Dear Abby: My father-in-law doesn’t want me to celebrate my 25th birthday – and take care of him instead

Dear ABBY: My husband and I have taken care of my father-in-law for four years – picking up his groceries, going to the bank, picking up prescriptions, and running errands. He is disabled and lives in an upstairs apartment with no downstairs access. He cannot walk, bathe himself or get in and out of bed by himself. He has hired a nurse to get him in and out of bed every day. Because we live 30 minutes away and we both work, there is no way we can manage this

My father passed away recently, so I also helped my mother. All of this has put a strain on our marriage – I’m going one way, and my husband is going the other, plus my father-in-law has complained that I won’t come. I tried to explain to him that I can’t be in two places at once.

Our 25th wedding anniversary is coming up and we’ve told both of our parents that we won’t be coming that weekend and will cut every other weekend so we can spend time together. To our dismay, we got responses, with comments like, “Well, you see each other every night.” We tried to explain that when we get home and eat and do the dishes, we don’t have much time together, and definitely not enough for a day at the park or something.

Do you have any tips on how to handle this? We want to keep helping, but we also need our time, so we thought we’d suggested a good compromise. – BURNED IN WISCONSIN

BURNED BELOVED: Is there anyone else who can help your father-in-law, who now seems isolated from everyone except you and his son? Are there relatives or friends of him and his late wife who can visit him? If the answer is no, someone from your faith community or your local agency on aging may be able to help.

You and your spouse seem like loving and generous people, but you need to put the health of your marriage higher on your list of priorities and not allow yourself to be blamed for it.

Dear ABBY: A close friend, who I also work with, agreed to attend a paleontology exhibit with me about six months before the exhibit was scheduled to open. We were both excited about it and often talked about how much fun it would be to attend together

About a week after it opened, I unexpectedly left the office for a medical emergency and my friend attended the exhibition without me. Am I wrong to feel upset? She keeps telling me to get over it and she doesn’t understand at all. Am I overreacting? – IMPROVED IN THE EAST

DEAR TWIN: If the exhibit ended before you could go, you shouldn’t blame your friend for seeing it. However, if the exhibit was still open, I can’t blame you for being upset that it went without you. The question now is, is it worth ending a friendship? (I hope not.)

Dear Abby was written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at http://www.DearAbby.com or PO Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.