ArcaMax

Dear Eric: My wife recently passed away and I am doing OK. Several of my wife's senior children keep wanting to come and visit me. How do I politely say no without hurting their feelings? When they have come before, I was stressed as to how to entertain them for a week. They think I am being helped by their visit but actually I would prefer ...Read more

Dear Eric: My 30-year-old son is severely physically disabled due to a debilitating muscle disease. He requires 100 percent assistance with all life functions. He does not have any cognitive disabilities, is very intelligent and earned a bachelor's degree. My husband retired a couple of years ago and is his main caregiver.

People who are ...Read more

Dear Eric: My dad passed away three years ago. He lived about 10 hours away from me but near my sister.

Sis and Dad have always been close. I had an OK relationship with both of them, though she and I have never been close. She took on most of his care and I tried to visit a few times a year.

Dad had a paid-off house worth about $250,000. To ...Read more

Dear Eric: My husband and his siblings inherited a home. My daughter offered to move her family into one of the apartments and take care of the property. We decided on a figure that would cover the bills in the form of rent.

Several years ago, she began withholding rent, she would only pay when I would ask for additional money due to a large ...Read more

Dear Eric: My husband is one of eight siblings. A few live on opposite sides of the country, but they do remain in contact, and we all get together occasionally.

One of my brothers-in-law is married and has a stepdaughter.

The stepdaughter became engaged, and we were told that since she was paying for her own wedding, they had no say in the ...Read more

Dear Eric: I have two friends who can't hear very well. One of them had hearing aids but returned them. The other one has them but won't wear them.

They frequently talk over each other and interrupt people all the time because they can't seem to tell if someone else is speaking.

What's really annoying is they keep telling me to speak up, then ...Read more

Dear Eric: I have two sons in their early 30s. Recently, my older son became engaged to a wonderful woman the same age, who I love as a daughter.

While our relationships are good, I have found that my desire for close family bonds has gotten stronger as I get older, especially in the past several years when I've been living several hours' ...Read more

Dear Eric: My wife of 50 years told me that she no longer wants to live with me. I am currently living in our summer home with no friends or social contacts/networks. She has no interest in reconciling.

We didn't fight or argue, and I am at a loss as to what triggered her declaration. This has taken me totally by surprise. I thought we had a ...Read more

Dear Eric: My husband has eating and sanitary habits that make me cringe. When he prepares his lunch, he licks off the mayonnaise or peanut butter that he has gotten on his fingers and then sticks them in the communal chip bag without washing his hands first.

When he eats cereal or salad, he makes this smacking noise that gets in my head. I ...Read more

Dear Eric: One of our neighbors has acquired backyard chickens, and a rooster. His chicken coop is not far from our bedroom window. Now that it's getting warmer, we like to sleep with the windows open to cool off the house at night. The rooster wakes up at 5:20 a.m., so now we do as well.

We are retired, so most days we can go back to sleep ...Read more

Dear Eric: My daughter has a "live-in boyfriend" who, since he moved in, thinks he is the king of the household. He is very disrespectful to me, her dad and her stepmom.

I tolerated the stuff he said about her dad, and I tolerated him skipping paying my daughter his share of the mortgage for a few months. But when it got so she almost lost her ...Read more

Dear Eric: My wife and son got into a heated argument after he told her that he had dated a woman three times, and on the third date, he asked her if she wanted to split the bill. The woman later texted him that she didn't want to go out with him anymore. My wife told our son that it should be up to the man to pay when dating.

My son strongly ...Read more

Dear Eric: My now-retired parents are terrific people. They're interesting, kind, hardworking and A++ grandparents. My wife and I marvel at how instinctive, capable and giving they are with our two young boys.

That said, every year that goes by, their anxiety reaches new heights.

It seems like a classic case of having very little to fill the ...Read more

Dear Eric: I work at a small bank with nine coworkers, including myself. We have a dilemma going on in the office. The president and his assistant are sleeping together. They were caught on video after hours in the office. They also rush a few of us out of the office at the end of the day and stay back to do who knows what.

They have been ...Read more

Dear Eric: I have a friend, from college 40 years ago, who I’m only now realizing is a

needy, self-aggrandizing narcissist. In all of that time, absolutely no one in my circle has ever liked her.

She has driven people away, including her spouse, but maybe subconsciously I thought with me it was different. She has lived far away for most of ...Read more

Dear Eric: My parents recently died a few months apart. While taking care of my mom's last wishes, my sister told me that she went to prison for human trafficking years ago. She wasn't sorry for it in any way and defended her actions. She may as well have told me she was a serial killer. I can't even look at her now.

I discovered my other ...Read more

Dear Eric: I'm on a condo board with a couple of men who seem very controlling and regularly impugn my honesty. This is extremely uncomfortable. I'm not sure how to respond. For example, we had a meeting and one of them said we never have discussed these topics at this kind of meeting. I'm the secretary. I said look at last year's special ...Read more

Dear Eric: My friend who lives in the same apartment building doesn't drive. She insists I take her shopping or to other places. She knows I don't like to drive, especially when she doesn't give me gas money. I keep telling her to ask other people for a backup. I’m ready to just say no most times. She'll never get mad at me. Should I just say ...Read more

Dear Eric: Six months ago, new neighbors moved onto our street. They fenced in the front and side of their corner lot and keep their large dog outside all hours of the day and evening. The dog barks constantly and all of us adjacent neighbors are extremely annoyed.

No one wants to say anything to them as otherwise they seem like nice people and...Read more

Dear Eric: I am a middle-aged woman, who, for most of her life was the center of the social scene. I entertained in my home, organized outings and helped my friends out whenever I could. A lot of this was not reciprocated, but I was fine with it, because I enjoyed it, and deep down, I always suspected that if I did not make the fun, the fun ...Read more