Dear Eric: I am in my late 30s. I live halfway across the country from my parents and don’t have the best relationship with them. I also have a brother four years younger than me who I have been estranged from for 20 years.
My brother doesn’t live with my parents, but he lives in the same city my parents do. If I visit, my parents will tell him and have him come over. I have no intentions of reconciling with him, as he did some horrible things to me 20 years ago which I can never forgive him for.
Dear Eric: I am in my late 30s. I live halfway across the country from my parents and don’t have the best relationship with them. I also have a brother four years younger than me who I have been estranged from for 20 years.
My brother doesn’t live with my parents, but he lives in the same city my parents do. If I visit, my parents will tell him and have him come over. I have no intentions of reconciling with him, as he did some horrible things to me 20 years ago which I can never forgive him for.
With my parents, things don’t get through unless I take drastic measures. How do I go about conveying my desires not to see him? My plan would be to tell them they have to tell him he can’t come to their house while I’m there, and if they don’t respect my wishes, I simply won’t see them. And that my parents can’t just say they want to see me and not respect my conditions for the visit. I wanted your perspective on how I can “lay down the law” and enforce it.
— Unwelcome Home
Home: As “School House Rock” (and, ideally, civics class) taught us, there’s a lot of discussion that comes before a bill becomes a law. I like to think that similar processes can be helpful before “laying down the law.”
You don’t have to discuss or negotiate your internal boundaries. But conflict can often arise from a misalliance between our boundaries and others’ actions. We can only control the former.
Before giving your parents an ultimatum, it may help you and them to ask them why they keep inviting your brother to their home when you visit. This discussion also gives you the chance to explain, again, what is and isn’t doable for you. “Because of our history, it’s uncomfortable and distressing to be in the same space as him. To protect myself, I am choosing not. I want to see you, but I can’t come if he’s going to be here. Can you respect and love me enough to keep our visits just us?”
Framing it as a question doesn’t box them in, but it doesn’t require you to give up anything that’s important to you here. Additionally, presenting it to them this way keeps the conversation from drifting.
You don’t need to defend your decisions (and, in this context, they don’t either). Instead, you can both focus on what’s possible moving forward. If they say that they can’t respect what you’re asking, tell them you’re sorry they feel this way but, as you stated, to protect yourself you have to stay away from him. Leave the door open for them to visit you or to change their minds.
Dear Eric: I recently reconnected with a man on a dating app who previously “ghosted” me. We’d been chatting months ago and had a good connection. We’re both single parents in our 40s, so we had a lot in common. We were supposed to have met for coffee and then the day came and he kept saying he was running late. Half hour. An hour. More texts. Busy day, child care. Of course I understood. Then nothing. He never showed and never texted again.
I had too much self-respect to keep messaging beyond an initial “what’s up” and then a more pissed “WTF” the next day. I did worry that he was lying in a ditch somewhere. But he’s alive.
I started a new profile on a new platform a little while ago and after a few weeks, there he was. We matched. And he sent me a message saying “So sorry for the mix up last time. Can we pick up where we left off?”
He seems like a nice guy other than the whole ghosting thing. But he didn’t offer any explanation. Am I setting myself up for another cold coffee?
— Ghosted
Ghosted: Unmatch, unswipe, un-whatever-you-need-to-do. Yes, things happen; days get unmanageable; kids have minor crises. But the upside of being in this age where we’re perpetually reachable at all hours is that when something unexpected happens, we can communicate about it.
You’re connected to this man through three platforms now — text, the old app, and the new app. And yet he couldn’t find a way to say the simplest thing on the day of the coffee: “I’m not going to make it. I’m sorry for keeping you.” And he still hasn’t, per your letter, owned up to messing up. (I can’t see how this was a “mix up.”)
If he can’t send a text, how’s he going to handle a whole relationship? I say move on. Missing plans isn’t inexcusable in the grand scheme of things. Life happens. But ghosting? A grave offense.
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] 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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The post Asking Eric: Parents try to force reunion with estranged brother
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