I don’t know if this will help, but my husband has two best girlfriends he grew up with and when we first started dating it drove me crazy. Every time we saw them they would squeal his name and hang all over him…he assured me that he never had feelings for them but it didn’t stop me from feeling crappy about it.

The truth is, the closer we got and the more time we spent with each other, the less and less he needed to rely on them or see them. Although they still speak occasionally and we did invite them to our wedding, they are not nearly apart of his life the way they were before.

If what you and your boyfriend have is special, and if it’s meant to work out, then it will. Try not to let this ruin what might be your “the one” because of something that may or may not be happening. You can’t control how other people feel and if they are honest with you or themselves, so if he says you have nothing to worry about you should trust that and go with that.

I hope everything works out for the best!

Hello! I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry about your Dads passing. That is a tough and scary thing to go through. A couple things to keep in mind…

If your dad had the chance to say one more thing to you, I promise, without personally knowing him, that he wouldn’t waste that opportunity to tell you anything other then he loves you. Or hes proud of you. He definitely wouldn’t waste it asking you about marriage. A lot of the time when something happens, especially something tragic, people will focus on something meaningless because they don’t want to, or cannot, focus on what’s meaningful. Obviously there are cultural influences, but I think by and large it is easier to hound you about marriage then it is to talk about what your Dad meant to them. I would encourage you to be brave with the knowledge that your Dad loved you and wants you to be happy, and when someone feels like they need to make a judgement about your life, you can either smile and say thanks for the suggestion, or you can pretend you didn’t hear and mention something about your Dad. A shared memory or anecdote.

You will never be able to change an entire culture of people so its best to just look inward. All of our thoughts are just stories we tell ourselves right? So with that in mind, tell yourself good stories about your Dad. Tell yourself good stories about being brave and moving to Ireland. It might not be easy at first but with practice and loving-kindness it will hopefully get easier.

There are also a ton of support groups both online and in real life that are for adult children taking care of one or both elderly parents. That might also be helpful as you try to navigate through the tough stuff.

I wish you luck!