S3: I am ready. OK, the subject line of this letter is Home Improvements Damaging Our Friendship. Dear Prudence, back in October, my good friends Jane, Ellen and I had a Zoome happy hour in which Jane told us that she had something to say to us and it might sound bitchy. Written with an asterisks, I will add, she asked us to stop asking her boyfriend James for help with our home projects. James is extremely handy and can do woodwork, carpentry, electrical work, etc.. Ellen and I were both pretty offended as we felt we had. Each only asked James for help once recently. But Jane explained that everyone is always asking him for help and it’s hard for him to say no and consequently he doesn’t do his work around their house. No, James and Jane are not married. Jane owns the house, but James lives there and pays her rent. They have been dating for about ten years.

Ellen hasn’t spoken to Jane since that night as she is much closer to James than I am and resented Jane’s request. I continued to hang out with Jane socially. Distance mostly hikes until two weeks ago when my furnace broke. I still honor Jane’s request, I thought, but I called James in tears, telling him the home warranty company and my assigned contractor were most likely scamming me and I did not know what to do. We spoke on the phone and he gave me the name of his buddy who could put in my furnace. I honestly didn’t think I did anything wrong until Jane contacted me the next day asking why I ignored her request and clearly didn’t care about her. I said I didn’t think a phone conversation constituted asking for help, but she said that it derailed him for the rest of the day and he was distracted, although it didn’t end up being a, quote, big deal. I was shocked at her reaction, honestly hurt that I wasn’t even allowed to call James when I was in a crisis. She and James are in counseling. They’ve had many problems over the years. And I truly think she’s frustrated because she cannot control him. James has been laid off from his union job since before Christmas and often advertises about his woodworking projects on Facebook. So I think he is making his own conscious decisions not to help her around the house. Jane is the my way or the highway type of person. So unless I approach her apologetically, this could end up lasting a very long time. We have been friends for twenty one years. What do you suggest? I do?


S1: I certainly agree that Jane has been bringing a lot of energy to this, but I don’t think she’s the only my way or the highway person in this situation. Like I read this letter and I thought, like, you are putting yourself through so much additional, like stress and trauma when you could just look up a handyman in the Yellow Pages and not have to do all of that. Like there’s such an easy out here, which is just what a fuckin mess is this relationship and the question of what kind of work he is and isn’t available to do. Why don’t you just call a damn handyman?

S4: Yeah, I yeah, I found so much about this to be problematic. And there were so many, like, added details about Jane and James’s relationship. And I don’t know, I think how it ended with saying, you know, she’s the my way or the highway type of person. And so unless I approach her apologetically, this could end up lasting a very long time. I feel like that’s maybe all you need to know about this friendship. Like maybe this is, you know, if you’re having to work on these, you know, eggshells that maybe you have put there yourself, I don’t know. Like, I just I don’t know that this is a friendship worth continuing to invest in.

S1: To me, I feel like it’s been a rough year for everybody. Tempers are often wearing thin. And, you know, this is a friendship of 21 years. So I feel like my my advice here would be let this one go. And once things have settled down a little bit, if you want to have a different bigger picture conversation with Jane about how you two bring up problems with one another, how you to resolve conflict, you know, do that, not when this is kind of feeling like the final straw rather than everything sucks. This friendship sucks. Let’s get rid of it. You can always do that later. You know, like you always have the option of deciding this friendship is not worth it. But don’t don’t go to that first. Hear like. Yeah. You know, it’s also a little weird because it seems like it seems like you’ve known James for a decade. You know, you say that Ellen is closer to him than you are, but like, it’s a little weird that you’ve never asked him. Like, how do you feel about that request? Well, you know, like, it’s odd that you never sought his input.

S3: Yeah, I think James is kind of at the center of this and and I’m not hearing him here. This is like a lot of people talking around this person and like a lot of rules for James that I’m not sure that James is involved in making or even following. Like it really struck me when this letter writer said, you know, that Jane was really upset because of her request, made it so James going to do the things that Jane wanted him to do.

S4: You know, I’m just I’m not quite sure what James wants here. And I’m very curious if we can, like, call James and find out. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think that maybe maybe the three of them could have a conversation instead of pairing off and talking about each other and just say, you know, I think I agree, let this one go. But maybe in the future, maybe just like talk altogether instead of talking about James.

