I Did Something Necessary After My Wife Died. My Daughter Can’t Forgive Me.

Dear Prudence I’m tired of trying. Advice by Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Jenée Desmond-Harris? Nov 04, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. Dear Prudence, My daughter is miserable because I remarried after my wife died. My late wife and I were high school sweethearts. It was a freak accident at home. We were planning to travel during our golden years. I did, and my daughter never forgave me. I sold the house and land and downsized after my wife died because living there was making me suicidal. My sons understood, and my daughter just freaked out. She is the oldest and acts like a toddler being told they can’t have a lollipop. I remarried five years later, and she refuses to be civil toward my wife. It has become so bad that I see her alone, or not at all. It costs us a lot of heartache, time, and expense. My wife and I regularly see my sons and their families, but not if their sister is there. My daughter complains that she is being pushed out of the family and that I am forgetting her. I can’t solve this, and I’m tired of trying. She doesn’t believe in therapy, so that is a no-go. What is left? —Remarried Dear Remarried I’m sure your sons, your wife, and others in your life have told you this, but I’ll repeat it: Your daughter is doing this because she’s in an incredible amount of pain over her mom’s death and the end of her family as she knew it, and for whatever reason (I don’t know if mental health issues or past trauma are playing a role) isn’t able to handle it in a healthy way. You haven’t done anything wrong, nor will you be able to debate or negotiate your way into a better relationship with her. So you should admit to yourself that you’ll never solve this by pushing her to change her behavior. Instead, embrace these two alternate goals: 1) having a happy life—something you can’t take lightly given how awful you were feeling after your wife’s death, and 2) being the best dad you can be to her given the circumstances, but without undermining your work on number one. You say you’re tired of trying. Pay attention to that feeling. You won’t be able to do anything for your relationship with your daughter by approaching her with exasperation, so take a break from pushing to improve things and focus on number one first. Don’t give her the silent treatment or anything, but temporarily decide to accept things as they are and pause your work on improving the situation. Invest in your relationship with your wife. Do things you enjoy with her. Tell her you appreciate her sticking by your side despite the fact that she has a huge hater in your immediate family. Connect with your sons about other topics. Do anything you need to do to honor your wife’s memory in ways that bring you joy. Think about what you’d like the holiday season to look like, and plan a few events that excite you. Then, when you feel less hopeless and frustrated, and can sense your patience tank is refilling and your energy is coming back, turn your attention back to your daughter. My hope for you is that you can enjoy the peace that comes with knowing you’ve made your love for her known and done your best to show her compassion. After all, you’re the one person left in this world who can still envision her as that toddler who didn’t get a lollipop and probably one of the few who loves her enough to have some empathy for her even when she’s being irrational and mean. You should write her a letter about your love for her, your memories of her childhood, how much her mom loved her, and how deeply you understand what she’s lost and want to be there for her. Tell her about how you share that grief and, if you haven’t, give her a sense of the dark place you were in emotionally when you were living in the family home. Tell her you will never forget about her, would never push her out of the family, and want to figure out a way to repair your connection. Ask her if there is anything you can do to make being around your new wife easier for her. I’m intentionally not including anything about labeling her behavior as unacceptable, telling her why her anger is misguided, defending your decision to marry, or giving an ultimatum. While there are reasonable things you could say on all those topics, I want her to come away from reading your letter feeling disarmed, understood, and safe to be vulnerable. Because if she’s ever going to stop acting like a 3-year-old, those things will have to come first. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Prudence, I have worked in retail since I was 14, and customers are entitled and brutal. I went out to brunch with my future in-laws, and it was busy. We got a kid serving us who was clearly stressed out. I wasn’t feeling very well, so I debated sharing a meal with someone else and then decided on a small salad. The waitress brought the meal instead, and I just rolled with it. I already had some shared appetizers and just asked for a doggy bag. I told her there was nothing wrong, that she was doing a great job, and just asked for more water. I covered my bit of the bill and didn’t see any reason to raise a fuss or not give a good tip. My soon-to-be sister-in-law kept trying to make a federal case out of it. I wasn’t ignored; it wasn’t a health problem. I was taking the meal and a few shared sides home that I helped pay for. She kept going on about tipping culture, so I went and flagged down a waiter and asked for a manager. Then I gushed about what a great job was done and asked for their names to write a review. My future sister-in-law just sat there fuming. My fiancé wasn’t there, but apparently his sister complained about what a “performance” I gave. I told him that next time I would do it with more gusto. I remember being on the verge of tears from stress during work, and receiving a nice word just changed my day. I think this might become a problem going forward—it doesn’t help that her name is actually Karen. Help! —Nice to the Waiter Dear Nice to Waiter, You were kind and generous and stood up for your values, and your fiancé’s sister didn’t like it. She’s the one who has to figure out what to do next. You shouldn’t change a thing. She can decide whether she wants to die on this hill by being rude to waiters and expecting