Family holiday drama brings on big changes this year
Dear Husband: Your wife's family members took advantage of her passivity for years, and now she is basically throwing you under the family bus in order to escape their reaction to this change. (Understand that your insistence that she change things is also probably stressful for her.)
But hey -- she is half-right. You are the one forcing this issue, and you should be willing to take one for the family team. You are inoculated against this bullying because you likely don't care all that much what these people think of you. The beauty of being an in-law is that you get to make all the pronouncements, with very little personal consequence.
I hope you will take the lead and plan some holiday centered plans that your immediate family can enjoy together, in the hope that these will become traditions. Attend your local theater's production of "A Christmas Carol." Make and decorate cookies to deliver to neighbors. Go ice skating together.
It isn't fair, and it isn't right, but you should be prepared for the possibility that even with a lovely, low-key holiday, your wife will feel pressured, guilty and as if she is missing something important. She will have to find the best balance for her.
Dear Amy, my husband and I and our three children moved into a duplex home a few months ago.
The neighbors are great except they smoke marijuana.
The smell is awful. It bothers me a lot.
Our whole house smells whenever they're smoking, especially my little son's room.
We don't want to move anytime soon. What should we do?
-- Concern Mom
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