Dear Eric: I am one of many lonely adults struggling to make close friends. It’s never come easy for me, and it’s compounded by the fact that I’m an introvert who works from home part time with three small children, living far away from family.
Category: Asking Eric
Asking Eric: How can we recognize our current and former spouses in our final resting places?
Dear Eric: I just want my second, happy, marriage recognized, as well as my first, happy, marriage.
Asking Eric: Family excluded from event with Santa
Dear Eric: We recently found out that my husband’s brother’s partner booked tickets for an event with Santa at a nearby stately home. It’s an event scheduled for when we’ll all be there together, but she didn’t extend the invitation to us and our children.
Asking Eric: Can someone reserve a table at a bookshop?
Dear Eric: I play Mahjong with senior citizens several times a week at a local Barnes & Noble. One day our group needed two tables, and one table had stuff sitting on it, along with a backpack on the floor with no one around. I moved it to the table right next to it because we needed that specific size table and there were many other open tables around us.
Asking Eric: Rich brother knows I am struggling
Dear Eric: I just feel very sad that I have a brother who is so wealthy and never thinks about helping me. He uses a private jet when he flies, takes fantastic trips, vacation homes all over the country, etc. I just wish with all his money; he would offer to help me pay off some of my medical bills. He does know I am struggling.
Asking Eric: Partner’s mother confesses uncomfortable paternity secret
Dear Eric: While I can appreciate that my partner’s mom trusts me enough to confide in me, I didn’t want to know this info, and now that I know, I wish I didn’t.
Asking Eric: Craft hobbyist running out of display space
Dear Eric: I’m a craft hobbyist. I enjoy embroidery, painting by numbers, building papercraft models, etc. My joy is really in the process of creating these, but I find our walls and shelves overflowing with the finished products.
Asking Eric: Sister claims sister-in-law ‘crashed’ nephew’s wedding
Dear Eric: I’m 65 and have always had a cordial but not loving relationship with my 64-year-old sister as our parents never encouraged their children to be loving to one another.
Asking Eric: Is the child mine? Should I reach out?
Dear Eric: While in grad school, I got a call from my ex-girlfriend saying her oldest child, then five years old, was my son. We met and she showed me pictures. She was married and she didn’t ask for anything. She just wanted me to know.
Asking Eric: Happier to be grandma than mom
Dear Eric: My brother and his wife just had their first child, and the first grandchild on both sides of the family. I am so excited to be an aunt, and love the baby. So does my mom, however she keeps saying something to my brother and I that we both are getting tired of.