To get right to the point: Are men meant to build empires, and women meant to change diapers?

My wife and I have four children under 7. We work very flexible 40-hour weeks, and financially we’re very comfortable. Our nonwork hours are filled with family activities that we either do together or divide up more or less evenly. On good days, it’s delightful and rewarding. On bad days, it’s aggravating and draining.

I’m writing because my work is currently taking a back seat to family. I’m well-known in my field, and I often feel that I could really “put a dent in the universe” if I went all-in with my career. My three sisters have all married men who put their own career goals far above children and family. Nothing is more important than their work: They rarely attend our family holiday gatherings, barely change diapers, and if their kids are sick—well, that’s too bad, but my sisters better figure it out, because there’s an unmissable investor meeting in Dubai.

I know there are voices in the modern conservative movement who would say all is right with their arrangement: They are “men being men,” valiant warriors on the bloody battlefield of commerce. And my sisters, left with all the family responsibilities, are “women being women.”

I vacillate between two extremes. My brothers-in-law aren’t exactly Andrew Tate, but I often think they are self-absorbed jerks who will regret their priorities later in life. But on, say, my fourth day staying home from work with a vomiting toddler, I’m deeply envious of them. It seems to me that my sisters have sacrificed so much for their families, but their husbands get to do whatever they want, as long as they’re “grinding.” They get to enjoy roaring professional success, jet around the world, and be absolved of essentially all tedious childcare responsibilities. What a hack!

I think about the pretty substantial things I could accomplish if I devoted myself to work like they do. And I wonder: Have I been poisoned by progressive gender ideas? Have I emasculated myself by limiting the hours that I work, and spending most of my free time doing sing-alongs and playing football with my kids? How does a man think about—and weigh—the impact they could have on their families versus the impact they could have professionally?

I’m not a very woke person, but I know there’s no shortage of right-wing influencers who would call me a “pussy” or worse, a “cuck,” because I’m playing dress-up and cooking with my daughters at 5 p.m., and I’m not out there crushing it every day. Maybe my brothers-in-law see me this way as well. Does a “real man” toss the kids to his wife, jump on a plane, and set his sights on building an empire?

Thank you so much.

Martin, 44

Dear Martin,

Hundreds of thousands of American GIs marched off to World War II with a copy of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn buried in their rucksacks. The coming-of-age story—let’s face it, a girls’ book—was a favorite among our male troops because 11-year-old Francie Nolan’s loneliness and grit touched them deeply, filling their hearts with the simple beauty of family life.

The young men who dog-eared those pages would go on to defeat the Third Reich in Western Europe and liberate Dachau and Buchenwald.

Like a lot of Americans my age, both of my grandfathers fought in the war—one in the Army Air Corps and the other in the U.S. Navy. Both were proud and eager to serve a country they loved—and returned to my grandmothers as adoring and attentive husbands and dads. They helped the kids with their homework. Neither was ever caught bragging about how many women he had slept with or how much weight he could bench-press.

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I have been happily married for seven years, and I’ve known my husband for eight and a half. Like any couple, we’ve had our ups and downs, but overall we’ve grown closer, while building a life together and raising our three young children.

This week, completely out of the blue, I received an email from someone I don’t know. She said she felt I deserved to know something important—that over 10 years ago, my husband sexually assaulted her.

I spoke to my husband immediately. He told me that around that time, he had a brief relationship with this woman, and they hooked up a few times. He said she became unstable and obsessive, and that he cut off contact. According to him, she later accused him of rape, which he firmly denies.

Understandably, this has shaken me.

I trust my husband. Our marriage is built on that foundation. He has earned my complete trust in a thousand ways in our time together and has always been a man of upstanding character. I know in his heart he is a kind and good man.

And yet, I can’t ignore the pit in my stomach.

I’m torn about what to do next. Should I respond to her and hear her side of the story? Or is trusting my husband enough?

I don’t want to invite unnecessary chaos or give attention to someone who may be unstable. But I also don’t want to dismiss something serious or risk being naive.

—A deeply conflicted wife, 35

Dear Deeply Conflicted Wife,

A brilliant friend, a fellow law student at the time, once pointed out to me an ontological unfairness in criminal law. “You ever notice that the criminal code mostly punishes male-typical forms of violence?” he said. “Female-typical social violence—rumor, cruel innuendo, ostracism, alienating friends from you—largely goes ignored?” It was the sort of unconventional insight that came at me sideways and stuck. Because, of course, he was right.

Pop another guy in the nose, and you’ve committed an assault. You face expulsion from school or even a criminal record. But spread a devastating rumor, level a false accusation—and you can inflict bottomless, ongoing anguish on your target without anyone calling the cops on you. You’ll rarely even suffer reputational consequences yourself.