everyone around her to follow her lead. If she does, and that means she won’t go out to eat with you again because you aren’t following her in living up to the worst stereotypes of people who share her name, that’s a win for you. Prudie Wants to Hear From You! Readers often have great suggestions for our letter writers, occasionally disagree with a point Prudie makes, or simply want to provide some additional advice. Each week, Prudie will be replying to some of these comments and suggestions from readers, which will be featured on the site on Fridays for Slate Plus members. Write to us! Or submit a question here. Dear Prudence, My partner and I have been together for a decade, and he has lived out West for over 25 years. Of his four kids, two have only visited twice in that time. The expectation is that we have to come to them. I don’t have kids, but my sisters and nieces have all visited us many times. It hurts my heart every time because the kids treat their dad as an afterthought and a walking wallet. We rented a suite at the Jersey Shore this summer rather than paying for an entire beach house after his daughter-in-law decreed that her parents were coming along as well, and we were forced out of our private room for them. We were allowed no private time with the actual grandchildren, not even taking them out for ice cream—other friends, cousins, or random neighbor kids had to be included. My partner and I tried to have private one-on-one time with his kids, only for it to get canceled at the last second. It hurts because, by their own accounts, my partner was a good and involved dad. His ex was the one who had the affair and asked for the divorce. My partner stayed until his youngest graduated high school before moving for a better-paying job. My partner is always, always disappointed and depressed after these trips. We aren’t getting any younger, and I am ready to quit traveling to try to appease people who don’t give a damn. Two of the grandchildren had fall birthdays and bought them scooters off Amazon. Not only was there no call to thank Grandpa, but it took us five different phone calls just to make sure they got the scooters and that they weren’t stolen. I am ready to throw in the towel. I have friends spending the holidays in Costa Rica, and we have an open invitation to join. How do I convince my partner to come and actually be around people who want us around? —Sad in the Southwest Dear Sad in the Southwest, My assessment is that the vacations and acknowledgements of gifts have been disappointing, but this can likely be explained by thoughtlessness and selfishness on the part of your adult stepchildren, mixed with the demands of parenting (which in itself contributes to the thoughtlessness and selfishness). Also, throw in some mismatched and uncommunicated expectations. For example, unless you said, “You two go out for the night. We would love to give you a break and really want some time alone with the kids to bond with them if you’re comfortable with that! We’ll follow all your instructions,” no one would have known that you two were expecting individual time with grandchildren whom you don’t see outside of these vacations. This all leaves your husband feeling unloved, but the offenses wouldn’t hit nearly as hard if the whole relationship weren’t riding on them. We have the technology for him to have frequent, low-stakes, intimacy-building contact with his kids through phone calls, texting, and video chats. Is any of that happening, or does he hold out for in-person visits to deepen his connection with his loved ones? There’s also an explanation for the visits mostly going in one direction: The fact that you say you live “out West” suggests everyone else lives in separate parts of the country. While his kids haven’t been great about coming to see you, I wonder whether disposable income (it seems like they were fairly young at the start of the 25 years) and the cost and logistics of travel with children contributed to this. And maybe he set a precedent of visiting them and never stated this wasn’t working for him, so things never changed. My prescription: Encourage him to be in touch with his kids and grandkids more regularly, to show interest in their lives and give them a better picture of his. I can only imagine that if he had a twice-weekly FaceTime call, he might have seen the scooters being used and received a live thank-you. Or a delayed thank-you for a gift might feel like less of a slight if you two knew, based on recent chats, that all the kids had hand-foot-and-mouth disease, his daughter-in-law was in the final stages of interviewing for a new job, or the new puppy they got for the kids was pooping all over the house. Asking his children about the details of their days and showing interest in their daily lives might help him feel much more connected. This could make bonding on vacation come much more naturally—or make those vacations feel less heartbreaking if they don’t go as planned. In addition, he needs to ask for what he wants. “My wife and I are getting older. Do you think you could make it out here to visit us at some point this year?” is a reasonable thing to say. If the answer is no, you can move on to strategizing about a trip that will include the experiences you hope to have. Don’t throw in the towel on relationships that you haven’t tried to improve. But even if things do get better, the reality that your husband’s kids live far away and are preoccupied with their own lives may persist. That could possibly just be a part of this stage of life. You two deserve people who love to be around you and have the capacity to be considerate of your needs. So absolutely, still go to Costa Rica with your friends. Classic Prudie My housemate has a friend that is going through a divorce. That friend called and wanted a place to crash after a fight. I said no, it’s my house, and my housemate pays a minimal amount to stay there. I will not have someone using my house as a free hotel because he doesn’t understand that his wife is tired of working all day, picking up the kids from day care, going home, doing chores, cooking dinner, especially when he shows up at 7:30 half in the bag. No, he is not a “great guy,” and it’s not my job to be supportive. He now thinks I am totally heartless. Advice Dear Prudence Family Parenting