Agony Aunt

Dear Carolyn: Three years ago, I woke up to the fact that I wasn’t happy with my life. The pandemic made me realize there are no guarantees and you have to live your life now. I’d been married five years, right out of college, to my high school sweetheart, and it hit me that I was 27 with a wife and kid and mortgage, living like I was 40, and if I didn’t do something, life was going to pass me by.

As much as it hurt, I left and started over, and I’m so happy now. I have a great apartment, I’m getting noticed at work, I’m dating casually, I’m even planning a three-week trip to South America. Life has really opened up for me.

I wish I could say the same of my ex-wife, but she has just shut down. She moved back in with her folks, which is so sad — she’s never had her own place; she even lived at home during college. From what I can tell, she doesn’t date, even though she’s a young, good-looking woman with a good job and our son is old enough now to leave with a babysitter.

I’ll always love her. I’ve tried reaching out, but she doesn’t respond to any overtures unless it’s about our son. You got a letter recently from someone who didn’t like questions from her ex about her love life. I’m honestly not doing that; I don’t care if she dates, I just want her to have a full life. I’d like to get together with her and talk about what she’s doing and encourage her to want more for herself. Is that out of line?

— Anonymous

Anonymous: You divorced your standing to want things for her. So, yes, out of line.

Apparently, you also left her to do the heavy daily work of living a premature middle age and rearing your son while you went out and got your 20s back. Out of line and in her face.

Over the years, I’ve read letters with some nerve, but this one has some freaking nerve. (That’s two levels up from basic nerve.)

You don’t mention anything about money, and maybe that’s because it isn’t an issue, and maybe that’s because you’re giving her enough in child support and possibly alimony to enable her to move herself and your son out of her parents’ home into quality housing of her own, and she simply has chosen not to do that. If so, then, okay — I’ll back off that part of it.

Anonymous: You divorced your standing to want things for her. So, yes, out of line.

Apparently, you also left her to do the heavy daily work of living a premature middle age and rearing your son while you went out and got your 20s back. Out of line and in her face.

Over the years, I’ve read letters with some nerve, but this one has some freaking nerve. (That’s two levels up from basic nerve.)

You don’t mention anything about money, and maybe that’s because it isn’t an issue, and maybe that’s because you’re giving her enough in child support and possibly alimony to enable her to move herself and your son out of her parents’ home into quality housing of her own, and she simply has chosen not to do that. If so, then, okay — I’ll back off that part of it.

If you do owe her more as a co-parent, then improve her life by stepping up more as a co-parent — not not not by appointing yourself her life coach.

If you already do beyond your share as a co-parent, then trust and accept that as your only appropriate contribution to her prospects in life, which are otherwise now up to her.

Either way, if you ever find yourself “encourag[ing]” her to “want more,” put your fist in your mouth.

Dear Carolyn: I heard my new sister-in-law, “Ann,” call my husband a jacka--, and I don’t know whether to talk to her about it. I heard Ann and her best friend whispering about something at a recent party, and I admit it: I eavesdropped. I heard her friend say, “Is the short one the jacka-- brother-in-law?” And Ann said, “No, it’s the tall one,” meaning my husband.

My husband likes Ann, but he also likes to tease and joke around about some of Ann’s quirks. She is nice and a good hostess, but she’s also kind of pretentious. Like she’ll use cloth napkins and china plates for a cookout, put flowers in a salad and call pouring custard “crème Anglaise.” So my husband teases her, saying she spilled flowers in the food or calling her Martha Stewart — mild stuff like that, all very good-natured. I know he’d be surprised and hurt if he knew what she thought of him.

I think this could blow over if I explained to her that it’s all in good fun and that he really does like her, but I’m not sure how to bring it up.

— Anonymous

Anonymous: The fastest blow-over opportunity is for your husband to stop being a jacka--.

You think it’s “mild stuff” and “all very good-natured,” but what you describe is an established member of a family constantly hammering on about how different a new member is from everyone else.