S1: Yeah, but like, fundamentally, I think if your good friend comes to you and says, hey, I’m sorry if this bitchy, but I want you to stop asking my boyfriend for help with home projects. He’s been laid off. A lot of people are asking him for help and it’s taking up a lot of his time. Maybe she is speaking more on his behalf than he would want. But like, they’ve also been together for ten years. And unless you have reason to think that she’s, like, actively going out of her way to manipulate him or to, like, prevent other people from talking to him, I think you can kind of just trust that they’ve probably had a conversation about it. So, like, what she said to you was not you two are exclusively responsible for his overwork. She just said a lot of people have been doing this. No one person is trying to take up too much space. But cumulatively, it ends up being a lot. And you say you got offended, which. You know, you’re allowed to feel whatever you feel, but I don’t think you should have been offended. She was not saying you to have been ruining his life. She was just saying a lot of people have done this. It’s not a good time. So rather than getting kind of like in high dudgeon and saying like but I only ask for help once, I think that would have been a really great opportunity just to say, oh, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to step on your guys toes. I won’t do it.

S4: Yeah, thanks for letting me know. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. And so like that. Then your furnace broke. You called him crying, asking him to solve this problem for you and he like it sounds like kind of walk you through it. Found you another guy. Like I honestly didn’t think that that was asking him for help. Well come on. Of course you called the man sobbing and asked him to fix your problem. No, he didn’t come over and fix the furnace yourself. But like, by any definition, you asked him for help.

S3: Yeah. I think what a practical thing here is this person that James referred her to, his his buddy. I would just save Buddy’s number and her phone and just call Buddy next time.

S1: Skip James, make it easier and just I get that when your furnace breaks in the middle of the winter. That’s stressful and scary, but. You don’t say why you thought that you were being scammed, and so I’m just like, were you perhaps just like, why did you think that? And if so, do you think that James is the only reliable, trustworthy handyman in the world? I don’t think that you think that. I think that you were feeling exhausted and overwhelmed and you wanted to address that before. You wanted to honor what Jane had asked of you because you thought it was kind of bullshit that she asked that of you in the first place. It’s fine to be overwhelmed. It’s fine to be annoyed by a friend’s request. But don’t pretend that you didn’t ask for help just because you feel justified. You did you did the thing you told her you weren’t going to do. I think a better thing either would have been at the time to say, I’m going to talk to James about this directly and see how he feels and then have honest and open conflict with Jane, which would at least have been out in the open or to just say, you know, yeah, you got it. Sorry, sorry. I made life a little tougher, won’t do it again. And then privately think like maybe she was being a little dramatic, but it’s no real skin off my nose. Yeah, I, I think you should apologize. I think you should apologize. And then if you think later there’s other stuff that was bothering me before this that made me not really want to honor her request. You can talk about it when tensions are running quite so high.

S4: But like, I think that’s wise. Maybe send over something for their next zoom. Happy hour.

S1: Oh, that’s sweet. Yeah. Like you say that he advertises his woodworking projects on Facebook. Is that the same thing as giving you free help? Like is he advertising his services for money so he can make money?

S4: I was very curious about that because when I first read it, I was like, oh, he’s he’s advertising his services for money. That’s how I read it. And then reading it for the second time, I was like, oh, is James just putting like, oh, hey, I built these new bookshelves. I want everyone to see it on Facebook. Like, is that what it means by, like, showing his woodworking projects? I was I think that there’s a few key things maybe left out of this letter that kind of protect the letter writer. I was kind of feeling that.

S1: So, yeah, to me, the key was like, you know, she and James are in counseling. They’ve had many problems over the years. They’re not married. And I think she’s frustrated because she can’t control him. Maybe all that’s true. I’m pretty sure you’re not going to solve that problem by trying to, like, undermine what you see as her attempts to control him by, like, kind of trying to control him yourself. So that’s not doing anybody any good. I think you should apologize. I don’t think you should try to litigate their relationship. I think you should let this one go. And then if later you want to talk to Jane about your friendship writ large, you could do that. You can disagree with her. You can have a tough conversation. You can tell her that she has traits that piss you off, have a fight, just don’t have it because you refuse to concede you’ve behaved at all, you know, slightly like, oh, my left hand doesn’t know what my right hand is doing. It does. Come on.

S4: Can I make a prediction, please? I think Ellen and James are going to end up together.

S1: Oh, interesting. Interesting. Yeah. God, Ellen, stop talking to Jane because James said, hey, would you guys stop asking my boyfriend for free home improvement projects? It’s just like, again, unless I’m really missing something. You stop talking to your friend because of that.

S4: Yeah. And the mention of, like, Ellen is closer to him. And then also, like, you know, all the mentions about how many problems Jane and James are having. I think Ellen and James are just meeting up at the hardware store. So that’s all I’m going to say.

S1: Tell you. Yeah, this you know, this silent carpenter who’s kind of caught between three women with different investments. And in him is it’s kind of hot or it could be kind of hot if it didn’t sound so exhausting. Besides, exhausting things could be hot and. Anyways, all right, good luck to all of you. Good luck with your furnace.