Dear LFTP: The Ring Doorbell Mother-in-Law
- My mother-in-law's unflattering comments about my wife were caught on our Ring doorbell, and now she may never see the grandchildren. What should we do?
Dear LFTP letter: a mother-in-law made unflattering comments about her daughter-in-law to her son on the front porch, caught on their Ring doorbell; now she may never see the grandchildren again. The hosts' advice: don't send another email, grovel face to face (repeatedly if needed), own it fully, wait it out — and the son must step up and broker peace rather than let years of bitterness take root, while the husband-grandfather should show solidarity without using the grandkids as leverage. The Secular answer agrees: privacy is history, apologize again and again, and don't threaten to withhold anyone.
More on Forgiveness
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Dear LFTP: the $4,200 loan that never came back
- How do I get past the sadness over the $4,200 loan my friend never repaid — do I just let it go?
The final Dear LFTP letter: a year ago a supposed friend asked to borrow money — her husband had left the country to renew his visa, her car was repossessed, she had no way to get to work.
From No. 603 · Found Out
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Dear LFTP: the stolen college fund and telling the 90-year-olds
- Should I tell my 90-year-old parents that their grandson stole my granddaughter's college fund?
Ben hands to Mike, who reads a grandmother's letter: her son helped himself to the college money the great-grandparents set aside for her granddaughter; she fears telling her parents, in their nineties, could shock them into a stroke.
From No. 586 · Nothing Personal
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Dear LFTP: forty years of a cheating wife and a temptation
- Would it be wrong to rekindle an old friendship for intimacy when my wife has cheated for forty years?
A man approaching his fortieth anniversary writes that his wife has always been a serial cheater, a secret he kept to protect the children's view of her; with retirement and a sexless marriage he asks whether rekindling things with old female friends would be wrong.
From No. 581 · Silly Rabbit | Christianity, Culture, and Navigating Social Expectations
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Dear LFTP: the stalker ex-girlfriend
- How do I get my stalker ex-girlfriend to leave me alone?
Mike reads a letter from a man whose ex-girlfriend keeps trying to get him back, even stalking him, after he blocked her number.