ArcaMax

Dear Eric: My spouse, 87, and I, 84, live in a three-bedroom condo near a popular beach with many attractions. When we were younger, we housed guests frequently.

We cannot move from our home, and we do all our own housekeeping without outside help (which we cannot afford). We've tried to reduce our active living space. We are in very good shape for our ages but still we are 87 and 84.

Requests for accommodation keep coming. A relative who lives on the beachfront and lost power during a storm thought perhaps he and his wife could stay with us "just until power is restored." An old friend asked if he and his wife (who has advanced dementia) could stay with us for his grandson's wedding because they could not find space nearby.

We don't want to be rude, but we are too old to try to host overnight guests under non-emergency circumstances, especially guests with medical problems.

A reply of "sorry, that's not possible" is met sometimes with questions or pushback, offers to cook breakfast, et cetera. Help! We'd like to keep good relations.

– Old and Frustrated

Dear Frustrated: The pushback really gets my goat because 1) no is a complete sentence and 2) no one should feel emboldened enough to haggle with you about whether they can stay at your house.

The requests seem innocuous enough, but they need to respect your answer. If your friends aren’t taking no for an answer, they have an issue with respecting your boundaries, your time and your generosity. That’s a problem that’s on them. And if they let it sour the relationship, there’s little you can do short of letting them have what they want. And I’d argue, if they come stay even though they know it’s a burden for you, the relationship is still sour.

One solution is to preemptively tell friends and family that your capacity has changed and, after years of happy hosting, you’re now happily “homing” and, while people are welcome to stop in to visit for a day, you’re not able to welcome overnight visitors anymore. Though you’ve told people this in response to a request in the past, it’s possible that hearing a broad declaration (perhaps in a holiday letter), will prevent them from asking in the future. And if not, you can always point to the declaration with your kind but firm no.

Dear Eric: My niece married her current husband five years ago. They have a 2-year-old child, in addition to two children from her previous marriage.

Her current husband recently "flipped out", screaming at my niece and her kids (including that he always hated her kids) to the extent that police had to be called and a restraining order implemented. At this event, he kidnapped the 2-year-old and didn't return him for almost a week.

This was traumatic and stressful for her and the entire extended family, as we tried to help her through by giving her money to pay her mortgage and moral support.

After filing for divorce and for full custody of their toddler, she ended up taking this man back. Now she is insisting that the extended family welcome him back to all of our family events. We (all of us) cannot sit with him and pretend nothing happened after the way he treated her and her children, and don't want him at any family events. She is now threatening that she and the kids won't come to any events any longer unless he is welcome, which would kill my 84-year-old father.

How can we handle this?

– Fractured Family

Dear Family: This man sounds extremely emotionally abusive and dangerous. While you can’t control your niece, you can support her and encourage her to seek out help from resources like the National Domestic Abuse Hotline (thehotline.org, 1-800-799-SAFE). She may not see her relationship as abusive, but insulting, demeaning and intimidating a partner are forms of emotional abuse. This kind of behavior can escalate quickly, as you witnessed.

It may take time for her to see her relationship for what it is. While her safety, and the safety of her children, is paramount, I understand your concern about keeping her in the fold and protecting your father’s emotional state. Having her close will also help you monitor her safety and point out things that she doesn’t need to accept from her partner.

You don’t have to give him a blanket welcome in the meantime, though. Remind her that he has amends he needs to make to the family. There was wildly inappropriate and harmful misbehavior and there were actual crimes committed. The relationship has been broken. If he wants to make things right with the family, he needs to acknowledge what he did, apologize and seek to repair what can be repaired.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

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