Over a decade after she briefly dated your husband, a woman has detonated a dirty bomb in your family. Her conduct will leave no physical trace. But by inviting you to mistrust your husband, the emotional pain and havoc visited on your family are potentially limitless. Do you imagine she is honestly trying to protect you or your children from your husband of nearly eight years? Does that seem even remotely credible? Don’t lie to yourself: It isn’t.

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Dear Abigail,

My parents are both alcoholics. They pull each other into benders several times a week. This was not a huge problem when they lived out of state, but a few years ago, they moved to the town my wife and I live in, to be closer to our three kids. Long story short, after they had several drunk interactions with my children—even after I explicitly asked them to not be drunk around their grandkids—my wife and I decided we had to have some boundaries. One of them was that we didn’t want them to drive the kids anywhere.

When I sat them down to tell them, I was direct, but not mean. I explained that we love them, and want them in our lives, and want our kids to have a good relationship with them—but due to their relationship with alcohol, we have to draw this red line. They were hurt and upset by this, and our relationship has not really recovered. This was almost two years ago.

We try to have them over for dinner once a month, but they often say they are busy. We try to invite them on days out with the kids, but they always say no. When they suggest things we could do together, we always say yes, but recently they have stopped doing this, too. They live five minutes away and never see their grandkids. This baffles me.

My parents both cut off their relationships with their parents when I was young. I do not want to do the same thing—but it seems that by creating one boundary I have essentially done this. Trying to repair the situation has been emotionally exhausting. But I’m also ready to hear that, actually, the problem is me. So do your worst!

Thanks in advance,

Evan, 39

Dear Abigail,

I am due to give birth to my first child at the end of April. My mother is coming to help us for roughly a week when the baby is born. This was less something we asked for and more something that was foisted on us. She is insistent on being there as soon as we come back from the hospital. The main problem I have with this is my mom smokes weed from a vape pen basically all day. How do I talk to her about the fact that she cannot do that around the baby or even in our house? I want to set a boundary that I don’t want her to bring the vape pen when she visits us because I don’t want to be worried about secondhand smoke.

From,

Natasha, 29

Evan and Natasha,

Some of us tread up the mountain of adulthood relatively sure-footed, thanks to support from good parents and stable families. You did it with hundred-pound sandbags strapped to your shoulders: a fearsome act of mental toughness.

The reward is the families you have built and the honor of that accomplishment.

The price, of course, is the pain.

I’ll address your letters together because your predicaments are similar, and because it may be heartening to know that you’re not alone.

Evan, you tried to preserve your parents’ feelings. But you drew a line at letting them risk the lives of your children. Drunks have an unmistakable tendency to wrap cars around telephone poles. Your parents know this.

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My dad passed in 2022. He wasn’t perfect—nobody is—but he was a good man. My mom, who’s 64 now, was understandably a wreck for years after she became a widow. She moved states to be closer to family, including me, and settled an hour away from my house. My wife and I would try to visit her every week, or invite her over. She often complained it wasn’t enough, but we tried to be understanding; being lonely is hard. My brother lives out of state but did what he could to try to be present and in touch with her. We encouraged her for years to make friends and even consider dating again—something she was initially 1,000 percent against.

Eventually she did start making friends, and that was going really well for a while. Then she started dating, and I thought that was good. She met a guy who’s 71 that she wanted to “go steady” with, and since then she has kind of gone silent on my brother and I. Neither of us are hurt or offended; we’re glad she’s no longer lonely and seems happy.

This guy is a problem, though. He filibusters every conversation, talking about himself, and is entirely uninterested in anyone else. He makes outlandish claims, like that he has cured his own diabetes and his congestive heart failure. He says that a 90-year-old woman pressed on his gums and cured his sciatica. As for his career, apparently Walter Isaacson should be interviewing him, because he’s more accomplished than Steve Jobs. When we get together as a family, I’m not talking to my mom—I’m listening to this guy spout off his pathological, medically impossible lies. His behavior is intolerable to a point that attempting to spend time with my mom feels like torture, because he’s always in the picture.

My wife, and my brother’s wife, also find his behavior outlandish. This isn’t a case of my brother and I begrudging our mom for being with someone new—we’re pleased she’s not alone—but I feel like I need to keep my mom at arm’s length so I don’t have to be exposed to this guy and his narcissism. I’m a Christian and I believe in the commandment that you should honor your father and mother, but this guy’s stunningly fantastical claims make it impossible to follow that commandment.

