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Dear Eric: I have a friend who is a great person. He told me about some experiences that made me extremely worried for his safety. He left town a few years ago for work and he started dating another guy, which I never really approved of because things seemed to move extremely fast and I didn’t like the way he was treated by his ex.

My friend was in this town by himself and had no real support. He has been through a lot and I’m glad he is back in one piece, but he seems like a shell of himself and does not seem to be the same person.

I have seen signs before of things that led to friends taking their lives in the past and I didn’t realize until it happened. He is very tight-lipped, and I want to know what really happened, but I’m afraid he will think I’m being nosy, but I really want to help him find the support he needs.

If this were your friend, what would you say or how would you approach the conversation without offending him?

– Want to Be a Good Friend

Dear Friend: For now, shift your focus from what happened, to what’s going on with him now and what he needs. Stay in the present. “I’m noticing x,y, and z things about you. Because I care about you, I’m concerned. You don’t have to talk about anything you don't want to, but I want you to know I am always here for you, and I’ll listen, without judgment. How are you doing?”

You might break this script up into parts. You might lead with “the question” and then follow up with assurances of support.

The most important thing is that your friend knows someone is noticing him and cares about him. Often, when people offer help, they’re quick to usher us in the direction that they think we should go. By listening to your friend and being open to what he’s asking for – even if he’s not asking for anything – you’ll prove yourself a valuable and trustworthy part of his support system.

Dear Eric: I am the oldest of four sisters. Let’s call us Ann, Bea, Claire and Dina. Bea is challenging. Since early childhood, she has lied and compulsively schemed to get her way. She perpetually makes bad choices. She had sex with Dina’s husband; she stole some things from our mother’s house the night she died; she drunk calls people. And she has perpetrated dozens of small, vindictive tricks against Claire (for whatever reason, Claire receives most of her ire).

She can be quite pleasant in small doses, mind you. But then at other times, she’ll snap, be mean or do something underhanded when you least expect it, so that it’s all just very tiring.

We don’t call her out on anything she does. It just doesn’t seem worth it when we know she’ll just lie about it.

A few months ago, Bea slipped and admitted the truth accidentally about a years-old lie. Claire took the slip as the last straw. She said, “I’m done. I cannot have a relationship with this person. All she does is hurt me and she’s incapable of being honest.”

My view, as the peace-keeping oldest, has always been more like, “I just look at Bea as someone who is probably mentally or emotionally damaged. Whatever it is, I can’t fix it. Therefore, I can be polite and friendly at the occasional social events we all have to attend. I don’t know that freezing Bea out now after she actually told the truth for once, even by accident, is the correct move.”

But maybe Claire is right? Is blood enough reason to keep someone in your life when they are so deeply problematic and so exhausting and hurtful? It’s easy for me to say, oh be nice, when Claire is the one most likely to be targeted.

– Sister Split

Dear Sister: Even though you’re united in sisterhood, each of you is going to have a unique relationship to Bea (and she to each of you). It’s built on the vagaries of temperament, of course, but also on years of interactions. So, Claire is never going to see Bea or Bea’s behavior in the way that you see Bea. This doesn’t make Claire’s view more or less right. It just makes it the right one for her.

For your part, you don’t have to maintain a relationship simply as positive reinforcement for telling the truth. Telling the truth is the bare minimum and it sounds like she has a lot of repair that’s yet to be done. However, if you feel compelled to keep Bea in your life, at a comfortable distance, don’t worry so much about keeping peace between your other siblings.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

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