Ask Amy: Son resents having to help his dad

Dear Amy: Information I received from my genetic testing revealed that my father had two other children while married to my mother. I am allowing the picture I have of my past, my childhood and my family to (painfully) reshape my personal history.

This is also sticky: My dad has dementia, and my mother has many expectations for my support in terms of his care. (My mom is not 100% there, either.) How do I care for my father and not resent him? How do I explain to my mother my occasional inability to handle my father with compassion and equanimity?

Amy says: First, I'm assuming that you have been able to confirm that this DNA information is accurate and true. Commercially available DNA testing kits sometimes report biological cousins as half-siblings — and vice versa. You should verify the information you have received.

However, regardless of your situation, when it comes to family relationships, there is no hedge against resentment. You could have grown up in a wonderfully close family that had no such complications, but you might still resent your obligation to provide care for your father for a host of other reasons.

You are experiencing the most challenging period of adulthood. You are being asked to confront and manage the chaos of this period without any possible resolution, and so you will have to provide your own. If your worst assumptions about your father are true, could you manage to find reasons (and ways) to love him, anyway?

It is vital that you and your mother receive respite care and support while dealing with your father's illness. You should try to develop a network through friends and family, members of your faith community, volunteers and paid caregivers.

The Alzheimer's Association offers a phone helpline, as well as a moderated online message board where caregivers ask for and also offer advice. Check alzconnected.org.

We are both very happy and enjoy our time together, but after two years of complacency, I recently started going back to the gym and am trying to go back to my healthy lifestyle.

My boyfriend loves to bring me surprises, often my favorite food or drink. These things are usually unhealthy. I keep telling him to please stop and to only do this once in a blue moon, because I need to look on these things as a treat. But I continue to find myself consuming these treats.

I know I can just stop accepting them, but I have tried that, and he doesn't stop. How else can I explain to him that I no longer can accept these treats?

Amy says: Even someone who loves you dearly could be trying — perhaps unconsciously — to sabotage you. Your guy doesn't seem to have resumed his own health kick alongside you, and these tests of willpower might be his way of trying to bring you back to the couch.

I suggest that you counter his invitation with one of your own — ask him to take a walk with you. I hope you and your guy can start cooking and exercising together. Your mutual efforts would mark the "happy relationship, happy health" phase of your time together.