Bashing the boyfriend will only push her away

Q Two years ago, my sister, 38, left her college sweetheart and husband of 10 years to be with her 23-year-old boyfriend.

She met him in the online gaming world. Their gaming characters have been together for five years.

This means she was unfaithful in her marriage. My sister travels a lot for work and it’s apparent she was visiting her boyfriend during these times.

She’s college educated and has a great career.

Her boyfriend allegedly got an honourable discharge from the armed forces when he messed his knee up in basic training.

He started community college but quit due to lack of funds. He had a job and lost both it and the apartment he was renting. He says he was homeless. It was then that my sister moved across the country, rented an apartment, and he moved in.

Six months later, she got pregnant. They moved again, for my sister’s work. He got a job as overnight security.

The baby arrived and he became a stay-at-home dad, working just nights/weekends.

They’re now back in the east and he isn’t working, supposedly to go to school (on my sister’s dime, I’m sure).

My brother and I met him last weekend. This guy is bad news in so many ways. He swears around my nine-month-old niece. He was showing her how to do the Hitler sign. He’s a man filled with hate. My sister had to ask his permission to take the baby on the grass on a blanket. I feel as though that child doesn’t stand a chance with a role model like him.

Short of kidnapping my sister, how can we prevent the marriage that’s planned for next year?

Desperately Worried Sister

A No one can know for sure what will change your sister’s mind about her boyfriend, but one thing is sure: While your negative judgment of him seems understandable to me, it will push her closer to him. And it may even lead to your being excluded from your sister and her daughter’s life.

So move slowly and think things through carefully.

Her marriage to her college sweetheart and her successful career at work may have represented, for her, a feeling that she traded her youth and excitement for others’ expectations of her.

She got emotionally caught up with someone who was the opposite and brought spontaneity and reckless abandon into her life.

The main link between those two worlds is now her daughter. And that may be the only “hook” on which you can approach her.

Instead of predicting a dire future for the child, have some conversations designed to get her to think, rather than to defend him to you.

Comment on how her boyfriend has immersed himself in fatherhood. That she must enjoy sharing the baby’s care with him. Don’t mock her, just plant the seeds in her mind.

Don’t make the wedding your deadline for ending her relationship. Stay connected and show your support.

She may still marry him. But if and when she has doubts or discomfort over her decision, she’ll know you’re there to turn.