Have you ever been in that environment yourself? It’s never as pleasant or harmless as the person creating it thinks, especially over time.

You assume she’ll be okay with it — and therefore you and your husband can avoid making any effort yourselves — as soon as she knows it’s “all in good fun.” Maybe you’re even right about that. But you haven’t accounted for other reasons his remarks might annoy her. She could fully understand he likes her and means well, for example, and still find his shtick unfunny, annoying or stale. Even a crackin’-good Martha Stewart joke is a bad one the second or 17th time.

So the decent move is to flip your intervention impulse 180 degrees: Support Ann, and coach up your spouse. First, pick a quiet moment and suggest to him that the Ann jokes are wearing thin. Remind him you both like her, yes? And she knocks herself out to make things nice for her new extended family? So maybe just an even-more-good-natured “thank you” will do.

Then: When your husband still says, “Oops, there are flowers in the salad,” har-dee-har, say to Ann: “Ignore him. That looks amazing. Where’d you get the recipe?”

When she breaks out the china and cloth napkins, compliment her table. What’s china for at this point, anyway: adding a formal touch to the attic it sits in? And cloth napkins are: (a) Environmentally sound. (b) Much nicer and more practical than paper. (c) Homespun as all get-out. Choose whichever you’re least likely to pick on.

When she refers to crème anglaise, consider that she, like me, never heard the term “pouring custard” until you used it. Because this big country has a lot of regional pockets that we’re all born into by no choice of our own. To her, I’m guessing, you’re all a bunch of “quirks.”

Dear Carolyn: I have decided to give a sizable cash gift to each of my children and their spouses each year. My son and daughter-in-law have already told me what they are going to spend the money on: doing house repairs, paying off their car, etc.

My concern is with my daughter and her new husband. They are both teachers in their late 30s. He has a history of overspending (apparently it runs in his family). He had a lot of debt when they met and my daughter helped him navigate paying down loans and credit cards. She has shared all of this with me. She said he still likes to spend on frivolous things.

They are expecting. I was unhappily surprised when I asked about summer plans and they are just taking it easy with no plans to earn extra money. I don’t want to attach any strings to this money, but I cannot stop thinking about him using it unwisely. What do you think about my asking my daughter how they plan to use the money? Or should I just get over it and let them handle it?

— Concerned

Concerned: There are lots of options between butting into their business or enabling their business. You could give them (some of) the money in a trust, for example, to both couples, to avoid a judgy look. Or you could set up an education savings account, one you control, for your coming grandchild. These may seem like “strings,” but they are darn generous ones, and they are smart.

I like this one the best: Since your daughter shared his history with you, you can talk to her about what she would prefer. Not in a controlly, “tsk at your unwise spending” way, but in a way that acknowledges a reality that your daughter has managed responsibly and trusted you enough to share.

Tell her you are mindful of how hard she and her husband have worked on excess spending and debt, and therefore want her input on this gift. Specifically, say you want to avoid putting her in a bad spot with a windfall, but you also want avoid interfering or attaching strings. Encourage her to give it some thought and come back to you with ideas, and offer her some starter ideas as well. An education account for the baby? A trust that pays out over time?

The main element of finding the “right” answer here, whatever it turns out to be, is not the money or the spending or the husband. It is your relationship with your daughter. If it is a good one, if she has shared her financial circumstances with you freely, in the spirit of openness and in trusting search of support, then you are in a position to say credibly that you are asking for her input on her behalf.

Because that is what it would be. Handing an addict a huge dose of a problematic substance has given us a rich library of outcomes to learn from. Giving your daughter a chance to act on the experiences of others instead of gaining her own the hard way is itself a sizable gift.

Dear Carolyn: I am a single 75-year-old woman who has recently had the good fortune to move into a house that my oldest son bought for me next door, so that I could spend time with my young grandkids. I moved from another state and I am part of their lives generally every day, a win-win for me, grandkids, and parents alike. I loved being a mother and homemaker, carry this same joy into my grandparenting, and feel this is where I shine.

