"At my 26th birthday my childhood best friend Corinne apparently hit it off with my 56-year-old, widowed dad. They enjoyed one another's company, grabbed coffee a few days later, and one thing led to another. Now they've been dating for six months, and their relationship has become serious enough that they've told my brother and me about it. On the one hand, I'm very happy that my lonely father has found someone he might love."
"You're right to be happy that two people you care about are delighted in each other's company. And given each of their relationship to you, and their age difference, it's normal that you also find yourself suppressing a gag instinct. Beyond that, you don't have to do much more than accept your complicated feelings. Since everyone is an adult, it will be best for your mental health to stay out of their relationship."
A 26-year-old reports that a childhood best friend began dating her 56-year-old widowed father after meeting at her birthday, and the relationship has become serious. She feels conflicted, happy for her father's companionship yet viscerally uncomfortable because of the age proximity and their past friendship. The advice is to accept those complicated emotions, refrain from interfering, and protect personal mental health by staying out of the adults' relationship. The advice predicts the relationship will likely run its course and that the friend may eventually move on to someone closer to her age. A second letter begins from a mid-20s career changer who works in a small office with a mid-50s boss who appears to be an alcoholic, but that inquiry is truncated.
Read at Slate Magazine
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]