DEAR PRUDENCE
Dear Prudence: My late 30-something sister is engaged to a guy who had his kids very young (changing diapers before he could legally drink young) and got the “snip.”
He has made it crystal-clear that he is done with diapers and would rather spoil his dogs. He is well-off, handsome, funny and has a good relationship with his adult children. They like my sister. My sister thinks she can change his mind. She has been on the fence most of her adult life about kids, but keeps insisting that she would be “okay” without one (while constantly sending me inspirational emails about older women having kids and nursery decor).
Now she has been confiding in me that if her fiance “really” loves her, she should get a baby. IVF or adoption or whatever. She and her fiance are in pre-marriage counseling, and she is lying through her teeth. They are planning the wedding for this winter.
I feel I am stuck with a ticking time bomb here. If my sister wants to be a mother, and I support her a hundred percent, but I think she is deluding herself, deceiving her fiancé, and that a called-off wedding is better than an expensive divorce. Which in all candor, I have done — no one had the guts to tell me about the cheating going on in my relationship.
My sister ignores me when I tell her she needs to be honest now and not “change” her mind once the ring is on her finger. Our parents are dead and extended family is far away and limited. Help. — Secret Keeper
Dear Secret Keeper: It feels like the only thing left to do is to tell the fiance, but I don’t think you ought to go that far.
It may save him some strife, but it also would draw you further into a situation that’s just going to keep creating stress. Your sister may have a covert plan, but I don’t feel like you’re betraying her fiance by not spilling the beans.
Trust that he’s going into this with his eyes open and if she does make a switcheroo after the wedding date, he has the skills to advocate for himself.
Your sister is setting herself up for failure here and, at this point, she’s got to make this mistake on her own. And, who knows, this may not be a miscalculation. Maybe the line that her fiancé has drawn in the sand isn’t as strong as it seems. I doubt it.
But if she won’t listen to reason and is going into a marriage actively planning on disrupting it, this is probably not a problem you can solve.