My problem concerns my daughter-in-law. Even though I feel many of her rules concerning her kids are too rigid, unnecessary, and are a killjoy for them and for me, I believe I need to honor these rules. But there is one area that has long annoyed me and that, now that I live nearby and have some control over it, I would like your opinion on.

When I mailed gifts, they often would not get opened on the day of, and were sometimes opened weeks later. I can appreciate her rules about when things get opened, and that sometimes this is challenging and delays things, but where my gifts are concerned I just feel a lack of urgency in general. She calls the shots on how things go down in that household and the focus is largely on her own family. It really takes away from my joy.

Now that I live next door, I would like to give my own gifts on the day of, at my own home. I am anticipating resistance from my daughter-in-law. Sometimes I feel my hands are tied in so many ways with regard to the kids and we could have so much fun if not for my daughter-in-law’s frequent disapprovals. Of note: When I was their guest, I was not allowed to wash dishes, fold the laundry, put away the toys, etc., and I’m certain it was because I didn’t do it to her standards. She has her good qualities too, of course, and my son seems happily married, but the body language and facial expressions toward so many of us are an annoyance I’m going to have to fight every day.

— Next Door

Next Door: If I understand you correctly, you see living next door as an exciting new opportunity to finally win some power struggles with your rigid daughter-in-law.

I.e., to celebrate your Powerball win by trying to shoplift some candy.

Your place in this family is not only solid, it’s solid beyond the wildest dreams of anyone who has a daughter-in-law on the flinty side. I hope you’ll take my inbox’s word on this.

And although I accept your position 100 percent that you have been kept at a tight-lipped distance when it comes to her Ways of Doing Domestic Things — and I feel your resulting frustrations — the bigger arc of your story just doesn’t ring true.

Principally, I can’t buy into an assertion that “she calls the shots” and favors her own kin in a marriage that acquired the house next door for her mother-in-law who obviously isn’t her biggest fan.

You see where I’m coming from here, yes?

I hope so, because the stakes of your relationship with your son's family were already high and just got higher — access to your grandchildren, love, inclusion, community, shelter, care as you age — and because in the same move, the already-small stakes of the whole timing-of-gift-unwrappage thing just got microfreakingscopic.

Please trust me on this, too. As sympathetic as I am to the emotional power of our self-definitions, and as vulnerable as you are to her “frequent disapprovals,” using your proximity to try to claw back some control over family rituals sounds dreadfully misguided. Her resistance isn’t personal, even; you say yourself she’s like this with “so many of us.”

Instead, I urge you use your maternal talents in a more profound way: to encourage them not to regret moving you next door. (I kid.) Use them to think bigger and become the mother (-in-law) your son and daughter-in-law need. Don’t throw away your self-image or dull your shine, just tweak them both to reflect the role you play now in the family yours has become.

From where I sit, the couple have made it clear what they welcome: They want you close, they want you involved daily with the kids — and they want you to leave their towel-folding, toy-filing, gift-opening systems alone. Such clarity might not be as impressive as buying you a home, but it too is a generous gift.

In case you’re wondering: I have my opinions on “her rules.” But what I think of them is irrelevant unless and until they ask me what I think.

You can take that exact position yourself with real conviction; not just, “I need to honor these rules,” but, “Whew, I get to be the daily Grandma and I’m off the hook for dishes!” Isn’t that in the “joy” column, too? Or can’t it be, at least, if you deliberately put it there?

And choose to drop the gift thing completely? I can’t recall a battle that has ever begged harder not to be picked.

Dear Carolyn: My mom refuses to acknowledge the upside of her marriage to my dad. He was not the best husband or father, I’ll be the first to admit that. He was wrapped up in his work and left everything else to her.

But now that I’ve entered the same branch of science he was in, I get it. It had to be that way for him to make the breakthroughs he did.