What can I do to maintain a good relationship with my mom in light of all this? If this guy could tone things down, it would probably be okay, but every time we see him there’s a new ridiculous story. I haven’t brought this up with my mom because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but things as they stand now are unsustainable.

Joshua, 42

Joshua,

A horse walks into a bar.

The bartender says, “Why the long face?”

The horse replies: “I have AIDS.”

That I’m laughing, even now, having no idea why, is part of what makes this absurd joke so great.

For some reason, God or the universe gifted us this remarkable ability—to find humor in the ridiculous. To choose not to take everything so seriously all the time. This wonderful oasis of the soul lets us sidestep so many negative emotions: outrage, anger, hurt, indignation, and disappointment. We can refuse them all and instead laugh.

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Lately I have been wondering if I am making a mistake by deciding not to have kids—usually after reading an essay in The Free Press about how important kids are and how no one is having kids anymore! I really don’t think I’ve been influenced by a larger societal trend or the economy or millennial climate fears or the desire to put my career over motherhood. I have never connected with the idea of having kids; even as a child, I never saw it as something in my future. Getting married—definitely, but not kids. The idea has always given me an instant feeling of panic.

I’m not particularly career motivated, so that hasn’t been a factor in my decision. My partner feels equally ambivalent about kids. We have friends and family with kids, and I’m always happy to spend time with them, unlike the child-free people I see on Reddit who seem to hate children. But even after spending time with my favorite kid, I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I think my partner and I will have a fulfilling life pursuing our hobbies and careers. I do worry about being lonely in older age or being alone if, God forbid, something happens to him. But having kids just to have company when I’m old seems selfish!

I also have lifelong mental health struggles and a family history of mental health struggles, which also makes me worry about postpartum depression or subjugating a child to having a mother with spells of depression. But overall, when it comes down to it, I’ve just never wanted kids! I keep waiting for something to change, but it never does.

Now that my partner and I will get married soon (probably 2027), I’m worried I’m overlooking something. I’m also worried I will change my mind at some point, and he won’t. Or vice versa! I wouldn’t want to leave him; I think I would choose him over kids. I want to figure this out before we get married. I have talked to my partner, but he isn’t stressed about this, like I am. Have I fallen for some sort of liberal propaganda? Am I making a huge mistake?

Thank you,

Childless, 29

Dear Childless,

In any high school class, there is a small subset of girls who always knew they wanted to be mothers. You know the sort: They immediately notice any small child in the vicinity, and engage him breathlessly, often at eye level. They often get married principally to have children—almost any nice guy will do. Unsurprisingly, many of these women become teachers.

There are also the girls who know, from a young age, that family life isn’t for them—a far smaller subset.

And then there is a vastly larger category: Those of us who assumed we’d have a family one day, but mostly, we wanted to fall in love and get married. It was only after we did those things that any vague sense that we wanted kids turned acute. Only after we had a husband we loved did we want to give him children, a family, a legacy. Only then did we begin to envision him with a child propped up around the back of his neck, tiny hands gripped gently by his giant palms.

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I am lucky to have a mother and father who have been active and loving parents throughout my life. They were not the type of parents to “phone it in.” They cheered for us on the sidelines at our sporting events, attended our plays and performances, and appreciated us as individuals.

The one struggle I’ve had is that my mother seems incapable of accepting my sexuality as a gay man. I came out over a decade ago, and while it was a bumpy ride at first, it felt like we had made progress in the last few years. However, when I shared with her that I want to have a family one day with my current partner, she told me that she didn’t believe two men could raise children.

This is despite the fact that I make a great living, have a committed relationship with my partner, and am eager to be a dedicated and loving parent to my future children. She’s also expressed several times that she longs to be a grandmother, so it felt particularly painful to realize that she doesn’t want grandchildren from me. When I try to address her resistance, she invokes her faith as the reason for her struggle.

I know having two dads is different from a dad and a mom, but I’m confident in the life I could provide for my future children. And while I want my children to have a close relationship with their grandparents, it’s hard to imagine that will be possible if my parents don’t even believe in my ability to raise kids. What do I do?

—Chase, 30, Philadelphia

Chase,

At the heart of your letter, unmissable as the pain, is the fact that you are still asking your mother to be thrilled with everything about you. You even ask her to bless your nebulous aspirations to have a family “one day.”

I can feel the response you seem to be seeking from me: Have a conversation with your mother about this. Let her know it hurts you that she doesn’t embrace you fully as a gay man and especially that she doesn’t think two men could make good parents. If she can’t accept you as you truly are, then you can’t have her in your life and the lives of your future kids.

But I’m not going to tell you any of that because adulthood isn’t given, Chase. It’s taken.

At 30, it’s time to take it.

