DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: When I came home for my Dad’s birthday I had to use the guest room because my Dad moved into my old room. He and my Mom said it was because his new CPAP machine was noisier than the old one. It was keeping my Mom awake, they said. When I heard it running it didn’t sound any different than the old one to me.

I want to believe that the new CPAP is the only reason my parents have gone to separate bedrooms. My girlfriend said it would be rude to ask them about it, but since it is my parents, don’t I have a right to know if there is something else going on between them? --- MAY BE MORE THAN NOISE

DEAR MAY BE MORE THAN NOISE: I agree with your girlfriend’s advice to you to refrain from asking your parents about their relationship.

Unless you have any reason to believe something has changed for your parents beyond your father’s CPAP machine, I don’t see why you shouldn’t accept their explanation for sleeping in separate rooms.

And even if you did observe something different in how your parents act towards each other, it’s their prerogative whether or not to share details of their relationship with anyone outside of it ‒ including concerned offspring.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My wife’s cousin went missing seven years ago and it really busted her up and made the first few Thanksgivings and Christmases without him around hard.

Now his family is filing to have him declared legally dead for their own sense of closure. She and he were close since they were babies and for a while they lived together while his parents were in drug rehab or locked up, which was more than once.

I used to be a little jealous of how close they were, but now I realize they kept each other going during bad times. He was a good guy and nearly made it out from under his own addiction, but the family figures he didn’t. The last they heard of him was from his girlfriend, who told them he left her in 2017 in San Diego and was heading to Mexico.

My wife was doing pretty good again, but now she keeps thinking about him and not only missing him but also obsessing over how she could have done something to help him and kept him from making his stupid Mexico trip. I know for a fact that isn’t true and that in fact she did everything she could for him.

How do I help my wife get over this grief? We have a five-year-old daughter who is jazzed about the holidays and she keeps seeing her mommy crying and spending time alone. --- SHE’S STILL GRIEVING

DEAR SHE’S STILL GRIEVING: It’s perfectly understandable that your wife is feeling the way she does. It may feel like she’s losing her cousin all over again.

What will possibly help your wife the most is to try and redirect her towards the needs of your daughter.

Find some fun activities you can do as a family to help bring her out of herself for her sake and that of your family.

Hopefully, in time, she’ll be able to put some distance between her pain and the holiday season, but having to face the permanent loss of her beloved cousin is bound to make that difficult this year.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: When I talk to my American friends, they have a hard time understanding why I put up with what they call the bullying my mother-in-law does to me. They think I should stand up to her, but in China, where I was born and lived before coming to the U.S. as a teenager, parents and parents-in-law control their children’s lives much more than American parents do.

My mother-in-law is first generation Chinese and although she was born here, she still expects me to submit to what she says to me and to agree with her, even if I know she is wrong.

At times it is extremely difficult to deal with her demanding nature, but in our tradition, it is how it is.

She will be coming to visit at the end of the year, and I am already feeling anxious about the visit. When I speak to my husband about how I feel, he tells me to just listen to what his mother says and then do what I would anyway, which is how he treats her and has all his life. He does not understand how stressful it all is for me.

Do I follow my husband’s advice to ignore or my American friends’ advice to argue with my mother-in-law, like they do with theirs if they are pushed to it? --- RAISED DIFFERENTLY

DEAR RAISED DIFFERENTLY: Regardless of cultural backgrounds, successfully connecting with in-laws can be tricky.

In your case, while both your husband and your American friends may mean well, doing as they suggest could ultimately add to your stress by urging you to take actions contrary to how you were raised.

Rather than a dramatic showdown I think a little diplomacy is in order. When your mother-in-law begins her pushing, it’s your turn to gently and firmly push back, letting her know that while you see her point and appreciate her concern, you’ve already put things in place that work best for you and you intend to continue doing them your way.

If that alone doesn’t work, consider enlisting your husband to do more than ignore his mother. Ask him to back you up and confirm your way is the right way for the two of you.

I’ve found sometimes it only takes a mild to moderate unexpected display of strength to get someone to back down.