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

Dear Prudence,

I love my niece, but she is 18 and afraid of her own shadow. She is academically brilliant, but way behind her peers when it comes to independence. Her parents basically smothered her socially and emotionally. She can’t drive, doesn’t date, and has never gone to hang out at a friend’s house (her parents want to monitor her at home).

Last year, we had a beach vacation on an island. I sent my niece to the grocery store down the lane for more ice. You get on and off a tram. It is a straight shot. My 10 and 12-year-old nephews learned it the first day. My niece took the wrong one and went in the opposite direction. Rather than just getting back on the tram, she had a panic attack and needed to be picked up.

I am not condemning my niece for this, but she was accepted to a prestigious university near me—and now her parents are pressuring me to let her live with me rather than have her stay in the dorms. Another relative stayed with me while they were at graduate school, so they say it is only fair that my niece stay with me.

This has disaster written all over it. My niece needs to get out in the world, and I don’t want to hold her hand every second she stays with me or deal with her parents hovering a hundred miles away. I don’t want to hurt her or get into another useless argument with her parents. Can you help?

—No Isn’t Enough

Dear No Isn’t Enough,

I’m so happy you’re asking about this before she moves in with you. Perfect timing. You have the opportunity to communicate and set expectations. But first, you have the opportunity to think about whether you are actually OK with her living with you. There’s no law saying that if one relative stays with you, you now run a free family Airbnb. Fair is not enforced here. If you don’t want her living with you, it is OK to say, “You know, I’ve been thinking about my lifestyle, and it’s not  a good time for me to have a long-term houseguest.” You can explain that you value your privacy a lot these days, need the guest room for short-term visitors, plan to turn it into a crafting studio—whatever feels right to you!

But if you decide you are open to welcoming your niece, set up a meeting with her and her parents to talk about what that would entail and whether it will work out (and that’s exactly how you should frame it). Then you can say something like, “I want to see if we’re on the same page about what it might look like if Grace stays with me. I’m willing to give her the run of the house, and she can use my Wi-Fi and help herself to food. But I won’t be able to provide support for transportation or assistance with some of the ‘adulting’ tasks that might be unfamiliar, so this will really be a lot like living independently. I know that is a huge transition. Will this work? Let’s talk about what the plan will be for getting used to the commute to school or anything else that you (the parents) might typically step in to assist with. Would it make sense for all of you to stay and do some dry runs of daily routines?” Do not agree to the plan unless you feel very confident that they understand that you aren’t going to be a substitute helicopter parent.

Finally, it’s possible that Grace’s parents are smothering her socially and emotionally as a reaction to her temperament or something related to her mental health. Could there be some anxiety or another diagnosis at play? If she doesn’t move in, encourage her to take advantage of any counseling resources at school that could help her understand why navigating through the world feels so overwhelming to her.

Dear Prudence,

My fiancée is getting paranoid enough to put our relationship out of commission. She recently found out her ex-husband had cheated on her, and since then, she has been trying to control my every move.

She doesn’t want me to work late shifts with my female co-workers, even though we are trying to save for a wedding. I ran into one of my exes with her daughters at the farmers market, and we chatted a little bit while her kids petted my dog. It was perfectly innocent and wasn’t even a 15-minute conversation, but my fiancée is giving me the third degree over it. I asked her if she wanted to lie to her face then, because it wasn’t like I planned to see her, and who takes your kids on a date? She got very upset and refused to go to counseling with me.

I feel like I am living in a prison for someone else’s crimes. Worst of all, my best friend is married to one of my college exes. They’ve been together for a decade, and I was the one who introduced them. They never met my fiancée, and we are planning on driving to see them on their summer road trip. I am dreading how my fiancée will react to my friend’s wife. I love her and have never been unfaithful in my life, but this can’t keep going like this. Help!

—Not Trusted

Dear Not Trusted,

I’m glad you’ve just been trying to save for a wedding, and haven’t actually put any deposits down yet. Because, unfortunately, even if you have, you have to cancel it. That should signal to her just how seriously you’re taking this.

