Ask Amy: Dating elder couple faces daughter’s disapproval

Dear Amy: I’m a retired man in my early 70s.

For almost a year, I have been dating a woman my age. (We met online.)

We live over two hours apart, but enjoy visiting each other and meeting in other destinations. We have developed a caring and intimate relationship.

Recently, she visited her daughter. This kept us apart for several weeks.

Then she caught mild COVID and so we kept our distance, although we have stayed in daily contact by phone and text.

I was shocked, disappointed, and concerned when my friend then abruptly called to say that she needed to end our relationship because it was a moral conflict with her belief system.

We are both people of faith, although I am rather more liberal in my beliefs than she.

We both lost our spouses after decades-long marriages and we had discussed how we were on the same page about letting our relationship develop.

After a tearful second phone call, my friend shared that her daughter had told her that our intimacy outside of marriage was very wrong on religious grounds and that if she didn’t break it off with me, she wouldn’t be allowed to see her grandchildren.

My friend ended the second call by asking me for a do-over and to not break up.

I don’t think that our relationship is morally wrong, and I don’t want to lose it, but this is troubling.