Asking Eric: Wedding leaves old friends adrift

Dear Eric: My husband and I recently attended a destination wedding 1,500 miles away for the daughter of friends we have known for more than 50 years. We gave a very generous cash gift, despite the fact that we are retired and on a fixed income. We received a perfunctory thank you note a month or so later.

We paid all of our expenses for lodging, food, etc. The only meal we were invited to attend was the wedding reception.

Over five days we spent little to no time with our friends because of how busy they were with the wedding and interacting with other friends that we didn’t know.

At this point, I wish we had just sent a card with a congratulatory note and our regrets. I’m resentful. Please, help me re-frame this to get over it.

Eric says: Think of this wedding as a vacation that you probably wouldn’t have chosen for yourself but which you went on nonetheless. Were there enjoyable meals or moments from your time there? Focus on those.

I know you were hoping to have more time with your friends, but you should grant them some grace here. You felt left out. I understand your reaction, but try reframing your thinking.

See it less as a rejection than as an oversight that came from them juggling friends from multiple stages of life, far from home, on a logistically complex weekend. Any time they spent with other people was not time they were purposefully spending away from you.

Your feelings are valid. It’s OK to have gone in with an expectation that you’d be a bigger part of the event, and you should have received a nicer thank you. All that being said, take the good memories from your trip and leave the rest. It’s not worth throwing away 50 years of friendship over.

Dear Eric: My two adult children sometimes privately criticize or demean the other in my presence. I don’t want to get involved in a defensive conversation about my children, even if I may understand the reasons for the comments. I try to respond with something constructive and change the subject, but sometimes the comments are so bitter it really upsets me.

We tried a few sessions of family counseling that were unhelpful. How can a parent respond in a way that is loving without validating the animosity between two adults? I’m a mom, not a moderator.

Eric says: You will find sibling animosity littered throughout history and myth. It’s amazing that people who share DNA and memories so often can’t seem to share the same space.

I understand how sad this makes you. A lot of parents feel guilt when their children don’t get along as adults. The underlying causes can be unpacked in family therapy, when it works for you, but at the end of the day, sometimes people just don’t like each other.

It’s hard to accept, and it makes for difficult holiday dinners, but there is a way forward. You have to set a clear boundary with your children about what they can and can’t talk about with you.

They’re taking advantage of you as a receptive audience and each is trying to win you to their side. Tell them, “I know that you don’t get along, and I respect your feelings. It hurts me that you hurt. I wish I could fix it, but I can’t. It also hurts me to be brought into this. I love you. Please love me enough to talk about something else with me.”

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110.