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I’m turning 36 next month, and in a loving relationship with a man who is 31. Though he had dated before meeting me, I am his first official relationship. When we began dating, I was very clear about my timeline: I wanted to be engaged and starting a family within two years. I told him that if he wasn’t ready for that, we should part ways rather than grow attached under false assumptions. He said he wanted those things.

This June, we will have been together for two years. A proposal has still not come.

Last spring, we spoke explicitly about getting engaged, but a few months later he told me he needed more time—another year or so—and offered to pay for me to freeze my eggs, which we are doing this month.

Since then, however, the goalposts have continued to move. He now says that—although he wants these things with me—he isn’t ready to move in together, get engaged, or have children, and that he needs at least two more years. When I ask why he isn’t ready, the reasons change: sometimes it’s work, sometimes finances, sometimes needing more independence, sometimes simply “not yet.”

Three of his close friends are currently pregnant or have just had babies, and this summer we’re attending two of his friends’ weddings. Over the holidays, his mother told me—intentionally within his earshot—that she wants to help plan our wedding. He smiled when he heard it. He seems genuinely moved by the lives his peers are building, and often talks about valuing family. He comes from an immigrant family and is self-made—the youngest partner at his trading firm. And he is the primary provider for his mother, who is a single parent, supporting her and his 20-year-old sister.

I see his tenderness, especially with his sister. He’s even said that when we have a child, he hopes it’s a girl. Yet none of this translates into forward motion for us.

What makes this decision even harder is the broader dating landscape. Many of my close friends—women my age—are still on apps, searching for a partner who genuinely loves and respects them. I see how difficult it can be. Knowing this makes me appreciate what I have with him, and it raises the stakes of walking away from a relationship that is loving and stable—even if it feels stalled.

My fear is not that he doesn’t love me but that he may never feel “ready”—and that my waiting will quietly cost me the chance to have the family I want. I love him deeply. I genuinely believe he would be a wonderful father. If I could, I would start a family tomorrow. But at what point do I accept that his timeline may never align with mine? When does love require staying—and when does self-respect require leaving to search for a partner who is ready now?

Sincerely,

Jane, 35

Jane,

Every week, people write to me. Many of their predicaments challenge me. Some confound me. Others surprise. Yours is rarest of all: It fills me with horror.

If a man you’ve dated for two years asks you to undergo invasive surgery so that he can take indefinitely more time to decide whether he wants to marry you, he is a manipulative man or a very weak one—in practice, those are often the same.

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I am a mother of three and a physician, married to a loving and supportive husband. I work part-time—24 hours a week—which allows me to contribute financially while also being present for my family. I enjoy my work, and I know I would not thrive as a full-time stay-at-home parent.

That said, I am struggling with a familiar tension many working mothers face: being the default parent and default homemaker on top of having a job. On the two evenings each week when I get home late, my husband often calls in a panic asking what to feed the kids. I feel guilty for not planning ahead, then resentful for feeling guilty at all. Why am I still responsible for dinner planning on nights when I’m not even home?

I usually plan our meals weekly, but some weeks it feels overwhelming—especially with picky children—and I let it slide. When that happens, weeknight dinners become reactive and stressful. I feel pulled in multiple directions and frustrated by the sense that I am supposed to be everything to everyone, even though I know that’s impossible.

I find myself wondering what the right solution is. Do I change my schedule further so I’m always home in the evenings, satisfying the “good mother” my conscience seems to demand? Do I set a firmer boundary and make it clear that my husband is responsible for dinner on those two nights? I would like to work a bit more to bring in additional income, but I don’t feel I can do that while this tension remains unresolved. Hiring help would ease the strain, but it isn’t currently within our budget.

What should I do?

—Camilla

Camilla,

When I was 31, I took a trip to Germany with my husband to escape a misery that wouldn’t let go. We’d been married only two years, and for the second of those, I’d lost a series of pregnancies. Sadness ran through me like plasma. God could have sent an angel to inform me that I would soon be a mother, but like the Biblical Sarah, I would have laughed in his face.

My husband hoped the trip would lift my spirits. But except for a few lighthearted moments—when a barkeep in Garmisch-Partenkirchen told us sincerely that the worst thing Hitler ever did was combine Garmisch with Partenkirchen—I mostly remember the rain.

Only after we returned and found a great fertility doctor did the gloom lift. Within a year, I was pregnant—with twins—which felt like unimaginable good fortune. Fifteen years later, people still ask me if caring for twins was “really hard.” I don’t remember it that way. Hard is miscarriage. Two babies you never believed you’d have? That’s windfall.

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My mid-20s daughter is overweight. She wasn’t always. She grew up playing sports and dancing. She more or less avoided the “freshman 15” when she went off to college. But I think the stress of grad school contributed to the gain.