I really do feel for your fiancée and how she’s reeling from her recent revelation. Jealousy is tough to deal with. But this is no way to start a marriage, and her need to control you to manage her jealousy could start to approach emotional abuse. Plus, she won’t even go to counseling?! Huge red flag. Huge. There’s a way past this, but it involves her admitting that the issue is on her end and agreeing to get help, not you living in fear every time you visit friends or have a chat at the farmer’s market.

Prudie Wants to Hear From You!

Readers often have great suggestions for our letter writers, occasionally disagree with a point Prudie makes, or simply want to provide some additional advice. Each week, Prudie will be replying to some of these comments and suggestions from readers, which will be featured on the site on Fridays for Slate Plus members. Write to us!

Dear Prudence,

I just found out I’m the other woman, and all of the red flags seem so obvious now. I met a man on a dating app whose status was “divorced,” and after a few dates, he casually let it slip that he was “in the process of getting divorced.” I’ve known people who took years to get divorced, so I didn’t think anything of it. We always went to my place, and again I believed him when he said all he could afford was a crappy bachelor apartment in a bad area while his “ex” dragged the divorce on and on, and I have a townhouse close to the restaurants and theaters we went to on dates. I let myself get swept away by him, and now I found out through a friend whose child goes to school with his (I posted a picture of us and she recognized him), and then some social media perusing of his wife (everything was public) that he lives in a suburban house with his wife and young daughter (he never mentioned a child the whole time we were together). They are the picture of a happy family, with no indication of separation or living apart. I feel sick with guilt for hurting this family, especially his young daughter.

Help! My Family Has a “Brilliant” Plan for My Niece’s College Housing. And It Somehow Involves Me. Help! I Want to Carry on a Sweet Family Tradition. But My Sister-in-Law Says It’s Unhealthy. Help! I Met Up With My Online Friends in Person. What I Did Next Ruined Everything. My Husband Pushed Us to Live Closer to His Family. Now He’s Complaining About the One Thing I Ask for in Return.

When I confronted him about it, he only denied it at first, until I showed him the photos his wife had posted of them all smiling together at a barbecue in their backyard from the previous weekend. Then, he broke down and admitted everything and begged me not to tell his wife and destroy her life. As much as I know the damage has already been done, I’m now wondering if I shouldn’t reach out to her, which I initially intended to do with him in the room, so that he couldn’t weasel out of it. We did something terrible, but is putting his wife in the position of having to either break up her family or forgive him, really fair? She didn’t do anything wrong. Obviously, I broke up with him, so he’s no longer cheating with me, and I can speculate but have no proof of him cheating with other women. Is it kinder to confess to her, or would it only help my guilty conscience and make her life worse? My carelessness in not seeing through his obvious lies already hurt her, and I don’t want to be careless with her (and their daughter’s) feelings again.

—Cruel to Be Kind

Dear Cruel to Be Kind,

It’s hard to decide what information this woman would want when you yourself are still feeling hurt, stupid, taken advantage of, and probably a little heartbroken. The good news is you don’t have to do anything right now. You can decide not to decide. Take a break.

Wait until you’re over this relationship and your feelings for your ex, and then check in and ask yourself what you should do. If you can’t shake the nagging feeling that you should tell his wife, go for it. But there’s a real possibility that you will have moved on and won’t give this family another thought, which is also perfectly fine. The bottom line is that if it feels hard to decide right now, it’s because it is hard. You can just wait until it feels easy to make a choice.

Classic Prudie

Am I overreacting that my entire family forgot my milestone birthday on my cousin’s wedding day? I turned 30 this year. I’m a big fan of celebrating my birthday. At my 29th birthday, people started talking about the last year of my 20s, and I told them I had planned to do a big year of events all leading up to a huge party on my 30th birthday and a trip the week after. I thought it was fortuitous that my birthday was on a Saturday this year, so I planned on going big. One of my cousins asked about my birthday plans at Christmas and I told everybody about them. Well, on New Year’s Eve, my cousin got engaged. They decided they wanted to get married by the end of the year and guess what date they picked?

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