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Moving in with Engaged couple: do/don't advice needed
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I guess looking back you don't get as fed up with it as I do. I just don't see the need to put up with people playing those games.
Stay right away from their arguments, leave the room, if necessary, tell them to go to theirs. Your room, and joint living areas are all neutral areas. Don't worry about being impolite, arguing in front of you is just about the most impolite thing they can do without spitting on you.
For some reason she seems to enjoy using you against your friend. Tell her to stop doing this immediately. It is unfair because she is tricking you, and it couls end up damaging your relationship with your friend.
I am strongly Atheist, and have friends who, whilst they aren't 'fundies' in the usual sense of the word, do take their beliefs very seriously. Any time a conversation veers toward religion, I just stop talking. If someone asks me my views, I tell them, and that is it. I'm not the most eloquent person, and I don't like upsetting people, nor do I enjoy peole arguing what I know with what they believe, especially when they start quoting the bible and claiming Einstein was a Christian. So I try to avoid all talk of religion.
I have lived with my girlfriends Christian older brother, and a Korean Buddhist girl visiting Australia, and get on fabulously with both of them.
As an engaged girl who has flatted with her "significant other" for 4+ years with others I cannot emphasize this enough. She's behaving in a manor I would describe as destructive, and just plain mean.
If it were me, and they started to fight, I'd make some kind of jokey comment along the lines of "get a room, geez!" :P
I don't think I ever had a serious disagreement with my BF in public, and anything above joking level I tried to bring up in private. And just to let you know, we were flatting with extremely good friends in one situation, and casual friends / randoms in the other. So I behaved in both situations
Good luck. Set some rules, and stick to them. I think frankness is the only way to survive in the situation you've described.
So, they won't have sex before marriage for moral reasons, but he wants strippers?!?
but they're listening to every word I say
fixt
Then you deserve a cookie!
Frankness. I shall work on this. Cool. Since I am the real-life equivalent of Tweek from South Park however, this will be a challenge. I am usually the sort to go 'Argh!' and have a secret desire to go hide in a corner rather than actually be firm and frank
The best thing you can do, is stay out of the fights. Do not take sides. YOU are switzerland. If they ask you to take sides, tell them they are both asshats. This does not mean you can't take your friend aside and say "hey, she's right your an idiot, but I didn't want to say anythying in front of her"
I would even make it a house rule that there is no fighting in the common areas like the living room or kitchen. Nothing worse than trying to make something to eat or watch tv and have WW3 erupt in your lap.
Draw your lines early, and stick to them. Roomies have a way of becoming very annoying without realizing that they are doing so, because most people don't tell them that their habits are annoying, like leaving dirty dishes everywhere and things like that. If you let things slide it's way harder to get them to change it.
1.) They fight over the phone. He tells me to answer it only to then try and do the 'tell her i don't want to talk to her' when she called him to apologise. I make sure he gorram talks to her since she is pleading to me. But he'll do it again i'm sure.
2.) She actually listened when i told her not to do that, as I quickly cottonned on to her 'i'm annoyed at mr.fiance, but don't want to hang up...here talk to Lacroix' and called her on it. Though she still puts me in the middle when they are happy... like if she's cooking food I have to talk to him on the phone while she eats (she hands me phone and i feel too cruel to hang up)... but I can't talk alone, she has to chime in on the convo, so I have two people talking at me and can't hear one of them, so I basically ended up as a secretary.
I hate that I agree with her so much though. Not getting involved is... harder. They fight so often, but i've told her she is my friend too, because she keeps thinking of me as just his friend, and whenever she complains says how much she loves me in a way that seems like shes justifying it to me in case i worry. I thought it would be best to say 'as far as I am concerned there are three people in this house. Not me and a couple. You can talk to me and so can he, i'm not Mr.Fiances best friend and you are not his girl in these conversations, because it'll drive us both nuts if we can't talk about personal shit as individuals' - no idea if this was a rod for my own back, but i just hated the idea that she felt as cornered as I was because she was seeing me as part of a couple in a sense as well by being his best friend.
