Dear Eric: My boyfriend has a second home in Florida where we stay three to four months a year. He pays “Marcus,” a neighbor, to look in on the house and drive the car when we’re not there.
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Marcus has had issues with the car. One year, he apparently drove the car without gas and caused significant damage. The car is ancient, we could not prove he was responsible, and I paid a repair bill of several thousand dollars.
Last year, he apparently did not drive the car enough, the battery died, and he enlisted another neighbor, “Jim,” to help him jumpstart the car.
We had been friendly with Jim and his wife, socialized at community functions, and went out to dinner a few times a year. When we returned to Florida, my boyfriend thanked Jim for helping with the car, and I also thanked him in our annual Christmas card.
Unfortunately, Jim has stopped speaking to us.
My boyfriend contends I should have purchased a gift card for Jim and his wife, as accessing a hybrid battery is not easy, the car is in my name, and saying thank you was not enough.
I think we paid Marcus to take care of the car, Marcus engaged Jim for assistance of his own accord, and if any compensation was expected, it should have come from Marcus.
Who is correct, and is it too late to make it right?
– Not Trying to Be Ungrateful
Dear Not Trying: I’m by no means a mechanic, but I’ve jumpstarted my share of hybrids. Unless I’m missing something else here, this is in the “favor” category. A gift card would be nice, but a thank you suffices.
Ask Jim if there’s something else going on or something you can do to help repair the relationship. It seems odd he’d stop speaking to you about this alone. It could be that Marcus is even more of a troublesome presence than you know, and Jim has reached his limit. But that’s just conjecture, of course.
Either way, it would be prudent to ask someone other than Marcus to mind the car. And consider paying for a roadside assistance service.
Dear Eric: My husband and I have been together for more than 33 years. He is, in so many ways, a wonderful person, and we’ve built a good life together.
When I met my husband, he had a young son. My husband’s ex, the child’s mother, did everything she could to undermine any sense of normal family life. She even threatened my life.
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Throughout our marriage, I often felt that my husband’s connection with his ex crossed lines. There was no cheating, but he shared personal things, such as details about our marriage. There were even Christmas mornings he spent with his son and his ex instead of with me and my family.
Counseling helped somewhat; the therapist tried to help him understand how damaging those choices were.
As their son entered his teen years, he struggled with serious behavioral issues and eventually drug abuse. Before he passed away at 21 from drugs, there were many painful incidents: threats, fights, drilling holes in doors to spy on me while nude, bringing criminals into our home, stealing, and more.
Despite everything, my husband and I survived it, and we truly love each other. But my husband still has contact with his ex, even 15 years after their son’s death. She continues to make comments implying that I was the problem, and my husband brushes them off instead of defending me.
Am I supposed to tolerate this forever?
– Blended Family
Dear Family: I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through. Your husband has crossed too many boundaries and though therapy showed him how it was affecting you, it doesn’t seem he has made amends.
That doesn’t mean he has to sever this relationship with his ex, per se, but it needs to change and he needs to be proactive about it.
It’s unconscionable that someone who has threatened your life in the past and continues to malign you is still treated as a non-issue. But your husband has to want to acknowledge your feelings and do the work to fix your marriage. It’s unclear if he wants to.
Draw a line for yourself. There doesn’t seem to be a need for you to ever interact with his ex-wife, so tell him that that’s not going to work for you anymore. Tell him that you need him to recognize the hurtful impact his ex-wife has had on you and on your marriage and work on making things different in the future. This may mean more counseling for both of you.
It would also be helpful for you to seek individual counseling, to help process your feelings about this relationship and the complicated, painful emotions brought up by his son’s death.
Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram @oureric and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.
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