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Nick Galifianakis

Dear Carolyn: I’ve been dating my girlfriend for about two years now. She is a single mom with a 12-year-old daughter who insists on sitting in the front seat whenever we go anywhere by car. My girlfriend prefers to drive when we go places together, so typically I have to sit in the back.

When we discuss this, she says we should probably take turns. Even that feels really strange to me. I feel like I’m her child’s little brother, not her mother’s boyfriend.

She also claims I started this problem because, when we first got together, her daughter asked if she could sit in the front and I said sure. Little did I know this would be the way it would continue. Do you have a suggestion for how to break this deadlock?

Feeling Humiliated: Saying you “have to” sit in the back distills the problems to two words.

You don’t have to take orders from a 12-year-old.

You don’t have to defer to a partner (or child, or anyone) so thoroughly that you disappear.

You don’t have to let a schoolyard accusation, “You started it!” go by un-howled at, even when it comes from a grown woman. Especially when.

I do have sympathy for how it feels to be in a hole you’ve spent two years digging. The best time to fix an awkward situation is at our first opportunity; once we let that first one whiz by, each successive chance is notably harder to seize. I think we’ve all been there at least once.

I’ve written an advice column at The Post since 1997. If you want advice, you can <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2024/03/04/carolyn-hax-ask-question/" target=_blank>send me your questions here</a> (believe it or not, every submission gets read). If you don’t want to miss a column, you can <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsletters/carolyn-hax/?method=SURL&location=ART&initiative=CONTEXT" target=_blank>sign up for my daily newsletter</a>. I also do a live chat with readers every Friday: You can <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-discussions/" target=_blank>submit a question in advance or join me live</a>. Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/haxadvice" target=_blank>Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/carolynhaxadvice/" target=_blank>Instagram</a>.

Just speak up. Of course you don’t say anything mean, belittling or insincere, not to anyone but especially not to a child — and being light but firm tends to be most effective. Alert your girlfriend, too, that you’re drawing the line; secure her agreement to back you. (And if you can’t, then run for those green and beckoning hills. Seriously.)

Beyond that, though, how you say it matters so much less than the fact of your saying it. Finally and without flinching.

“I’ll be taking the front seat today. And from now on, adults up front and kids in the back. My fault for letting it go this long.”

A lack of courage in your convictions is not a good thing for partners to have in common. Especially partners who are modeling adulthood for a 12-year-old. Not just “[you] started this problem,” but also, you “should probably take turns”? Holy abdication.

Hers is more glaring since she’s the parent, but your best response to the daughter was — again, in that first moment, two-ish years ago — “Whoa — nice try, but no.” If not the first time, then the second, the third, the fourth or the single-digit-th at the outside. Either with the full support of the child’s mom or with some serious questions about the health of all the relationships involved.

Here’s a paradox worth learning, in therapy if that helps: Pleaser tendencies please no one.

If your plans include still being in this relationship eight or so weeks from now, then a parenting class (try <a href="https://pepparent.org/" target=_blank>PEP</a>, the Parent Encouragement Program) might also help.

Help both of you, I mean, assuming there’s any way for a non-parent to tell that to a parent, which there pretty much isn’t. “Help me help myself,” maybe? However you do it, learn to put yourself in the figurative front seat as well.

Carolyn Hax started her Washington Post advice column in 1997, after five years on the Style desk and none as a therapist. The column includes cartoons by "relationship cartoonist" Nick Galifianakis — Carolyn's ex-husband — and appears in dozens of newspapers.

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