She can talk to me about him, and I tell her when she's crazy and when she's not without outright expressing I THINK HE'S BEING A...
BUT I did a pretty over the line, though well intentioned thing... After one of their rows (he told us one of his friends would be staying over on a weekly basis the night before he arrived... and it was only me and his gf even in the darn house) - she intimated that the only reason she wanted to get married at this juncture because she bought the dress already. It was kinda jokey but not enough that I thought she wasn't serious so I told her that that wasn't a good enough reason to get married, because that would make her unhappy in the long run.
We seem ok now but she did give me such a 'wtf are you saying' look. I still maintain a 'don't involve me' during their actual rows but I don't think I regret saying what I said. If thats the only reason she can think of, neither her nor him would be happy and their marriage would be based on lies (I did NOT say that part). I added to the statement all kinds of addendums 'shes been busy lately stressing about wedding plans, her job is also a stress' and obviously i'll never say anything to try and stop them, but jeez. If she comes out with this again, what do I say? I could ignore it but she's sharp and that wouldn't go unnoticed. I could lie and say 'no i think you really work as a couple'. But my goodness... she sounds willing to enter into a marriage just because shes halfway there and nothing else. To me thats a much worse issue than 'Man i want to call the wedding off'.
Theyre okay with not arguing in front of me now, and keeping me seperate from their shit and not putting me in the middle and including me in their fights directly. But I do like them both in an odd sort of way
and indirectly, I want them to be able to talk to me if they have issues, and mainly I just go 'mm' because I know they're just venting and all they need is a sounding board. But he's a fool and can't fathom what he's done wrong ever, or how to apologise... and she's way meaner than she has to be, and makes fights out of things that don't need to be.
Do I even further extricate myself and rule that I can't even listen to them vent? Or keep listening and keep my mouth shut? Or should I be able to say, when the opportunity presents itself that just because you have bought the dress is NOT enough of a reason... its not a reason at all.
I do think she loves him, and he loves her. But I think they have different definitions of the terms and conditions that should come with that word. She sees it as a sign of committment to her above family and friends and he (as far as i can tell) doesn't see how his life should change and still wants freedom.
I'm not saying I want to stop their marriage, but if they do again suggest fairly directly that they are not happy.. WTF do I do?
Both options available to me suck. But which sucks least?
Whoa. Dude. You're becoming a fucking live-in-shrink to this couple.
You've brought up the "fundie" bit a couple times - time for it to work in your favour. Tell them to go talk to their priest/minister/etc for advice, and maybe do premarital classes together, aka "Are you sure you want to do this 101".
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Thanks Trow, it is a very simple phrase to use, and one so simple that I would never have actually thought of it in the spur of the moment but yeah, I think thats probably the best idea. Thanks muchly.
But friends push, right? So in those cases, I simply clarify the arguments. 'So what I see Bob here as saying is that ..., is that right Bob? And what I see Ellen saying here is xxxx, is that right?' And so there is room made for clarification and expression without the two being at odds. It's just clarity, not 'which one wins'. At which point both people can actually hear what they are saying through the eyes of somebody they aren't emotionally involved with.
Now granted, thats just me, because frankly, its a rare thing for me to give a shit about anything specific, so I have no problem staying neutral. Also, I don't mind mediating, because its something I've done for a very long time. I can certainly see how many, many people do not like that position, and don't want anything to do with it. If you don't want it, you have to be just as pointed in saying, 'I'm not answering that,' and 'no, that would put me in the middle, and I don't want that.'.
Really, in terms of a couple, you want them to start sorting shit out on thier own, because thats what couples do. Although in some ways it may involve you, so that you are an active part of thier lives (and thats called upon yourself by being there), its not a healthy involvement (this sorting of arguments biz), so there needs to be established boundaries, and the onus is on you to make those agreements stick.
Also, IMO, don't get yourself involved in this wedding thing. The neutral, 'I support whatever you want to do' is just fine. You don't want to be the pooper if they end up going through with it, nor the positive supporter if things go wrong. That's thier call, let them make it. If you have opinions, try your best to tuck them in, I just can't see how that would turn out well.