I think a lot of women have assertiveness problems and difficulty saying 'no' because we have an outsized fear of what will happen when we say no. The letter writer imagines that if she says no 'everyone' will think she's a bitch. It will be awkward to pass people in the building. The neighbor will react badly and be more aggressive than the letter writer is comfortable with, and the conversation will be so difficult that it will not be worth having.

In fact, the writer, if she practices saying no, will find that the reaction was not nearly as bad as she feared. The neighbor will not think she is a bitch, she might even realize what an out-of-line request renting the space was and feel a little embarrassed herself.

Practice makes perfect. At first reacting assertively will be hard, because you will have anxiety about the negative reactions you imagine happening. But as you practice, and find that your fears do not come true, it will become easier. You might even start to wonder what you were afraid of in the first place.

Just say no. The world will not end. Your neighbor will not think you are a bitch. You will feel a huge amount of relief.

So in addition to being completely immature, self-centered, and abusive, Mrs. Short Husband is stupid too? How do you send a letter to an advice columnist and not expect that it might be reprinted? Does she think Cary does private couples counseling on the side? My guess is that she saw how shallow all of the comment-writers thought she was, freaked out, and called Salon humiliated and demanded that they take it down.

--Short wife happily married to a 5'5.5" hot hubby.

My friend arrived for training for the varsity women's gymnastic team and was in superb shape. She was super-tiny. Maybe 5'1" and 90 pounds? She had trained 8 hours a day in high school (meaning she couldn't attend some regular classes). And the coach told ALL of the new freshman athletes to lose 8 pounds. Every one of them. No matter what their shape or size. Everyone must lose 8 pounds. I guess it was supposed to be to see who was the most disciplined or insanely dedicated, but it was also physically unhealthy and psychologically abusive.

While the studies suggest that falling below 20% women makes a workplace unhealthy, Google is aiming for 25% women (or 25% above the suggested minimum) as their floor for acceptable enigneering staffing, which is commendable. Also, this is their target for engineers, where women applicants are not plentiful. As a company, Google hires most of its employees in ad sales and customer service, departments where the goal and reality is much closer to 50%. My husband is a Google engineer, and I know that they don't just have a goal, but they have affirmative action in place to reach it, for example, women engineering applicants always pass the first round of review, whereas men do not. My friend who is a woman engineer at a start up is the only non-administrative woman at her company, so I bet she'd be happy to have the company of 25% women engineers. I'm a feminist and I commend google's efforts to get women into engineering positions.

Also, @brightstar. Sorry that unlike my husband I didn't get a degree in CS so I could make $100K at Google. Instead I decided to get a 'useless' history degree and take my ass to law school. I'm bringing home $160 to start (compared to his $80K to start, and he has an advanced degree too), making me the primary household earner. Just because (feminist) women don't go into CS doesn't mean they aren't ambitious or high-earners. Watch yourself with those assumptions.

So you go to the wedding, smile, make chit chat, and bring a gift, or you don't go, send a gift, say you wish you could make it and forget about it. But don't send a long letter in lieu of a gift. Seriously. Basically, however nice you make it sound, it will be accepted as a "dear jane" letter, breaking off the friendship, because it is. I just got married, and if instead of a no RSVP and a small gift I got a no RSVP and a "let's not be friends because I just can't make the time, circumstances don't permit" letter, I would be pissed. The bride isn't stupid. She doesn't need you to break-up with her. Just send the rsvp card, don't show, and she'll figure out you just aren't that into her. So will your other friends. Because you aren't. You can't have them think that you care so much, when you clearly don't.

So, here's a problem. Regardless of whether he is mentally ill or just an asshole, wants to be married to you or not, he is about to make a shambles of his financial stability. And if you marry him, you are going to become a responsible for some of these financial mistakes. Do you want to be stuck paying off debt he acquired on a whim in a couple of years?