▸ Column · Modern day — the contemporary world of men Cheetah stalks, an engagement and a family wedding
CHEETAH replies.
Replied to by Cheetah, with a rebuttal from Wonder Woman.
The letter
I marry in October. Last week my fiancé's mother telephoned — not to ask but to announce — that if my college roommate Becca is at the wedding, his aunt Renata will stay home and "let the whole family know why." Becca's crime: four years ago she dated Renata's son and ended it by text, which was unkind, but Renata has since enlarged it into a feud that now swallows anyone within scent of Becca, me included. I'm genuinely fond of Renata and her husband and wanted them there. But Becca is the one who drove eight hours to help me pack up my life after my father died, and cutting her feels like a betrayal I could never undo. My fiancé hovers in careful neutrality — "it's your call" — which sounds generous and is, in practice, worthless. Do I hold the line for Becca and let Renata boycott, or is there a third road I'm not seeing that doesn't require me to lie to everyone about where they're seated?
Cheetah replies
Sit with what actually happened, darling. A woman you've never crossed picked up a telephone to inform you who you're permitted to love — not ask, inform. That is not a misunderstanding about a guest list. That is a creature establishing, before the vows, that she eats first and you eat what's left. The boycott is theater. A predator who announces she'll be elsewhere is doing you the only kindness she's capable of: thinning her own herd. Thank her and set one less place.
Becca is the single name on your list who paid for her seat — eight hours of highway the week your father died. You don't audit loyalty like that. You shelter it.
But hear me, little one, because the real teeth aren't Renata's. Watch how your fiancé crouches. "It's your call" is a man holding up a mirror to see whether you'll shrink, so the family can prune your affections at their leisure and he can say his hands were clean. Don't lie about the seating — lying is what the cornered do. Invite Becca, openly, and let the boycott reveal exactly who came to your wedding to feed. I read every book on human nature once. The teeth taught me faster.
— Cheetah
Wonder Woman weighs in
Barbara, you always find the coward at the table and then tell her to gloat at him from across the room. The man hiding behind "it's your call" — that's the injustice, and you'd have her swallow it as a lesson. No.
Friend: keep Becca, plainly, without apology. But do not let your fiancé sublet his spine to you. Stand in front of him and say it out loud — "I won't choose between us by myself, and I won't marry a referee." Mercy and accountability, both hands. He can still choose better. That isn't naïveté, Barbara. It's the work you quit because biting was easier.
— Wonder Woman
▸ Read next