Dear Amy: My partner and I are friends with a neighborhood couple who have a wonderful and loving family. We see them socially on occasion and sincerely enjoy their company.
This year, they asked us to support their youth organization’s annual fundraising efforts by purchasing a snack gift pack. Being good neighbors, we purchased an item. Immediately after the purchase, buyer’s remorse set in. Their national organization does not allow gay leaders.
I feel the parents are close enough that we can broach the subject, and yet I also feel they should have been more sensitive before approaching us. — Neighborly
Dear Neighborly: Just as your neighbors weren’t making a particular statement in asking you to buy a snack pack, you can also refuse to purchase a snack pack without making a declaration — unless you want to.
If you’re asked or wish to supply an explanation, you should say that because the organization has an exclusionary leadership policy, you can’t in good conscience support its fundraising efforts.
It is not these parents’ job to determine or decode your sensitivities and avoid you — or to urge the boys to exclude you (then they’d be doing the same thing their organization’s leadership does).
They are treating you to the same opportunity all of the neighbors are being given, and like the other neighbors; you can take or leave the treats, with or without an explanation.
Dear Amy: My family knows that my husband has been very sick. They have heard this from doctors and from me. If we want my husband around in the future, he must not drink alcohol and must eat well.
He was an alcoholic, but bless him, he has been doing great, despite having many other medical problems.
We have all but given up joining my family for any occasion; they go so far as to invite him to taste this booze or that, when they all know how hard it is for him to abstain. Any suggestions? — Sad Sister
Dear Sad: One quibble — you say your husband “was” an alcoholic. He is an alcoholic. This distinction is important because your husband’s alcoholism requires ongoing vigilance.
If your family can’t accommodate him or if they continue to diminish or (even worse) undermine his recovery, then you shouldn’t spend time with them.
If you are with them and they behave in a way that you and your husband believe is injurious to his health, then you will have to leave.
Recovering addicts know that the key to sobriety is in the company they keep. This lesson will be substantiated if your husband attends a recovery support program like AA regularly.
Your family members sound like bad company — and your husband should keep his distance.
Dear Amy: I’m a lifelong reader of advice columns and have noticed that most of the problems you tackle are due to people’s inability to express themselves respectfully and honestly with others to resolve simple, everyday conflicts. They don’t know what to say, or they don’t have the guts to speak up.
Ironically, this comes at a time when we’re hearing an excess of angry “self-expression” about political and social differences.
Our society seems unable to engage in civil discourse and open dialogue just when we need it the most. Do you think these two trends are related? — Northwest Reader
Dear Reader: I do think these two trends are related.
I’m continually surprised at the challenge people face in expressing their own desires or points of view. Like you, I see an opposite tendency — and that is the freewheeling and aggressive expression of people who don’t mind “getting in someone’s face.”
I often preach the benefit of balance — but personal balance is hard to achieve when the rest of the world seems out of whack.
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