#boundary-setting

#boundary-setting

No visit home for the holidays is complete without at least a few annoying or insensitive comments from your extended family. Often, your family means well when they inquire - yet again! - about your relationship status, your body, your baby plans or what is (or isn't) on your plate or in your glass. Or perhaps they're oblivious to how inappropriate these remarks can be. But that doesn't change the fact that it's exhausting to deal with these same comments year after year.

If you're going to stay with somebody for three or four days, find ways to politely give yourself a break. Go for lunch with friends who live locally, or book a ticket to a museum or a National Trust place so that you have ways of getting yourself out of the house. Tamara Hoyton, a senior practitioner for Relate at Family Action, agrees that scheduling breaks is a good strategy.

The well-documented rise in adult-child-parent estrangement creates stressors for grandparents, too (such as loss, identity change, social isolation, and complicated loyalties). It raises the practical importance of grandparent communities as protective resources (for emotional support, practical help, advocacy, and skills for boundary work). I was recently speaking to a friend who is also a new grandparent, and we discussed the joys of being grandfathers, as well as how rewarding it feels to help our adult children navigate this challenging time in their lives.

When I learn that an acquaintance supports stripping my rights away, I distance myself from them. Because of this, I've received some comments like, It's such a shame that you can't even be friends with me because we disagree on politics.

Let's navigate this via your motherly empathy and intuition. If you suspect your daughter would be mortified were you to share your inter-sheets discovery, don't do it. Let her come to you. A cockring is small enough that it's not going to be a burden to store-it can go in a junk drawer in the guest room or, if you want to be so discreet so that no one else in your residence might casually see it when searching for a highlighter or AA battery,

So, we had a sitter last night that we paid $35 an hour for two kids that were only awake for two hours of the time she was here,

We start the bedtime routine at 7 p.m., and it lasts until 8:15 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. most nights. This includes about 20 minutes of overseeing the toothbrushing and general bedtime prep, and then I spend about 20 minutes of one-on-one time with each of my three kids, in reverse age order. The kids are welcome to read in their beds until they're sleepy enough to turn off the light,

Still, we all felt pretty apprehensive heading into this living arrangement. For one, our lifestyles were quite different: My husband and I had been empty nesters for the past decade, and we had routine sleep and mealtimes. Meanwhile, they were young parents with a small child and a baby on the way - a lot of their schedules depended on seasonal and weekly activities.

I really like the other four people that I am sharing the house with, and it's a nice space. My question is, I think I am developing a crush on one of the other housemates, and I think they feel the same from what I can tell. We are very flirty and there's been a few moments when we had some drinks that it felt like we might kiss, but it didn't happen.

I'm friends with my co-worker, not in the way where we naturally grew close after being forced to spend eight hours a day with each other. We were friends before we became co-workers. When I heard she had applied for the same company, I was excited, but grew wary. I secretly didn't want her to get it. I was scared of what it would do to our relationship.

If they tried to set [boundaries] as a kid, there would either be intense pushback to the point where it becomes not worth it, or a blow up to the point where it becomes not worth it,

Dear Forced, I really wish I could get a glass of wine with you and hear about a million more details about your relationship with your mother-in-law, husband, and even this poor, anxious dog. But in the absence of knowing how you feel about these mammals, I've developed a conspiracy theory: Is it possible your MIL brought Chari on purpose, knowing you'd have to leave, because she was craving some solo time with her son?

I am a queer man of color in my mid-20s. I grew up in a mostly white, conservative, rural town. It was hellish growing up there, dealing with constant microaggressions, racism, and homophobia. Even though I was not out of the closet at the time, I was constantly clocked as being gay and ridiculed as a result. Despite this, I had some incredibly close friends who were a godsend during that time.

When the bill came, it sat on the table for a while; neither of us touched it. Eventually, I picked it up and asked if she wanted to split it, and she said yes immediately. I was caught off guard because she had clearly said beforehand that she wanted to treat me, so I hadn't expected to pay. It's not about the money

I think the most prudent thing to do here is to consider what the emotional fallout will be if the same thing were to happen again. You've written your letter in a hypothetical voice without identifying yourself, which is uncommon for this column, but I have a hunch that if you're in this configuration, you're the wife. If that is true, envision what a scenario will be like if your husband follows the same pattern.

My husband of more than 20 years gives me slipper socks with grippy soles. I hate them! We live in a hot climate, so I have little use for them. They filled up my sock drawer and retraumatized me every time I touched them. I threw them away and they came back. He gave me five more pairs at Christmas. They can't be worn with shoes or out in public.

I realize Christmas is still a ways off, but every year I go all out to find my niece the hottest must-have toy, only for her mother (my sister-in-law) to accuse me of trying to buy her affection. My brother and his wife have fewer resources than I have, so I don't mind shelling out to make my niece's Christmas as magical as possible. How can I convince my SIL that I'm not trying to upstage her?

But that advice was followed during a different time and for workplaces that were designed to keep you in line, not further your career. In today's fast-moving workforce, clinging to outdated relationships, toxic workplaces, or unfair structures isn't loyalty. It's self-sabotaging. It's time to rethink what was once considered the norm. Sometimes burning a bridge isn't reckless. It's strategic. It's the first step toward building something better in your career.

My best friend of nearly 50 years has been diagnosed with cancer, and the prognosis isn't good. Naturally, I want to support her, but she's making it very challenging. I just spoke with her on the phone to check in, and she got angry with me over something incredibly simple. I had asked about her pain level during her treatment that day and expressed how sorry I was that she had to endure such pain.

The last few years I've just started telling him and everyone around us that I don't like music and don't care for it in the background. I'm not embarrassed, it just hurts my ears, literally. I realize it brings him/them joy, but how much joy do I tolerate at my extreme discomfort? I actually used to really like, even love, some music, but now I completely hate it. Hating music is now part of my personality, which I never intended.