My mom divorced him two years ago, and he hasn’t really gotten over it. He asks me when I see him whether she misses him, and I don’t know what to say. I’m not saying she can’t be happy, but she makes it all too clear that she doesn’t miss him and talks endlessly about this guy she’s dating like he’s Mr. Wonderful.

I know my dad can’t see it, but it’s kind of sickening that my sister and I can, though my sister says my mom is entitled to be happy. I’m not saying she isn’t, but tone it down a little, you know?

I tried talking to her about it, presenting the good of her 23-year marriage, saying she played a part in my father’s work; she enabled him to do that research and write those papers, and she can be happy and proud of that. She said that, because of her children, she wasn’t sorry she married my dad, but that she wasn’t sorry she divorced him, either. It’s like she didn’t even listen to me. So frustrating.

Should I try another way to get through to her or just let it go?

— Frustrated

Frustrated: Here are some things to say when your dad asks you whether your mom misses him:

· I am sorry you are hurting. Asking me to be your go-between will not make things better and is not fair to me.

· Please stop trying to put me in the middle.

· You will have to ask her that yourself.

· I am not your carrier pigeon.

· Dad, stop. (Change subject.)

· Dad, stop.

Here is why I opened my answer that way:

The things you are looking for are not yours to have. Your mother’s feelings about your dad and her former marriage are entirely her own to have. It’s not appropriate to try to influence her feelings to make yourself feel better. She “didn’t even listen to me” because you crossed into subjects that were very distinctly not your business.

It’s easy to see how you might believe they are your business. Your parents’ divorce obviously affected you in all kinds of ways. But if you try to make sense of what happened and how you feel about it without clear, logical boundaries in place, then you’re going to end up frustrated and confused.

So draw lines where they belong. Your feelings are your business, your dad’s are your dad’s, your mom’s are your mom’s, and your sister’s are your sister’s. How you interact with your dad is your business. How you interact with your mom is your business. How your mom and dad interact with each other is not your business. How your mom interacts with her new love interest is not your business, unless and until it crosses some kind of line in your presence. If you’re uncomfortable around them, then it is your place to speak up and/or leave the room.

Gaining new perspective on your dad from a career angle is interesting and valuable, but it doesn’t redraw any of those lines or make your mom retroactively any less lonely.

It may seem complicated, but it’s actually a simple system for navigating human complexity. You do you. That’s it. As well as you can.

Hi Carolyn: My sister came out as trans last summer and began going by a beautiful feminine name. Certain members of our family have expressed resistance and “compromised” by agreeing to call her by her gender-neutral middle name, which our parents chose for her at birth. She tolerates it and has told me she thinks it’s good enough.

I exclusively use the name she wants — it’s her name!! — but what should I do when I hear one of these relatives use the middle name? Do I let it slide, because that’s what my sister herself is doing, or correct them and make a stink, every single time?

— Nickname

Nickname: “Who?” Then when they answer: “Oh, you mean [beautiful feminine name]. Her name is [beautiful feminine name].” Say it every single g.d. time.

When I answered this originally, I said to call them by the wrong name — and if they didn’t like it, then say you are willing to compromise, you just need to like what you call them.

But with a cooler head, I realized your sister might not want you to fight her battle for her or to fight it this way — as richly as your relatives deserve it.

I do still, many months later, have no answer for why people are so insistently obtuse about treating someone in a way they’d never stand to be treated.

Dear Carolyn: I am an 82-year-old woman in good health and living independently. I have two grown kids living 15 to 20 minutes away. We all have a good relationship, but I see them infrequently, and they call maybe once or twice a week. I want more. I have friends and a fairly active social life, but I want more from my kids.

I think it is not too much to ask that each one make it a point to see me once a month. I have dropped hints but nothing has changed. I have not come right out to ask for what I want because I think if they do not visit willingly it will cause resentment, so what's the point. Your thoughts?

— H.

H.: One thought: By waiting for them to read your mind, you’re getting the resentment anyway, without any visits to show for it.

Just say what you want, please: “I’d love to set up a standing visit — say, every first Sunday. How does that sound?”