Steer chats off of religion

My husband and I live in a different country than our families. Our only source of communication with our mothers is through FaceTime/FB Messenger.

While I have a great relationship with my mom and call her almost daily, my husband’s relationship with his mom has always been rocky.

She likes lecturing him on how he should live his life, what job to get, etc. She’s also very religious, while we definitely are not.

My husband had a big argument with her about the fact that he doesn’t attend church, and she questioned whether it was my influence!

I’m an atheist, but if my husband wanted to go to church, that would be absolutely fine with me.

My mother-in-law keeps pushing him about it. She was incredibly angry when he told her that he doesn’t share her strong faith.

He said that if he weren’t the only child (and his mom is divorced), he would distance himself or stop contacting her altogether.

While I wouldn’t want her to lose her son (my mom is also divorced, so I feel for her), it pains me to see him going through all that uncalled-for pressure.

How can we keep the relationship with her yet firmly tell her to stop dictating to us how to live our lives and what to believe in? Enough of Dictatorship

Dear Enough: If being religious is a core value for your mother-in-law, she will quite naturally visit and revisit this topic with her son.

Because you two live overseas and are communicating via videoconferencing and telephone, some of her clutching and attempts to control will be amplified. I have also noticed that one aspect of long-distance communicating is that it can be challenging to come up with things to talk about.

You two should come up with topics to discuss with her. Think of stories or recipes to share. Let her help you make little decisions — “We’re looking at these two tiles for the bathroom — which do you like best?”

Your husband should practice responses that might reassure his mother, without encouraging discussions he does not want to have. “OK, Mom, I realize this is important to you. I’ll let you know if anything changes for me. Let’s talk about something else, OK?”

I also think it’s OK to create a little distance and to be honest about the reason.

Dear Amy: I’ve been working from home for the past two months, but once things start opening up again, my job will require frequent business travel. In the past, I was usually on the road for about two weeks a month.

I am not looking forward to all that contact with large numbers of people — in airports, planes, restaurants, etc. I’m also not too keen on rental cars and hotel rooms.

I really like my job and my co-workers. I feel torn between keeping a good job that will increase my exposure to the coronavirus, and trying to find a new job in a sluggish economy with millions of other people looking for work at the same time. Concerned Business Traveler

Dear Concerned: This anxiety creates a legitimate and necessary series of conversations to have with your employers. You should be confident they will develop a strategy for work-related travel that will reduce your risk as much as possible, as well as reducing your need to travel so frequently.

Send questions to Amy Dickinson by email to ask amy@amydickinson.com.