#782: Splitting holidays with not-so-blended families.

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CaptainAwkward.com

Dear Captain Awkward:

I’ve been reading your blog and I really like your answers. Hopefully you can help me with a problem I’m having. I have no perspective.

I recently remarried (about 5 years ago), and my (second) husband’s parents treat me, and most especially my kids, as though we aren’t family. They don’t even really treat us as guests. It’s more that we’re accompaniments to my husband. He has two brothers, one remarried (but both wives provided ‘actual’ grandchildren), and one married for like 25 years; they, and all of their kids, are obviously all ‘family.’

But my kids and I aren’t. My husband’s mom, when my husband brought this up with her (that I was sad visiting because we weren’t talked to, and because I hoped we’d be part of the family), consisted of: “I’m not going to lose any sleep over (my sadness / my children’s isolation…

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Não confunda Mamona com Castor

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Ponto Discrepante

É meio bizarro o título, mas é que eu já vi gente fazendo essa confusão algumas vezes, e achei que daria um post interessante. Sabe, às vezes acho tem gente que faz questão de ficar procurando sarna para se coçar. São bem populares essas listas de “empresas cruelty free (ou não)”, “ingredientes de origem animal”, “ingredientes perigosos ou que você deve evitar”, etc. Tem gente que segue à risca tudo que está nelas, sem questionar a qualidade e averiguação das informações.

O caso que eu vou comentar é de um ingrediente que eu já vi sendo hostilizado por aí por causa de falha de tradução, desconhecimento dos termos técnicos corretos e coincidência. Além dessa falha de tradução estar num dos sites mais procurados por quem procura essa listinha de ingredientes animais.

O tal ingrediente é o Castor Oil.  Devido a uma propriedade bem peculiar dele*, ele é amplamente utilizado…

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#715: “I am not here for your talk of boys.”

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CaptainAwkward.com

Dear Captain,

My straight friends will not stop talking about boys. Specifically, if they have boyfriends: How awful their boyfriends and sex lives are (in excruciating detail). If they don’t have boyfriends, it’s all stuff like the latest japanese dating sim they’ve found, and how hot the (disturbingly, rapey) plot lines are and dick in general, to me, a Lesbian.

With the boyfriend thing, it’s always about how condescending/annoying/lazy/useless their boyfriends are, or how horrible they are in bed, how much vaginal sex hurts/is boring, and when I say: Then why don’t you break up with him? They gasp and clutch their pearls and subject me to another tirade about how he is really a Nice Guy and he’s been getting SO much better since they told him all his problems and he folded one whole shirt this week! Without being asked! So I’m being cruel/judgmental/I don’t know what I’m…

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701: “How do I care for my ill and grieving mom when I am stretched so thin myself?”

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CaptainAwkward.com

Dear Captain Awkward,

One year ago my father passed away. It was a several year battle against cancer that he eventually lost, and I still miss him deeply.

My mother has struggled in the aftermath. She has been overwhelmed with loneliness and sank into a depression. She loved my father deeply and he was her rock, both emotionally and in a more practical sense (bills, caretaking, house upkeep).

Lately she has struggled more deeply because a chronic pain issue flared up. She has been to numerous doctor appointments, tried multiple medications and treatments, with no improvements. The medications make her groggy and confused, and she has been having trouble sleeping on top of everything. It seems like her life is a waking nightmare.

I love my mom very much, but I am struggling with how to help her. I am an only child, and we have few extended family members…

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#687: My boyfriend won’t stop trying to fix me.

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CaptainAwkward.com

Hello! 

I’m struggling to find good ways to respond to my boyfriend when he tells me what I should or need to be doing. I’m in therapy to recover and get to a place where I think that I’m good enough & love and trust myself again (after years growing up having that constantly undermined), and therapy has been going very well. 

I believe that my boyfriend (of almost 2.5 years) wants to help me succeed, be better, and do what we both know I’m capable of. The way he goes about it though, is damaging my self-esteem and is a constant source of “you’re not good enough” for me. 

He wants me to exercise more, eat healthier, help out more with the cleaning, and take better care of myself. All good things. But the way he goes about it is “you need to exercise today”. If I tell him…

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