DEAR ABBY: My brother and sister-in-law have been dressing my 2-year-old nephew, ”Charlie,” in dresses and pink clothes. They say these are what the boy has chosen. To me, a toddler will pick out whatever gets his attention at the moment, and children that age have only a rudimentary understanding of gender. It would be […]

DEAR ABBY: A family member keeps setting up fundraisers every time she wants to buy something for her family. If a child needs a special class, she asks the relatives to pitch in to pay for it. When her husband wanted to return to college, she brought all the extended family together to see who […]

DEAR ABBY: I am a straight man who met and fell in love with a transgender girl I’ll call Eve. We dated for almost three years, and they were the happiest of my life. In all that time, we never once had an argument. She said I had given her the strength to come out […]

DEAR ABBY: My niece has a 1-year-old son. Neither my niece nor the baby’s father is religious, and they have chosen not to have the baby baptized. My sister, the baby’s grandmother, while not wanting to impose her beliefs on the parents, comes from a generation when even couples who were not demonstrably religious usually […]

DEAR ABBY: My mother-in-law passed away two years ago from lung cancer. My father-in-law hasn’t taken it well. This year at Christmas he fabricated a letter and gifts ”from her” for the grandkids, as if she had written the letter and bought the gifts before she passed away. He did it without my knowledge. I […]

DEAR ABBY: I’m a 27-year-old mother of three in the process of divorcing a man I have been with for seven years, during two of which we were married. We have remained civil up to this point, although he is hurt because I’m the one who ended things. I decided to jump right back into […]

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I are in our 30s. We do well for ourselves and are generally happy. We both have siblings who have various problems — drug abuse, emotional issues, broken relationships. Our parents pick up and travel to support them during their various dramas, but visit my husband and me only if […]

DEAR ABBY: My twin sister and I were raised by a single mom. Because Mom received welfare benefits, she was required to list ”potential” fathers in order to receive aid. After a time, the state required paternity tests be given to the men she had listed, so we had no idea who our biological father […]

DEAR ABBY: I am a 70-year-old woman, married for 50 years, and I hate my husband. He wants to go to swinger parties and toss me to other men. I tried it a couple of times for him and hated it. He is overbearing and rude. We don’t have any friends where we live, so […]