter, she didn’t deny any of it. She straight up said he needs to prove she is more important than his wife. I was shocked. I told my daughter that was petty and purposefully cruel. As hurt as I was back then, this woman most likely will die and my ex is going to have to watch. I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on my own worst enemy. My daughter snapped at me and said that I couldn’t judge her. Now she refuses to speak about the subject. I feel completely lost. It is very hard to be cheerful about wedding details when there is so much spite under the surface. What do I do here?

—Shocked and Sad

Dear Shocked,

Your daughter is on a warpath, and I think it’s best to get out of the way. She’s making some wildly cruel demands of your ex, yes, but this conflict exists within the wider arena of their father-daughter relationship. Your daughter is using this opportunity to unleash years of anger and betrayal that she’s long since felt toward her father, and that is her—admittedly very misguided—decision to do so.

Meanwhile, you are at risk of being put in a situation where you are forced to take sides. I would urge you to establish a few boundaries that limit your own involvement with the wedding planning so that you don’t get sucked in further. For example, you may want to limit discussion of the wedding with your daughter to one or two dedicated phone calls per week, rather than treat it as an ongoing daily conversation. Then make it clear to your daughter that while you don’t approve of ultimatums, you will no longer discuss the subject with her. Leave her and your ex in their arena together; one way or another, they’ll have to duke this one out on their own.

Dear Prudence,

I moved to a new town and joined a group. One person appeared to take me under their wing and I initially appreciated meeting for lunch. However, they asked me to drive them to a short appointment before one of our lunches, and during the trip, they started screaming at me because I had taken a route they did not like. This completely rattled me. We arrived on time and I politely said they could drive to future appointments alone. We went on a tour with the group and this group member rushed me around to hide us from them, telling me to hurry so we could avoid certain people. They bad-mouthed the broader group and said, “Believe me they won’t like you.” I have since eased away from this person and they are extremely angry. They have called and angrily accused me of not staying in touch. I told them I’d been busy. I know ghosting is bad but I’ve seen the way they have loudly yelled at their family and others. I just need to be away from them. Is it too tacky to disappear?

—To Ghost or Not to Ghost

Dear Ghost,

This person has not treated you kindly, and you don’t owe them any kind of explanation. I suppose you could tell them, “You have not been nice to me, and I don’t want to spend time with you” if you really wanted to spell it out, but you don’t need to give much consideration to anyone who screams at you like that. They were clearly not doing you a favor by taking you under their wing originally; they wanted to win you over so that they could control you and push you around. That’s not a friend, that’s a bully.

—Delia

Classic Prudie

My mother recently installed an indoor smart camera at our family cabin “for security,” and insists it is left on even when we’re there (i.e. just my husband and I or with my other siblings and their partners, friends, what have you). We all feel very uncomfortable with this, as none of us trust her not to spy on us or use it against us. She insists she’ll never look at it when we’re there and that we’re never to unplug it just in case, but just recently we were up and put a box over it (it has a 360-degree swivel so it’s not as simple as blocking it) and she lost it on us, and said I know who covered it, all but proving our fears that she is using it to spy on us…

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