DEAR ABBY: For the final 20 years, we now have owned a snug dwelling a number of blocks from the ocean.
With each a most important and a again home, we are able to sleep as many as 12 folks. Now we have all the time welcomed our kids, grandchildren and their associates unconditionally. They, in flip, have been even handed about accepting our provide.
Since we at the moment are up in years, the work is changing into tough for us.
5 years in the past, one in every of our grandchildren married right into a tough household. Whereas we’re keen on our new grandson-in-law, he insists on bringing his dad and mom, sibling and their household canine to our dwelling. They’re loud and ungracious.
There’s a distinction of opinion amongst us as as to whether we are able to or ought to refuse to proceed welcoming them. Your ideas?
— TIRED IN THE EAST
DEAR TIRED: For a visitor to carry different folks (and their pet!) with out first clearing it with the host is extraordinarily impolite. If the host reveals reluctance, for the visitor to insist is even worse.
I’m sorry you didn’t nip it within the bud to start with.
Clarify to your grandchild that you’re not getting any youthful and internet hosting all the household has taken a toll on you, which is why you may be proscribing the invitation to solely your loved ones members sooner or later.
DEAR ABBY: My cousin (extra like a sister) has made some extraordinarily rash and regarding selections over the past yr.
After she had her second child, she left her husband and began seeing a collection of borderline-abusive males. She’s now within the strategy of signing full custody of the youngsters over to her ex-husband and impulsively shopping for a home out of state.
What I’m discovering difficult is, she’s going to settle for nothing lower than “full support” from her household and associates.
She has lower off her sister, to the purpose of not attending her wedding ceremony, as a result of she expressed that perhaps it was time for her to speak to an expert about her psychological well being. She hasn’t spoken to her mom in months both.
I don’t wish to lower her off, as a result of I feel she genuinely wants assist and is experiencing one thing very difficult. However she’s attempting to govern her ex-husband into giving her extra alimony cash, whereas she runs round with a person who verbally abuses her in public.
I feel she’s a hazard to herself, but when I say as a lot, she’ll lower me off too.
Ought to I keep in her life so I might help when she inevitably wants it? Or ought to I take a harsher stance?
— CONCERNED COUSIN IN OREGON
DEAR COUSIN: Inform your cousin (who’s extra like a sister) you’re keen on her dearly, however she’s making some critical errors, and you might be afraid for her future. It’s the reality.
Let her know that watching her estrange herself from her household has been painful for you, and if issues don’t end up as she hopes, you may be there for her. Then again away till the mud settles.
[The Asking Eric column answered the same question recently. Here’s what Eric said.]
Expensive Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also called Jeanne Phillips, and was based by her mom, Pauline Phillips. Contact Expensive Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Field 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
