Dear Lily Margarette,

good to hear from you again! First off, to answer your original question: Is this rude?, I do believe it is rude, specially since you and your husband’s friend have met before: he came to our wedding and we all used to go for weekends away together before we were married.

He is now addressing only your husband, excluding you, but then suggesting that he and his girlfriend should meet with your children (he and his girlfriend would like to see my husband and get our kids together!) He also mentions his girlfriend’s name (The fact that he included his partners name), but makes no mention of you. I think that’s definitely rude.

What is more worrying though is that your husband doesn’t see any problem with it:

My husband thinks there’s nothing wrong with it and asked ME to send him a card back…I refused and told him to do it if it’s so important.

Not only that, but your husband asks YOU to send a card back – even though his friend completely ignored your existence! I find that really disrespectful and insensitive to you. You reacted well – you told him you won’t do it and that he should do it himself if he wants to.

Unfortunately, your husband just continues his behavior of ignoring your feelings and telling you that you are too sensitive, even if his family treats you badly:

Also if I ever spoke to my future husband about my father-in-law’s comments I was always told he was just joking and that I’m being over sensitive, he was like it with everyone. So for a long time I doubted the worries I had as me being paranoid or over sensitive so I never mentioned it to my family.

He doesn’t respect you, similarly like his family doesn’t. Unless he changes, I think the best solution in the long-run would be to separate from him.

But I know it’s not easy for you, we’ve spoken about it before. One of the big issues is that you feel lack of self-confidence in your ability to have a successful career:

My self-esteem in others parts of life isn’t great tbh. I’m a full-time housewife and don’t feel as if I could cope financially if I were to split up from my husband. I used to work before I had kids but that was 10 years ago and feel completely terrified of ‘going out to work’ again. I’ve tried various things to help me, taking online courses, even starting freelance work for a little bit but I felt out of my depth and scared of failing.

I do feel so incredibly regretful that I never had a proper career set up for myself. I’m educated and always worked (but nothing leading to a specific career) but when I had kids I gave all that up. I’m completely stuck in a rut because I can’t see me ever being able to be independent and having a job anymore. I’m so envious of working mothers because they have the confidence to work. I don’t even know what work I would do as I’m 44 now. I don’t feel I have any skills to give. I feel lost.

It seems you do have self-confidence to stand up to your husband and his family and demand respect from them, however you don’t have it when it comes to work and career. You don’t feel capable enough in that area of life.

Would you like to explore that more? Because that’s important if you want to move forward in your life.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by Tee.