DEAR PRUDENCE

Dear Prudence: I’ve been dating Hannah for about eight months.

I know she wants to get serious, and I’d like to get serious with her, too, but there is one issue that is bothering me, and I need advice on how to discuss it with her before we take the next step. Hannah’s parents divorced when she was 10, and she has talked about how their divorce and the breakup of her family has really affected her life and relationships. She attributes just about every semi-negative thing that has happened since then to the divorce. I can’t stress how many times she’s started a sentence with “if my parents had just stayed together…”

As a child of divorce myself, I am empathetic, but what confuses me is that Hannah puts all the blame on her father even though her mother was the one who had an affair. Hannah’s reasoning is that her father should have forgiven her mother and kept the family together. She cannot forgive him for not forgiving her mother. What makes it worse is that Hannah’s mom had an affair with a coworker and when the affair came out, both the coworker and Hannah’s mom were fired due to a “morality clause” at the company where they worked. Afterwards, she was unable to find a job that paid as well and struggled financially after the divorce.

Hannah’s father paid child support but fought to not pay alimony and Hannah thinks that was selfish of him because he left her mom “in poverty.”

This is not exactly true — Hannah’s mom moved from upper middle class to middle class and couldn’t afford a big house and fancy vacations. Hannah and her brother still went on fancy vacations with their dad, who also bought each of them cars when they started driving (and replaced Hannah’s when she totaled it) as well as single handedly paying for their college education.

I understand a kid feeling this way, but Hannah is 28 years old. I would like to discuss it with her but I don’t know how. If she hasn’t changed her mind after 18 years, is it even worth it for me to try to get her to see clearly?

—Confounded in Columbus Dear Confounded: “Change her mind” and “Try to get her to see clearly” are two phrases that should never come up eight months into a relationship. Never. You are still in the information-gathering phase. The information you have gathered is that Hannah has a view on her parents’ divorce that you find unreasonable and unfair and that makes you worry about her values around marriage and fidelity. You can let her know that you see things differently. You can tell her that you have questions about how her views on cheating could play out if things become more serious between the two of you.