She has since moved far away for a job, and distance is a barrier to heart-to-heart talks about any subject, much less about her weight. I find that when we are together, I can’t bring it up, because I don’t want to ruin our time together.

I raised my daughter to make healthy decisions but did not always succeed in modeling that behavior myself—my weight has fluctuated, and I seek comfort foods in times of stress. So I know how it feels, and I worry about her.

I feel that as her mother I should be able to talk to her about this and encourage her to actively lose weight, but I am unable to find the words and say them out loud.

I am braced for your tough love. Thank you in advance!

—Philippa, 55

Philippa,

When my twin boys were toddlers, my husband and I took them one Sunday morning to a park near our home. I was pregnant with our daughter at the time and a little muddleheaded. I looked over at the woman pushing a little boy in the swing next to mine and recognized her as the wife of an old classmate of my husband’s. We chatted for a bit.

Then, I did something from which I will never recover.

I said, “When are you due?”

The beat she took to register my question still resides, on ice, in my spinal column.

“I just never lost the baby weight,” she said.

To this day, on the rare occasions when I run into her, it is all I can do not to leap behind a hedge. I had thoughtlessly violated one of the ironclad rules of social engagement: When is the right time to ask a woman if she’s pregnant? Never. Never is the right time.

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Abigail, our 38-year-old son has been living in our garage apartment rent-free for close to eight years now. He graduated in four years from a prestigious university with a degree in physics and astronomy, but chose not to pursue a graduate program in that field.

He proceeded to work for seven years as a circuit-board repairman, living independently but dissatisfied with his work. We agreed to fund his continued education in computer science, and he earned a degree in data science but has thus far been unable to find employment in the field. It seems that his lack of experience is the sticking point for all of the jobs he has interviewed for.

We’ve recently (reluctantly) agreed to fund another round of training that he claims will enable him to find employment, but we are out of patience.

To complicate matters further, his girlfriend of three years lives with him—she has a degree in accounting but works as a server in a local restaurant. We’ve made it clear that the gravy train ends in six months and he either moves or starts paying rent, but I have no confidence that things will change by then. How can we get him to become financially independent without alienating him or his girlfriend?

— Darrill

Darrill,

“What is man that thou art mindful of him?”

This line from Psalms is carved into the limestone entablature of Harvard’s Emerson Hall.

It’s a provocative question to choose for a campus of undergraduates. Not You’re the man! but What is man? Why do you even concern yourself with him, Lord, when you are such a superior being? Why bother with such a humble creature, so entirely beneath your notice?

The frieze was carved in 1905, and for generations, it invited college kids to supply the answer. King David answers the question with this: “You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.” An emboldening statement of young people’s possibility: Strive to become worthy of divine notice. The world is at your feet.

We no longer think of young people this way. Now, we assume they must be protected. Even criminal behavior is excused; after all, they are “just kids”—even at ages when their grandparents were returning from war, starting families, and becoming indispensable to their communities.

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I have one son, age 35. He and his wife live in the Midwest with my two grandsons, who are 1 and 4. My husband and I try to visit them several times a year, because the little ones grow up so fast, and we want to form relationships with them. Our normal routine is to arrive Thursday afternoon from the West Coast and leave Monday morning.

My son recently told me that these trips are too long and that he and his wife “need more space.” I looked at my calendar: We visited for a total of nine days in 2025 and 14 days in 2024. We try to be very helpful on these visits: cooking, shopping, cleaning up, walking their dog, babysitting, and staying in a nearby hotel. So the suggestion that our visits are a burden infuriates us.

What should the visiting approach be in 2026? Part of me wants to take a complete break on these trips.

—Elizabeth, 64

Elizabeth,

Mind if we get real for a second? You drive your daughter-in-law crazy.

You don’t mention her, but she is there, conspicuously off-screen, inspiring all the drama like Boo Radley. I know you don’t mean to drive her insane during your visits. It may not even be your fault. But sometime between all the helpful ministrations—the cooking, the cleaning up, the walking the dog, and babysitting—you’re probably doing some . . . commenting. Sprinkling nuggets of advice, over the suds, which you’ve tried to mask as observations. A few minor suggestions here and there, perfuming the air like so much Febreze. That’s what your son means by “needing space”: distance from your judgments and advice.

Elizabeth, I’m leveling with you: You’re a little annoying.

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I am a divorced mother of three daughters, ages 13, 11, and 7. I married young with the intention of staying married for life. Although I certainly made mistakes, the marriage ultimately ended due to my ex-husband’s infidelity. Having lived with her for several years, he married the “other woman” last month—an event that has stirred up a lot of emotions for my daughters and me.

