Dear Amy: I have been in a live-in relationship for 22 years with the father of my son. My partner struggles with depression and alcohol, and has been jobless for 16 years. In the past I believed he would stop drinking or find a job. Now I am 50 and don’t believe him anymore.
For seven years we have kept separate bedrooms. Five years ago, I bought a house with a nice garden, and that keeps me happy. My mother, brother and son say I should sell the house and leave him. I love my garden and do not want to give it up.
I have always had a job, sometimes two, to pay the bills. Now I have a job I love. The only trouble is with this man, and I’ve been telling him he needs to go. He says it’s my problem, I’m the one who destroyed his health, and he drinks because of me.
– House Happy
Dear Happy: I’m going to assume that you have attempted to help your guy and that your compassion has gotten you nowhere. Now you need to issue an ultimatum, followed by a key to his new storage locker.
According to Donna Kline, author of “The Laws of Love: A Practical Guide for Living Together” (due out in July by Blue House Press), your guy, not you, is the one who should be moving. Your first step must be to thoroughly review your records concerning the ownership of your home. Assuming you alone own your property, treat your couch potato as a tenant who needs to be evicted.
Your justice of the peace or clerk’s office can educate you on how to initiate an eviction and help you fill out the paperwork. Kline says to tell your guy he needs to be gone by a specific date. (Put this in writing in the form of a registered letter.) On the date specified, if he hasn’t made any moves to leave the home, consider hiring a mover who could transport his goods to a nearby storage unit. You would pay the first month’s storage fee and give him the key.
Even if you sold the home and moved out, he would still have to move, unless he could buy it from you.
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Dear Amy: We bought a house in a quiet neighborhood and had been enjoying peaceful nights until our neighbors bought a hot tub. Now, from time to time, we have trouble sleeping because they are in the tub just outside our bedroom window. We can hear them talking and laughing as clearly as if they were inside our house.
They have been out there as late as midnight, and we generally go to bed at 10 because we have to be up before 6 a.m.
We aren’t really able to move our bedroom, except perhaps to the basement, and I wonder whether we should have to do that just because of the neighbors. They are very friendly and considerate people. I need a way to phrase a polite request for quiet after a certain hour.
– Sleepless in the Midwest
Dear Sleepless: Assume that your neighbors have no idea of how the sound carries, especially at night, when it’s otherwise quiet and clear.
Just say to your neighbor, “Margaret, did you know that we can hear you clear as a bell when you and Stan are in the hot tub? The sound carries straight up to our bedroom. You know how early we get up – could we arrive at a curfew?”
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Dear Amy: I read a letter in your column from a woman complaining that someone would accept money after the death of a child. My 21-year-old son died in Iraq. Does this woman have any idea of what happens to a parent when a child dies? All the expenses, loss of work time, etc. The difficulty with depression and not being able to work? We got a death payment. It seemed large to us. We used every penny wisely.
I would gladly live in a shack or die tomorrow if it would bring my son back. That woman shouldn’t judge people until she has walked a mile in our shoes.
– Jan Ehrlich
Dear Jan: Please accept my sympathy. Surely, coping with the death of a child is every parent’s worst nightmare.
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