DEAR ABBY: We asked our 19-year-old college daughter, “Lulu,” to dog-sit and house-sit several months ago. She was aware of our rule prohibiting visitors in our home while we were away. For this reason, we didn’t feel the need to prepare by filing mail and documents away before our short trip.
Lulu allowed her new boyfriend of a few weeks to stay over for the weekend. She not only invited this stranger into our home but also deceived us for months. It’s challenging to let go of our disappointment in her poor judgment by letting a stranger into our home with unsecured documents lying around.
Her sexual activities and their repercussions are her own “adult” choices, but I’m uncertain when I’ll be able to trust our daughter again. She had a chance to begin rebuilding our trust shortly after we discovered “the weekend,” but didn’t take our consequences and rules seriously during her school break, resulting in a loss of some privileges. Yes, she did begin counseling sessions this past semester. Where do we go from here? — NO TRUST IN NEW MEXICO
DEAR NO TRUST: Since we now know Lulu has poor judgment and lacks respect for your rules, take away your house key (if you haven’t already), practice keeping your financial documents under lock and key when you’re not in the house and hire a dog sitter. Then, cross your fingers and hope the counseling your daughter is receiving helps her become more mature and make better choices.
DEAR ABBY: I lost my daughter to cancer five years ago. She was only 36. She left behind a husband and three children, ages 3, 5 and 7. While my daughter and her husband worked, I was their “nanny granny” five days a week. I would also take them overnight on weekends. More often than not, I had more waking hours with my grands than their parents did. We were extremely close and bonded.
After my daughter passed, my son-in-law asked me to move in to help. I was in a position to do so, and it went OK the first year. Then some cracks began to show, and we ended up having a huge fight over money (though it wasn’t really about money). After I said some horrible things about him on Facebook, he took the grands away from me. It has been two years, and I have begged his forgiveness to no avail. What can I do? — MISSING THEM IN MARYLAND
DEAR MISSING THEM: You wrote that “cracks began to show.” I wish you had mentioned what that huge fight was “really” about because I might have been able to answer your question about how to patch things up more fully. As it stands, all I can suggest is to continue apologizing to your former son-in-law and continue sending gifts to your grandchildren on their birthdays and at Christmas so they will know they have a grandmother who exists and cares about them.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