Despite the hurt, I am committed to maintaining a cordial co-parenting relationship. He and I share custody 50-50, and I appreciate how present he is as a father. His wife treats my girls well, though blending two households is not without challenges. (They have three teenage girls.)

Last year, I felt ready to date again, and have been seeing a wonderful man for six months. We are aligned on values and, unlike my ex-husband, he shares my Catholic faith. He has never been married and does not have children, but he is kind to my girls and open to the possibility of becoming a stepfather. I can genuinely see a future with him.

The difficulty is my oldest daughter. She struggles deeply with the idea of me dating or remarrying. She is honest about her feelings, but she shuts down whenever I mention my boyfriend or the possibility of him spending time with our family. When he is around, she isolates herself; when he isn’t, she tells me how much she hates the idea of me moving on. This is particularly painful because she warmly accepts her stepmother. (My daughters do not know about the infidelity.) I will never disparage her father, but it feels unfair that his choices caused this rupture, yet the pressure is on me to protect everyone else’s feelings.

I understand my daughter’s fear. Her life has involved significant upheaval, and the security of a two-parent home was taken from her when she was young. She worries it could happen again. Yet I feel torn between honoring my daughter’s need for stability and pursuing my own long-term desire for love and companionship. I know that children of divorce often feel unheard, and I am deeply committed to making sure my daughters know their feelings matter. At the same time, I worry about holding back from my healthy, loving relationship, which might prompt my partner to walk away.

Should I continue seeing this man and trust that my daughter will eventually adjust? Or should I wait until my children are older, even if that means risking my chance at remarriage and happiness?

—Cassie, 35

Dear Cassie,

I have a colleague—I’ll call her “Amanda”—who was about the age of your eldest when her parents divorced. The circumstances were entirely different: Her mom walked out. For Amanda, the whole ordeal was devastating. More than 30 years later, her voice thickened with emotion as she told me about it.

One of the most painful points of contention between Amanda and her parents during that period had to do with therapy. Her parents insisted on it.

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Dear Abigail,

I’m currently in a long-term relationship with a woman whom I one day hope to marry. She is everything I have ever wanted in a partner—prudent, kind, gets along with just about everyone in my life. Most importantly, she and I have a shared vision of the life we want for ourselves: We have discussed the roles we wish to play in our household, where we would like to live, how many children we want to have, and so on. I often thank God that she exists.

My question relates to a development in my personal life that I worry may interfere with our relationship.

I’ve recently started to explore my relationship with God. Growing up, religion was not all that important to my family: I never went to church as a kid, and like most teens I found the concept of atheism cool and exciting. But in my mid-20s I’ve had a spiritual revelation of sorts. I am finding peace and understanding for what feels like the first time in my life. But I’m nervous that this will create a rift with my partner.

She is a staunch atheist—not merely agnostic, or someone who claims to “not know what’s out there”; she has a real adverse response to the existence of God. She grew up in a very conservative household that took religion very seriously (the literal antithesis to my upbringing)—but during her formative years, her parents’ loss of faith played a significant part in their rather ugly separation and divorce.

As someone who loves and cares for her deeply, I sympathize with her experiences. But as someone who aspires to have a strong relationship with God, I worry about her attitude toward Him. Our worldviews are very much at odds with each other, and I fear this is going to eventually have a profound impact on how we see our marriage and parenting our kids. And how we decide what the first principles of our shared life should be. I’ve expressed this concern to her, but I’m not sure if she shares it.

I have been very open with her about my faith journey and she is supportive for the most part, but I get a subliminal sense that she is starting to worry about me becoming some kind of religious lunatic, and I’m unsure of how to proceed. We have so much going for us, but also our relationship is largely untested at this point—we don’t have a mortgage to pay, we don’t have kids to feed. In short, life will continue to get difficult—and I want to know if we are set up to endure these struggles, or if we should part ways before there is no turning back.

Am I overthinking this?

—Matthew, 26

Dear Matthew,

When I was in college, women my age were always saying things like, “I’m very spiritual but not religious.” But for me, the reverse always seemed closer to the truth. I didn’t feel particularly close to God—but I felt certain He wanted me to keep kosher.

That brought me into mild conflict with my father’s mother, an American Jew of German extraction, and an atheist who never fully understood why my father and mother sent us to religious school. My grandmother only expressed her displeasure at the comparative religiosity of my parents’ home twice: once, when she thought I was making far too much of the bacon a restaurant had sprinkled on top of my salad, and once more, when she and I were alone in her sitting room. She peered up from a thick book cradled in her tiny lap and said, “You don’t really believe that God stuff, do you?”

