Ask Amy: Prospective parents worry about racist relatives
You should not follow them on social media. You should not involve your mother. You don’t actually have to declare an estrangement — you can simply make choices as you go.
Yes, you will naturally minimize time spent with them because they seem awful, and you don’t like them (they don’t seem to like you, either).
For many of us, however, the very definition of “family” is to occasionally share space with loudmouths, blowhards, racists, or people you simply don’t like.
In time, you can explain to your child why you don’t like them.
Relieve your mother of her desire to mediate; simply tell her that it is not necessary.
Dear Amy: My girlfriend (live-in partner) is 22. We’ve been living together for almost three years. During that time, however, she has kept close relationships with a number of other men she just refers to as her “friends.”
She refuses to allow me to see her phone, keeps it locked when she’s not on it, and gets crazy mad if I even look at her when she’s on her phone.
Before the pandemic she would go out drinking on Friday and/or Saturday night with one of her male friends, leaving me home alone. They would usually end up at another male friend’s apartment.
She insists it’s all innocent, and maybe it is on her part (am I being naive?), but I can’t believe it’s always innocent.
If I ask her about what she is doing, she gets angry and complains that I don’t respect her boundaries and that I’m being paranoid.
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