The juxtaposition of these two letters really struck me. Warning: both are infuriating.

Help! My Wife Needs to Stop Treating This Toy Like It’s Our Baby.

I’m a man in my 30s and have been married to my wife for six years. During that time, we have had a very painful journey in trying to have a child. Our first daughter was stillborn and our second lived for only six hours before also passing away. My wife then had a miscarriage during the third pregnancy. She decided she wanted to stop trying to have a biological child and explore other options someday.

This was last year, and since then she’s developed a bizarre habit that worries me. We’re fans of a sci-fi TV show and my wife’s sister gave her a realistic plush toy as a birthday gift. Since then, my wife has slept with it every night. She never slept with a stuffed animal before. She doesn’t bring it in public or around anyone else, so it’s not embarrassing in that way—but I just think it’s childish and weird.

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I’ve brought it up a few times and she insists that for some reason she can’t even articulate that it brings her comfort and is a “baby that she’ll never have to bury.” After asking her to put it away yet again, she got mad and slept in our guest room (with the toy). I waited until she left for work the next day and then threw it in the trash. She ended up going through our garbage shed that night to get it back and was furious and crying.

How can I get her to see that this is inappropriate for a 29-year-old adult woman and that she needs to find a different and more healthy way to grieve? I know she is in pain—I am too—but this is dumb and unreasonable.

A: It sounds to me like your wife was perfectly able to articulate what this little toy means to her—it’s small, cute, easy to cuddle, and can’t suffer or die. This woman has gone through labor twice, only to lose both babies on the other side of it, suffered a subsequent miscarriage, and now she sleeps with a plush toy at night. There’s nothing dumb or inappropriate about that. It’s just a stuffed animal. It makes her feel a little better.

Throwing it in the trash because you found this sign of comfort embarrassing was a truly ghastly, superfluously cruel thing to do, and your wife has every reason to be furious with you. Apologize to her as quickly as you can, and don’t throw away any more of her things, especially not harmless creature comforts. “I know she is in pain” is a full sentence; stop appending “but it’s stupid to take comfort in a little gift from a sibling, so I’m throwing it away the next time you’re at work” to it. I hope this is an out-of-character moment of coldness for you, and not an indicator of your general approach to your wife’s suffering.

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My husband wants me to give birth overseas in the middle of a pandemic. Should I seriously consider it? His sister’s wedding is in July, and I am supposed to visit in May with our 3-year-old and stay until after the wedding. By then I will be past 36 weeks and unable to fly back, so I want to cancel my trip altogether. He feels like I’m being unfair, as his family does not get to see our children often. His mother’s feelings mean everything to him and he is worried I will break her heart if I do not go.

His solution was giving birth there. Under different circumstances I would consider it because his family has missed out on the births of our other two children, but during this pandemic, I feel like my hesitance is justified. We live in a low COVID area—less than 1,400 total cases versus their 350,000. Please help.

A: You should not be considering your husband’s request! Do not entertain it for a moment, do not allow it to cross the threshold of possibility, do not tell him you’ll “think about it.” It would be a wildly unreasonable request even without the pandemic—”Hey, do you want to fly across the country in your third trimester and then stay in my parents’ guest room for two months, and then give birth in front of my entire family? Anything less would break my mother’s heart, and as you know, her needs are just a step ahead of yours and the unborn child you’re carrying on my list of priorities.” In the present context, it’s absolutely unhinged. If your husband truly thinks you’re being “unfair” by not wanting to fly to a higher-risk country a few weeks before your due date and waiting for your water to break while couch-surfing, he has a deeply idiosyncratic definition of fairness. This is a truly deranged request, and you should put your foot down. Don’t be “hesitant”—this is a nonstarter.

By the way, there’s nothing at all unusual about keeping in-laws/grandparents/extended family out of the delivery room; childbirth is famously challenging, exhausting, and intimate, and it’s completely natural to want to minimize the number of spectators, even if you love them. Your in-laws didn’t “miss out” on your first two deliveries. They were nonessential to the process. Cancel the trip, get support from your own friends and family if your husband tries to wear you down, and stay home.