ArcaMax

Dear Eric: I’ve been friends with a wonderfully quirky woman for decades. We’ve known each other since we were very young children. I frequently invite her to various family events, especially holidays, such as Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas because these tend to be big celebrations in my family.

Unfortunately, over the last couple of ...Read more

Dear Eric: I am 75 years old. My wife and I have been married for 45 years. My wife suffers from treatment-resistant depression and/or bipolar disorder. My wife has been undergoing treatment of various kinds for 30 years without success.

Mental health professionals and close friends have told me that my wife is damaging my mental health and ...Read more

Dear Eric: My mother-in-law's Christmas card always includes a top 10 list. It mainly revolves around family gatherings and grandkids. A few years back, her list included my husband's two brothers and their families but no mention of us and our three amazing kids.

We are always hosting because we live closest to them but somehow, she only ...Read more

Dear Eric: I enjoy one to two glasses of wine in the afternoon. My grandson, five years old, was told by his parents that alcohol is poison. He knows that two of his relatives died from alcohol abuse.

My son requested I not drink when we visited them and I complied. When the family came to my house to visit, I had a glass of wine and my ...Read more

Dear Eric: My older sister and I have always had a complicated relationship. I was the “golden child,” which she (rightfully) resented.

In recent years she has recounted “memories” of our family that invariably paint me and our mother in an unflattering light. Once she mentioned in passing a time “when you were a drug addict in high ...Read more

Dear Eric: My 30-year-old daughter has been in a serious relationship with her 31-year-old boyfriend for more than six years.

They got an apartment, but she had difficulty finding a job in the city where they lived and so she moved back home with me. But for the past 18 months, she continues to pay half her boyfriend's rent.

She works full ...Read more

Dear Eric: I can’t stop gossiping. I love it. I love talking trash. I feel no remorse about it at all. But my spouse hates it when I do it and it’s become an issue with us. I gossip with friends. I gossip on the phone. I gossip when I’m out. I don’t need to gossip with my spouse. But he says it paints me in a negative light. He won’t ...Read more

Dear Eric: I’ve been dating my boyfriend for about five years. I recently reconnected with a friend from college who I’ve really missed. After we hung out a few times, I introduced my college friend to my boyfriend at a casual dinner.

Things did not go well.

It turns out they went to middle school together. My boyfriend says that my ...Read more

Dear Eric: I have a typical 15-year-old teenage girl. She is my world and I do everything I can for her, knowing the general cold teenage response I will get. It usually doesn’t bother me.

Recently she has been wanting money for hanging out. There was a contest from my employer to draw a safety picture and win $100. She decided to enter it, ...Read more

Dear Eric: I'm writing about my 64-year-old sister I'll call "Beth."

We are three sisters. Mom passed away nine years ago. Dad is 89, living in another province.

For her own reasons Beth has a hatred toward him. She complains she gets a 45-second call once a week about how he drank and gambled away the money he got from a brother.

I look at ...Read more

Dear Eric: I really cannot tell if I’m the problem at work. I’ve been on a team for the last four years. We mainly focus on one project. Other members of the team have joined or fallen away, but the core group has been largely the same.

At the beginning I had my doubts about some of the people and their work styles. A few members seemed to ...Read more

Dear Eric: My husband and I are the fortunate recipients of our parents' inheritances. We worked hard and lived within our means, so we are secure in our retirement, and this money is not needed but a generous gift.

I would like to use this money for enrichment of my life and my friends’ lives, like picking up the check or paying for vacation...Read more

Dear Eric: I have been a teacher for 19 years. I have seen a lot. As a mandated reporter I have had to make the call to the authorities with some frequency. I have also had other children who had prior abuse and I was always a shoulder to cry on when needed. I have felt intense sadness at times, as when a student’s sibling was murdered. I ...Read more

Dear Eric: I am a male, a new female coworker started around Halloween 2025, and I introduced myself on day one. The next week she comes over to my work area and asks me why I am so quiet and then she asks me a lot of personal questions and I answer only a few.

Later, she tells me she is good at stalking people, and she looked me up online. I ...Read more

Dear Eric: A bunch of friends and I usually go on vacation for Labor Day. We’ve been doing it since senior year of high school. We’re now all 29. We rent two beach houses and just hang out. No one brings a girlfriend or anything. It’s just a guys weekend.

The problem is two of the guys have started dating between last year and this year. ...Read more

Dear Eric: This past July we rented a house for our two daughters, their partners and our grandkids to spend time together since they live states away. We live within 15 minutes of this house so we would spend our days doing activities in the mountains and all regroup at the rental house in the evening.

The last couple of days of the vacation ...Read more

Dear Eric: My father died and I held a small memorial service for him. It was traumatic as my dad was not a great guy.

I was confronted at the ceremony by my half-sister, whom I did not recognize as I hadn’t seen her for 43 years.

She came to the funeral to make sure her father was dead and to confront me about her mother (my stepmother).

...Read more

Dear Eric: My spouse of 12 years and I do not fight, argue, or call names; we generally see eye to eye except when it comes to sex drive. We're both respectful but I do admit I have become uncaring over the years of avoidance of the issue and ignorance of how much I've worked to change.

Aside from early into the relationship my spouse will not ...Read more

Dear Eric: I have been in central Florida for more than 26 years, and it has become unbearable to me. There’s the brutal heat; the skin destroying UV-rays of that miserable, scorching, eye-blinding sun; the constant allergy/sinusitis issues that NEVER let up; the smothering humidity. The sun is here all year.

If you dare to venture out for a ...Read more

Dear Eric: My brother and his wife recently cut off contact with my family listing grievances related to what I consider to be unrealistic expectations or perceived injustices (like how quickly someone responds to their message on a group chat vs. someone else's message). They stated they were establishing boundaries for their own well-being.

I...Read more