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Dear Abigail,

I have lived a long, productive, happy life. After being a widow for some years, I got remarried four years ago, when I was 70, to a very special man. I feel I am in my last act. I may live to be really old, though I doubt it. Either way, I will soon be enfeebled to some degree, and not myself. Right now I’m still energetic, connected, engaged. I searched for what to do next, for fulfillment, to find meaning, to leave a mark. When my husband and I were last in Israel, it hit me. Took my breath away. I want to live in Jerusalem, as I did for a few years 50 years ago. I don’t want to never again live in Israel. But my conundrum: I have two daughters, and four grandchildren, aged between 6 and 12. They love me; I adore them. My daughters need me, and I need them. We don’t live far from one another and are together often. But I am never as alive as I am when I am in Israel, or as close to the meaning of life. My husband feels the same. What really is my legacy? If I move, I would come back often, for extended periods of two to three weeks. But it wouldn’t be the same. Should my last effort be to embed a lasting bond with my grandchildren, or should it be to be in the place that allows my soul to sing?

—Suzanne, 74, Baltimore

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My 18-year-old daughter has been intimate with her first-ever boyfriend, during her first semester of college, despite our family’s recent conversion and catechesis in Catholic doctrine regarding sex before marriage. She’s been growing in faith for over two years, knows the reasons why waiting is important, goes to daily Mass and Reconciliation as much as possible, but threw it all out the window at the first test. She also hid that she even had a boyfriend from us and lied to our face about the sex. (Her brother confirmed it for us.) She doesn’t know that we know, so now that she is away from him for a month, my wife and I are trying to persuade her to slow down her courtship. She is not on the pill. She seems to have some understanding of the peril of this situation, but I’m afraid she will go right back to making this mistake once the semester starts again. I should add that only three years ago she thought she was gay and was dating her girlfriend, didn’t want children, was filled with anxiety and fear, going so far as to cut herself among other things. It was only through the most difficult effort that my wife and I brought her through that time. She is actually excited to be a mother one day, but I’m afraid she’s making terrible mistakes and is choosing infatuation and sin over love of God, and the chance of a truly great spouse. What should I do?

—Andrew

Andrew,

Three years ago, your family wasn’t Catholic. Maybe your family wasn’t anything at all, religion-wise. Your 15-year-old-daughter was spiraling: practicing popular methods of self-harm, rejecting the idea of forming a family, trying on a sexual orientation that enraged you. You threw a Hail Mary, and the Catholic Church came down with the ball.

You and your wife converted the whole family, prodding the kids through catechesis. How you persuaded a 15-year-old to embrace such a change, I cannot imagine. In any case, mirabile dictu—it worked! Maybe your daughter’s soul yearned for this new life.

She now goes to daily Mass, stopped cutting herself, and stopped arranging her life around a desire to thumb her nose at you.

Andrew, this is an almost unreasonable amount of success.

I say this without hesitation, because I spent years studying and writing about girls very much like your daughter. Girls who battled anxiety and depression, engaged in cutting, and cycled through identities in quick succession: first announcing they were gay, then “pansexual,” and then the real doozy of self-harm—“trans.”

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Sincerely,

Eleanor

Eleanor,

Allow me to dispense with a lie at the get-go—a lie you’ve been told all your life, starting in grade school by a well-meaning teacher: “There are no stupid questions.” Eleanor, there are stupid questions. Really, truly there are. All adults know it.

A question is stupid when answering it only leads us further from anything true, meaningful, or useful. When having an “answer” is unambiguously worse than not having one.

A paramedic who asks, “What’s this patient’s astrological sign?” before starting treatment is asking a stupid question because it’s not remotely germane. It lacks any salience at a critical moment. It leads him away from the truth.

I’m not insulting the question you have put to me, which is vital. I’m referring to the question you keep putting to yourself.

When the mother of a first grader, a preschooler, and a toddler looks at her husband and asks herself right then, “Am I still in love with him?” That is a stupid question.

You’re in no position to answer it right now. No position at all.

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Dear Abigail,

I’m struggling with a painful family dilemma, and I don’t know what’s left to try. My brother and his wife refuse to vaccinate their children—unless they’re forced to, like when their kids were kicked out of school for being unvaccinated, specifically for not having the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) jab. We’ve tried to be nonjudgmental in our questions and suggested compromises on ways we can interact, but every conversation feels like we’re speaking different languages.

This is part of a broader pattern of unsafe choices that make it hard to spend time together. My brother and his wife have driven more than once on the highway without putting their infant in a car seat because “he cries too much.” They also brought their kids, who had fevers, to our 100-year-old grandfather’s birthday party. Moments like these leave me feeling anxious, angry, and unsure whether I can trust them around my own family. (I have three young children.)

