Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.

Dear Prudence,

​​Recently, I had a fight so big with my boyfriend at Walmart that I just ran out to the car and drove home, leaving him at the store. Here’s where he messed up.

I was wearing running shorts that went down to just above the knee. This older woman comes up behind me and loudly says, “she’s showing her ass to the whole store!” I turned around and said, “excuse me?” She told me I was dressed “way too slutty” to be out in public. I turned to my boyfriend for support, and he averted his eyes. “Are you gonna let her talk to me that way?” I asked. “Forget it, let’s just go,” he replied, in an irritated voice.

I folded my arms and said, “No. This lady called me a name and I want you to defend me.” “Sorry about my girlfriend, ma’am. Would you mind just walking away?” my boyfriend said to the lady. I couldn’t believe my boyfriend had taken her side over mine. I wanted to scream at him in frustration, but we were in public so I just left him there. He had to call an Uber to get home. Prudie, I can’t be with someone who doesn’t have my back. I’m ready to throw him out over this. He says I’m making too big a deal and to let it go. Who is right?

—Furious at Flaky Boyfriend

Dear Furious,

I don’t like that your boyfriend apologized to this totally out-of-line prude for you. But it’s tough to ask him to have your back more than you had your own back. It’s not as if you were approached by a big scary guy in a dark alley. You were more than capable of verbally defending yourself against a senior citizen by saying something more powerful than “Excuse me?”

But we don’t have to unpack the entire interaction to conclude that you two should break up. The key phrases in your letter are “I can’t be with someone who” and “I’m ready to throw him out.” You don’t have to get an outside ruling to break up with him just because you want to, especially if being disappointed by the way he reacts to situations is a pattern. There is no “right” and no “too big a deal” in love. You simply get to look for a person who makes you happy. If that, for you, means a person who would have said, “If you say one more word to my girlfriend about her completely appropriate running shorts I’m going to film it, put it on TikTok, and let the commenters destroy you,” then that is your right. You can move on. Which is good because, honestly, abandoning someone at Walmart is a tough thing to come back from.

Dear Prudence,

I’m under five feet tall and get rather claustrophobic when pushed to the back of a crowded elevator. What can I do to make people more considerate?

—Not So Little World

Dear Little World,

I don’t think it’s common knowledge that being short would make a person feel uncomfortable in the back of a crowded elevator, so even the most considerate person might not think to move out of the way. It’s not a concert! That said, now that you mention it, I can absolutely see how being smashed between a wall and someone’s middle back would feel awful.

You can do one of two things:

1) Prepare a line that you always deploy in this situation, like, “Excuse me! Do you mind if I squeeze in front of you? Short person problems!”

2) Each time the door opens, get off with the people exiting on that floor and then get right back on in a non-claustrophobia-inducing position by the doors.

Dear Prudence,

For the parental guilt trip files: My mom is slow, and tired, and crabby. A normal amount for 80ish. My brother and I are middle aged, and hitting a phase in life where the kids are launched, or nearly, and there’s time and money to spare. We’ve started traveling together, with our spouses. I like his wife, he likes my husband, we all share interests, and we make a good traveling foursome.

Each time we’ve taken a trip together, my mom has posted pictures we sent her on her own Facebook, with a comment about how jealous she is that her kids are doing cool stuff and how she wasn’t invited. We resolved to stop sending her pictures, but if she knows we’re traveling, she begs for them. So we complied, with requests not to post publicly. She “forgot” and did it anyway. So we didn’t tell her about the next trip, and then she took pictures from our social media after the fact and did the same damn thing. “My kids went to the Grand Canyon! How I would have loved to see it again before I die…” Or, “I asked if there was room for me on the kids’ trip to London, but it “didn’t work out this time” and then all her elderly friends commented about how they too are “left behind” by the younger generation.

Her hurt seems enough that I’ve started to question the situation! On the one hand, this is the perfect time for us to do this; our knees won’t hold out forever for the kind of active travel we currently enjoy. And traveling with mom is a non-starter, since she needs multiple naps a day and takes a half-hour to traverse a city block. We do visit them a couple times a year, and on the rare occasion they visit us in our cities, we make every accommodation (paying for parking downtown or taking cabs, instead of herding everyone on the subway, for example) and slow our lives waaaaay down to make it nice for them. I thought we were doing OK in terms of including them and still living our own lives. But she’s making me wonder if our sibling trips are objectively exclusionary and hurtful?

—All My Trips Are Guilt Trips Now

Dear Guilt Trips,

I think it’s possible that your mom is just saying stuff. By that I mean, there may be not be any sadness or jealousy behind her posts. Think of how, when someone says they’re going to Hawaii, a coworker might reply, “Can you put me in your suitcase?” Or an acquaintance might comment “so jealous!” on the social media post of someone who shared a video from the front row of a Beyoncé concert. “That looks like an amazing experience” can take a form that sounds a lot like “I wish I’d been included.” But this isn’t always literal, similar to how, when you share a photo of yourself on the beach and say “Take me back,” it doesn’t mean you’re actively looking for someone to buy you a plane ticket; it just means you wanted everyone to be reminded of that time you looked really good in a swimsuit and needed something to put in the caption.

My Mother-in-Law Keeps Telling Us We’re Failing Our Daughter in a Major Way. Enough! This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only Help! I Just Abandoned My Boyfriend at Walmart Over the Ultimate Betrayal. My Boyfriend Has an Upsetting Secret. It’s Bad Enough to Leave Him, but … I’m Intrigued. This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only I Did a Nice Gesture for My Sister-in-Law. I Had No Idea It Would Set Off My Family Like This.

I would go as far as to guess that your mom may be really proud of your travels or appreciate the conversation fodder the images provide. For many older people whose worlds have become a bit smaller due to their declining health and mobility, adult kid updates are an important social currency. Your vacation photos may really be big news for her, and the engagement they inspire (even if it comes in the form of grouchy comments) could be welcomed interaction.

But if you think your mom is really communicating that she would like to be on these trips and is truly sad about being excluded, talk to her! “I saw your post about London and how you wished you were included and I felt a little bad. With all the walking and the busy itinerary we planned, we didn’t think it would be something you were physically up to.” And then, if it’s really just her knees and need for naps (rather than money, or a difficult personality) standing in the way of including her, make an offer: “Would you want to come on our next trip and relax at the hotel while she did all our running around?” Or “We could talk about planning a cabin getaway or something more mellow for sometime this year, if you’d be interested.” Assuming she’s not in denial about her physical abilities, she should be able to tell you what she really wants to do.

Catch up on this week’s Prudie.

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