Partner struggles with man’s estrangement from his family

Dear Eric: My partner and I are closing in on our third anniversary, and as we begin to talk seriously about the prospect of marriage, I’ve found myself troubled with a certain aspect of our relationship. I have not met his family once. This is my first “serious adult” relationship (I am 25; he is 34), so I don’t always know how to gauge what is normal, but my gut tells me that this is a bit strange.

He was raised by a single mother and was extremely close to her and his sister, but I learned that he stopped speaking to them about a year after we got together. When I broach the subject of his mother or sister in any respect, he completely shuts down and refuses to tell me anything about them. We almost never fight, but when we do, it is always because I want to try and discuss his relationship with his family.

Family is extremely important to me, and if the only reason he is not talking to his family is because he “doesn’t care,” that is an absolute deal breaker for me. I do not know what I can do to make him trust me with his feelings.

Have I already committed too much time and effort for someone who is clearly unwilling to discuss their feelings with me?

— Caring Partner

Dear Caring: Does he truly not trust you with his feelings or are his feelings on this topic still so raw and unresolved he can’t articulate them? What’s at the core of these fights for each of you?

To get at answers, and to hopefully see each other more clearly, consider premarital counseling. I recommend this for everyone, honestly, but in your case, a counselor or faith leader can provide a non-charged space for the two of you to talk about your relationship.

His relationship with his family, even estranged, is part of your relationship because it’s a part of him. Premarital counseling can help to bring that out without backing him into a corner about what happened. He may never be ready to talk about what happened. You should respect his boundaries while still staying true to what you need in this relationship.

You should be able to communicate without him shutting down. And you need to get clarity on his feelings around family. This will help you decide if the relationship still works for you.

Dear Eric: I’m a single man who has been divorced from my children’s mother for more than 25 years. I tried to be a good dad to my kids and got along well with their mom.

My ex-wife and I worked together to help get four kids through four years of college without any debts. After several years of his own marriage, our oldest son made us grandparents.

I came into some money about that time and moved away from where we raised our kids to the new town where the grandbaby lives and that’s when the trouble started.

I have heard some terrible lies from my adult children that they have reported being told to them by their mother, and now they don’t want to have anything to do with me. Just today I crossed paths with my son, but it was like I saw a stranger.

I think the ex is motivated by the fact that I came into some inheritance and am living a comfortable life, and she’s jealous. These are the sunset years of my life, and I don’t know how I should approach my situation.

Do you have any suggestions, and should I consult an attorney? I feel like I’ve been slandered.

— Sad Grandpa

Dear Grandpa: Suing your ex for slander is going to escalate everything, perhaps irrevocably, so let’s focus first on what can be repaired.

The most pressing issue is your relationship with your children. Do they believe what they’ve been told? Is any of it true?

From your telling, things with your kids went from zero to 100 overnight. If everything is a lie, I’m wondering what made them believe it so readily.

These things rarely come out of nowhere, so you need to find out from them what’s at the root of their grievance with you.

Go to them with openness and have a conversation: “Can you help me understand why you’re upset with me? I’d like to repair what I can, but I need to know what the issue is.”

This isn’t a chance for you to hotly defend yourself. You may be completely blameless in all of this. But if you can’t hear what’s going on with your children — wrongheaded or not — it won’t matter what your ex-wife is saying.

Send questions to eric@ askingeric.com.