I love my brother, and I’ve always believed family should matter. But the disconnect in our values and basic safety standards feels enormous, and I’m starting to wonder if the healthiest choice is to step back. We don’t have a cool uncle willing to intervene; otherwise, I would go that route. So what do I do? Do I sever ties? Should I keep trying to reconcile, or is it okay to accept that not all relationships can be fixed?

How do I navigate the guilt, the love, and the need to protect my own family?

Julia

Julia,

The first time I lost my little brother, he was 4. We were in our local Lord & Taylor, where he’d crept inside a fountain of racked clothing and ducked down so I wouldn’t see him. I tore through the racks, crying his name, until I found him smiling, thinking he had won this round of hide-and-seek.

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If you want to make sure never to miss Abigail’s column, click here! Her reply to Julia will land on Christmas Day, right about the moment you’re getting fed up with your own family members.

Dear Abigail,

I’m struggling with a painful family dilemma and don’t know what’s left to try. My brother and his wife refuse to vaccinate their children—unless they’re forced to, like when their kids were kicked out of school for being unvaccinated, specifically for not having the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) jab. We’ve tried to be nonjudgmental in our questions, suggested compromises on ways we can interact, but every conversation feels like we’re speaking different languages.

This is part of a broader pattern of unsafe choices that make it hard to spend time together. My brother and his wife have driven more than once on the highway without putting their infant in a car seat because “he cries too much.” They also brought their kids, who had fevers, to our 100-year-old grandfather’s birthday party. Moments like these leave me feeling anxious, angry, and unsure whether I can trust them around my own family. (I have three young children.)

I love my brother, and I’ve always believed family should matter. But the disconnect in our values and basic safety standards feels enormous, and I’m starting to wonder if the healthiest choice is to step back. We don’t have a cool uncle willing to intervene, otherwise I would go that route. So what do I do? Do I sever ties? Should I keep trying to reconcile, or is it okay to accept that not all relationships can be fixed?

How do I navigate the guilt, the love, and the need to protect my own family?

—Julia

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Dear Abigail,

My daughter loves love. She recently got engaged to her college boyfriend (they’d been dating less than a year before the engagement), and they are going to get married right after graduation, when they’ll both be 22 years old. They both have good-paying jobs lined up but will be spending the first couple of years after graduation apart as they complete the training/education needed for their jobs.

I can’t help but worry that they’re too young to get married. I also worry that she’ll end up making choices based on the relationship that will derail her training/education for the job that she has lined up, which is essentially her dream job. At 22 years old, I want her to focus on her career and, if I’m honest, grow up a little more.

Here’s the rub: I got married at 22 myself. But that was in the ’90s. And I am from Wisconsin, where that was pretty common. My brother got married at 22 also, within a year of graduating from college. However, my marriage ultimately failed. We stuck it out for more than 12 years and had three kids along the way but, by the end, we didn’t love each other anymore. And he cheated.

Also, before we got married, we agreed that he would choose my career over his, even if it meant that he would be the primary caregiver for our future children. This was a promise that he ultimately refused to keep. And it’s the same promise that my daughter’s fiancé is making to her now. But I just know that the fiancé can’t possibly understand what he’s promising. He doesn’t know what it will be like to be married.

One more issue—my daughter is very ambitious, successful, attractive, smart, and fun. She has always had a boyfriend, and she told me that three of the others proposed. But, given that these two are facing certain separation for a couple years, I feel like her fiancé proposed in order to tie her down. To take her off the market.

I want my daughter to be happy and to feel loved at all times. I want grandkids someday. I know, in my head, that just because my marriage failed, other young marriages succeed. (My brother’s has.) But, in my heart, I’m having a hard time feeling happy for them. Right around the engagement, she and I had a long, hard conversation, and I told her my concerns. At this point, I’ve shifted to the supportive and paying-for-the-wedding mom, but it’s hard not to worry that I’m enabling a big mistake. Do I have one more hard conversation with her? Or with both of them? Or do I just cheer them on and keep my concerns to myself and prepare myself to help pick up the pieces when they grow apart?

—Lisa, 50, California

Dear Lisa,

A few months before I was due to get married, a rabbi gave my soon-to-be husband and me a talk. “In my decades in the rabbinate,” he said to us, “I’ve seen couples who looked like they were matched by God and also couples who looked like they were barely going to make it to the wedding canopy.” Over the years, he’d had occasion to be surprised for both better and worse: divorces he hadn’t seen coming and long, happy marriages where he’d doubted the wisdom of the union.

The only difference between the two groups that he could identify was time.

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