Help! I Wrote a Bestseller. My Aunt Is Determined to Pretend It Doesn’t Exist.

Three years ago , I wrote a bestselling book that has had continued success.

My aunt and uncle haven't acknowledged my book once.

They don't visit or call my grandfather, who has been nothing but kind and generous to both of them, and they never want to spend holidays with us, only with each other.

I was a smoker when we met, and a few years into dating but before we got engaged, he told me that he can't picture being with or raising kids with someone who smokes.

With various nicotine replacement tools and therapy, I quit, then when we moved in together, I started smoking in secret, until he caught me.

He was hurt by both the smoking and the lying, and I totally understood, apologized for both, and quit again.

But now it’s happened again. The privacy of secret smoking has come to represent taking a break and self-indulging. He responded by getting between me and the door to try and prevent me from smoking.

In a world in which you can learn whatever language you want from an app on your phone, no one speaking Spanish around you has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

You didn’t owe the people in the elevator an announcement, and it also would have been kind of weird to make that declaration.