Dear Truth,
My boyfriend, David, just revealed to me that for the past six months he’s been using drugs, including crystal meth. We are both in our early 20s. We’ve been together almost four years and we’re closing on our first home at the end of the month.
David confessed that he has been using money we set aside for bills to buy drugs. He said he has also stolen money from our best friend for the same purpose.
He came to me on his own to tell me all this. David has always been a sweet, caring guy. I love him with all my heart, but I’ve lost my trust in him. Now I don’t know what to do. I can hardly believe this is happening. I still want to spend my life with him, but I’m nervous about committing my finances to someone I don’t trust. What should I do? I need an answer in a hurry.
—Scared in Sanford
Dear SIS,
I wish that stories like yours were rare in our community but, lamentably, they are not. Your options are really quite limited and predicated entirely on David’s willingness to get the help he desperately needs to straighten out his life and get off the junk.
Crystal methamphetamine is a particularly cruel drug, one that experts say is among the most difficult to part from. As such, David has a long road ahead. At this point, with his stealing and his using, he can’t love you the way you need him to. (I have to ask: you had no inkling of troubles in paradise?)
As painful as it will be, you have to remove all enabling you’ve provided, whether you realized you were providing it or not. You can’t continue to pretend that you’re in a healthy relationship. If you decide to stay with David, and your love for him truly comes through in your letter, all plans together must stay on hold until he works out his issues.
That doesn’t mean that you don’t buy your dream house, but you should do it on your own, and let him understand that he can’t join you there until he stops his destructive behavior. The alternative is to watch everything you’ve worked so hard for go up in smoke. Providing him a soft place to land might seem like the humane thing to do. But here comes the Truth, baby: the best thing for you to do for David is to make it very clear to him the consequences of continuing to pull on the pipe.
Which means no house, no relationship, no you. Best of luck, Boo.
Dear Truth,
What is the official Truth position on screaming children in restaurants? Recently, my parents came up from Miami and took my girlfriend and me to their favorite Ybor City restaurant to celebrate our birthdays. After we were seated, two children from different families began screaming their lungs out. One of them, a child about 3, alternately screamed, begged, whined and threw tantrums the whole time. The other child was much younger, but seemed to be keying off the older child.
It was horrible! Our server could hardly hear us to take our order—and I’m not exaggerating. We could not enjoy our dinner because of the piercing shrieks coming from both sides of the restaurant. Had I done that when I was little, my mother would have taken me outside, if only to make the atmosphere more pleasant for the other diners. The family with the older child ignored his behavior. This seems to happen more and more often, I’ve noticed.
The families finally left, but both my girlfriend and I had splitting headaches from the noise. The diners around us were as uncomfortable as we were. Worst of all, my parents kept apologizing for the miserable experience as if it was somehow their fault.
What, if anything, could we have done?
—Tired of Tantrums
Dear TOT Hater,
Honey, I’m with you. I remember back in the day what would have been the socially approved action: to remove the child from the restaurant until the tantrum was over. But these days, where mothers and fathers seem to indulge their children more and more, selfishness dictates them continuing their meal, oblivious to the discomfort their offspring is engendering.
The Truth confronts. That’s me.
I would have asked the mother in question to take her child outside until the storm passed. That she didn’t know that on her own says such a request would have fallen on deaf ears and quite possibly provoked a counter attack, but it would have made me feel better. For more equivocating types, a quiet aside to the manager may have resulted in the desired outcome. But I’m not holding my breath.
Here comes the Truth, baby: at the end of the day, you should just be happy that you don’t have to deal with the tsunami you witnessed at a distance. It was just one meal. These parents have a lifetime in front of them of regretting not providing boundaries for their children, and having them understand their relative place in the world.
