Dear Abby: Ghastly Gayle alienates multiple families

Dear Abby My brother has been married for years to Gayle who has alienated herself and their family from everyone including her own siblings our siblings and the rest of our family as well She limits when where and with whom he can spend time Gayle nearly invariably has a nasty comment or barb and picks someone to fight with at every family gathering Rather than deal with this my family and our siblings families have distanced ourselves which is especially sad because my brother and Gayle have college-aged children with whom we enjoy spending time Abby something happened just now that makes me wonder if it s time for someone to intervene My brother has an increasing number of false memories about things that never happened in his life particularly ones in which he has supposedly been grievously wronged by me Please share particular advice Missing My Brother in New England Dear Missing The topic of false memories is not one about which I am knowledgeable enough to comment I do however know they happen sometimes as people age Your brother may be experiencing signs of dementia and should be examined physically and neurologically by his medical expert Discuss this with the rest of your siblings in the hope that if ALL of you suggest this to your brother s wife and adult children it may get through to her But don t count on it if she has worked during their entire marriage to isolate him from all of you Dear Abby I lost my wife of years four months ago after a prolonged illness I retired at and became her primary caretaker The job of caretaker is endless and stressful and yet rewarding A female friend of various years Dinah came to the memorial I grieved attended Grief Share and read articles about grief I experience grief every day and will for my whole life In recent months Dinah and I began spending time together including worship For clarification we have never been intimate and won t be until our wedding night if that ever happens The difficulty is how my late wife s family have reacted They are becoming more and more distant I don t feel I m doing anything wrong Others have reported You should wait for at least a year My financial planner and I spoke about not making any major financial decisions for a while but what is this one year thing Ready in Tennessee Dear Ready The one year thing is the same as the suggestion your financial planner offered The reasoning is that after one loses a spouse the widower is often emotionally vulnerable Out of loneliness particular have made hasty decisions in their romantic lives that they later regret While it isn t wrong that you are dating your former in-laws may be upset that you started so soon after your wife s death and regard it as disrespectful to her memory What they may not have taken into account is that your grieving started while you were taking care of your wife rather than after her death Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren also known as Jeanne Phillips and was founded by her mother Pauline Phillips Contact Dear Abby at www DearAbby com or P O Box Los Angeles CA