Sister expecting child stays with manipulative husband
Dear Carolyn: My sister is married to a guy who is great on paper, but just doesn’t seem great for her. We (brother, parents, me) all have done our best to accept her decision on a spouse, but our relationship with him was always just cordial. She complained frequently that he belittles her, disrespects her, ignores her, emotionally manipulates her and is dishonest about major life issues. She became less confident in herself, and less fun.
Recently, she said she would be seeking a divorce and we responded enthusiastically (maybe too much so?). We lauded her for being brave, standing up for herself and risking the fear and perceived embarrassment of leaving a marriage.
Then, Sister finds out she is pregnant, Husband apologizes and everything is suddenly sunshine and rainbows.
While they were separated, sister told us a lot about her husband that is truly awful — factual actions he took, rather than tainted views of why/how he did things. Now, she expects us to wholeheartedly support their marriage and pending offspring.
The problem is, I don’t. There is not a huge likelihood I will ever trust him again or be friends with him. I think the choice of having a child alone or terminating the pregnancy was terrifying, and I think she was shocked into staying in a loveless marriage, a decision she will regret in just a few years, when leaving will be harder and more complicated. I have told her as much, directly, and she has said we need to “support” her. Is this no longer any of my business? Or does she need a balance to the false “we’re suddenly blissful” narrative.
— I Just Want To Pry
Yes, it’s no longer any of your business, technically. It’s also not your place to provide “balance” to her views. She can lie to herself all she wants.
Except she did say you “need to ‘support’ her” — I agree with her on that — which means you have some leeway still to decide what “support” in a situation like this would actually look like.
Pretending to buy her sunshineand-rainbows story might be what she meant, but it is your place to decide you won’t pretend for or lie to anybody. You’re as entitled to your integrity here as you are anywhere else.
Plus, going along with a fictional narrative can be dangerous, if there’s abuse involved. Let’s say she persuades you to agree to this, and you all play along that everything’s fine. She may feel pressured to save face and maintain the facade, even if things go badly wrong and she needs your help.
So I suggest a more forthright kind of support. “I can’t unhear what you told me about Husband and your marriage. I also completely, 100%, respect your right to live your life as you choose. And I can have an open mind. So here’s my last word on this: I am rooting for all of you, and here for you and the baby, always, no questions asked.” The people who, in this moment, don’t judge her, lie to her, told-you-so her, doubt her or put her on the defensive are, when she’s ready for them, the safest place she can be.
For at least the past couple of seasons, the Blue Jackets had little need to feel dread when one of their players was sent to the penalty box.
Columbus was pretty effective playing a man down. But like so much of their game this season, the Jackets find themselves adrift now when opponents are on the power play.
They have given up eight goals in their past nine games in that situation and have surrendered goals in three of their past seven short-handed situations.
Entering Tuesday’s game against visiting Chicago, Columbus ranked 26th in the NHL in in preventing power-play goals at 73.8%. Last year, the Jackets successfully staved off goals 81.7% of the time, 12th in the NHL. In 2018-19, Columbus ranked second at 85.0%.
“We’ve been a real top penalty kill for a long time,” captain Nick Foligno said, “so I’m not worried about us getting back to that. The guys take a ton of pride in it. Yeah, it’s been a fluky start to the year for us.”
Coach John Tortorella cited several
issues with the penalty kill.
“It comes down to winning more battles,” he said. “It comes down to when you do have the puck, making sure it gets out. There’s been a lot of second opportunities — we have a chance to get (the puck) out and it doesn’t get out.”
Faceoffs are also a problem.
According to puckbase.com, the Jackets are winning only 38.3% of faceoffs when short-handed.
“But we’ve won some faceoffs, and we (still) don’t get it out (of the zone),” Tortorella said. He said that the Jackets
always have a set play or strategy coming out of faceoffs.
“It’s not as easy as you win a faceoff, and it should be out of the end zone,” Tortorella said. “I get that, because (opponents are) forechecking, too. But we have had opportunities on our first touch to put it into an area where we can get it out, and we just have not done it. We’ve been inconsistent. We’ve been sloppy, and it’s affected us.”
The penalty kill was effective early in the season. Columbus gave up only three power-play goals in its first 10 games.
Tortorella has said repeatedly that the Jackets haven’t been consistently played in sync, and that applies to the penalty
kill.
“I think we need to stay connected,” defenseman Seth Jones said. “I think we’ve been on different pages at moments. Especially when you’re down a man and not everyone’s doing their job, it ends up in the net. I think if everyone’s just 5% better and just a little bit smarter, I think that’ll take care of itself.”
The penalty kill hasn’t been a disappointment in all ways. The Jackets lead the NHL in short-handed goals with four. Cam Atkinson has scored three of them.
But the main job of that unit is to prevent goals.
“I think it’s a trust factor,” Foligno said. “As a four-man group, we take a lot of pride, the guys that are out there on the penalty kill. For whatever reason, we just haven’t had that ability to keep them out of our net, and so you start to try to maybe do too much and it opens yourself up. But you can see that we’re a dangerous group. When we get an opportunity to go, we’re gonna go.”
Ever the optimist, the captain believes the Jackets are on the verge of turning the corner on the penalty kill.
“I like the steps we took even though we got scored on last game,” Foligno said, referring to Nashville’s first goal in a 4-2 win over Columbus on Saturday. “We took a lot of really good steps, and I thought had a lot of momentum off of our penalty kill. I think we’re going to see more of that as we go down the stretch here.”
brabinowitz@dispatch.com