Asking Eric: Grandpa feels slandered by ex who drove a wedge in the family

Dear Eric: I’m a single man who has been divorced from my children’s mother for more than 25 years. Even though we were divorced, I tried to be a good dad to my kids and got along well with their mom.

My ex-wife and I worked together to help get four kids through four years of college without any debts, and then after several years of his own marriage, our oldest son made us grandparents.

I came into some money about that time and moved away from where we raised our kids to the new town where the grandbaby lives, and that’s when the trouble started. I have heard some terrible lies from my adult children that they have reported being told to them by their mother, and now they don’t want to have anything to do with me. Just today I crossed paths with my son, but it was like I saw a stranger.

I think the ex is motivated by the fact that I came into some inheritance and am living a comfortable life, and she’s jealous. These are the sunset years of my life, and I don’t know how I should approach my situation. Do you have any suggestions, and should I consult an attorney? I feel like I’ve been slandered.

— Sad Grandpa

Dear Grandpa: Suing your ex for slander is going to escalate everything—perhaps irrevocably—so let’s focus first on what can be repaired.

The most pressing issue is your relationship with your children. Do they believe what they’ve been told? Is any of it true? From your telling, things with your kids went from zero to 100 overnight. If everything is a lie, I’m wondering what made them believe it so readily.

These things rarely come out of nowhere, so you need to find out from them what’s at the root of their grievance with you. Go to them with openness and have a conversation: “Can you help me understand why you’re upset with me? I’d like to repair what I can, but I need to know what the issue is.”

This isn’t a chance for you to hotly defend yourself. You may be completely blameless in all of this. But if you can’t hear what’s going on with your children—wrongheaded or not—it won’t matter what your ex-wife is saying.

(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.)