Couple disagrees about parenting
Dear Amy: My husband and I are raising my husband’s nephew, who is 15. He has lied to us many times and often completely disregards our house rules.
This past weekend my husband and I were gone for the evening and he was supposed to stay home, but when we came home at midnight, he was not home.
I was very angry and upset when he did get home because we didn’t know where he was, and because he completely ignored what he had been told to do. I told him he was grounded. Now my husband says I overreacted and that it’s crazy for me not to expect him to disobey the rules sometimes.
He ignores the rules lots of times and I feel when he ignores them there should be consequences. Am I crazy? — Worried
Dear Worried: I’m with you. You don’t say if you have other children, but if your nephew landed with you, it seems possible that he has already had a tough life. You need to take his circumstances into account, pick your battles and work together to get this kid across the finish line.
He will break the rules — all teens do — but all of this will be made worse if you and your husband don’t agree on consequences.
Dear Amy: I appreciate your answer to “Disappointed,” a wife whose husband routinely ignored her expertise regarding computer and internet issues, while immediately trusting a male source on these very same questions.
Your writer wasn’t “spousehacked.” She got “hepeated.” Look it up! — Faithful Reader
Dear Reader: I did look it up, and here’s what the internet tells me about “hepeating.” This comes from astronomer and professor Nicole Gugliucci, who tweeted the word’s definition and how to use it.
Here’s Gugliucci’s Tweet: “My friends coined a word: hepeated. For when a woman suggests an idea and it’s ignored, but then a guy says same thing and everyone loves it.”
At the risk of “shepeating,” I was trying very hard not to label this as a genderspecific behavior, but as a respect issue between spouses.
In short, I’ve seen women do this, too.
Send email to askamy @amydickinson.com.