Should you wait until after holidays to break up?
Carolyn answers reader questions via Instagram.
How should the holidays factor in to when and whether to break up with someone?
Either you’re the person who gets dumped on Thanksgiving, or you’re the person who gets dumped the week after Thanksgiving and realizes the whole long holiday weekend with your shmoopie was a pity charade. There’s no good answer. If you have a breakup coming, then think carefully about what you’d want and your soon-to-be-ex would want before deciding what day it arrives.
How do I [17 and female] tell my parents I feel the need to check into a mental hospital?
Promptly. Please. It’s the help that matters, not how you get it. Either tell them, “I need help,” or ask a friend/ sibling/other relative to tell them for you, or tell another trusted adult, or alert your doctor through a call to the front desk. Text HOME to 741741 (crisistextline.org). Or write a note, or screenshot this, and hand it to someone.
Seeing this truth is brave. Act now, take care, let us know how you’re doing (if you’d like).
How do I get over someone that was never mine?
No one is ever ours, except ourselves, and even that can feel tenuous sometimes. Think of how many things we do involuntarily.
Anyway. The fastest way to get over someone you want who doesn’t want you back is to want something else besides pining. Two of the best feelings in the world are 1. to want your own company foremost, and to be pleasantly enhanced by whatever you get beyond that; and 2. to have good people in your life who want to be there. The “someone” you refer to gives you neither.
So, summon whatever of your attention is under your control (more and more over time, I assume, as your pain grows less acute), and shine it on those two things: finding more ways to enjoy your own company more, and finding more people who enjoy your company.
By “fastest” I don’t mean fast — inner repairs take time.
How can I let go of missed opportunities from my past?
Appreciate the new opportunities you have, thanks to missing those other ones. Don’t like the opportunities you have? Then work toward better ones. Dwelling on missed opportunities only extends your losses. Futures can be reshaped; pasts can only be reframed.
Should I break up with my boyfriend for refusing to get vaccinated?
At this point? Yes. Critical thinking skills count.
Mother-in-law is drama, keeps talking about me because things aren’t how she’d do it.
Drama needs an audience. This is you from now on: “Interesting, thanks.” “Interesting, thanks.” “Interesting, thanks.” Row after row after row of empty velvet seats.
Meanwhile, do show up as her audience for behaviors of hers that you’d welcome. “Hey, I love how you ____. Would you be willing to teach me?” Or: “Tell me about when [spouse] was little.” Or: “How did that thing at work turn out?” Or: Whatever. If you’ve got drama, then learn how to (re)direct.
How can people keep themselves engaged in a relationship for years and years?
Each chooses to be curious, engaged with life, growing till the end, open-minded about the other’s growth. These are what we control, at least. The rest: luck, timing, and shared tastes in TV.