Dear Prudence,
My sister-in-law has had an affair with a 17-year-old boy (she’s 35) and might be pregnant. My sister has taken off with their twins to go stay with our mother in Mexico. Oh yes, my mother moved there two years ago to join a cult. She left the cult but stayed in the country. Our dad is still married to her, despite his five-year relationship with his “housekeeper” he thinks we don’t know about. But we never had a housekeeper growing up, he’s certainly not wealthy enough to afford a live-in employee now, and we all know “Gwen” doesn’t do much to look after the house.
Is it awful that I’m just not involved? Usually I’d be in the thick of it, being the designated fixer and “good daughter.” Except it’s a pandemic and I’ve just stayed out of it. It’s bliss. I obviously know what’s happening, but due to time differences and working from home, most of my information comes via email. I let it sit in the inbox till I’m ready to look at it, and it’s just not as fraught as talking to a devastated relative face-to-face. I have been supportive, or at least not outright accusatory, at my sister-in-law (17!), but just at a remove. As far as I can tell this new distance hasn’t changed anyone else’s lives, just mine. Yet I do feel guilty for not being elbow-deep in the mess with everyone else. That’s what families do, right? Pitch in? I didn’t realize how tired I was of it all, until I realized I could actually live in peace.
—Out of the Game