I’m a mother of three kids, 15,18, and 20, married for 20 years, though in 2006, I left my husband because of his verbal abuse. But I still love him. 

Also, I lent him money ($3,000) and never ever saw that money again; it was the final straw.

I moved into an apartment with a roommate. My older daughters moved with me because they both became pregnant. I had to help them and still do.

After a year, my husband and I decided we should all live together with the kids and their babies.

Now, a year later, he says he loves me but doesn’t want to be with me. He leaves whenever he wants to be with another woman, “to better himself,” he says.

This woman has money and a family that adore my husband, while mine was never close to him.

He’s still disrespectful whenever I say anything he doesn’t like. He won’t go with me for professional help. He says if I just leave him alone to do what he wants, he’ll always take care of me.

I can’t live this way, but can’t afford to get a divorce.

- Destroyed

Your husband’s a bully who’s convinced you that you’re stuck with him and his crummy behaviour. Go to legal aid or a court clinic and ask what are the rights of a married woman regarding a legal separation agreement; and what are the financial responsibilities of a husband towards his wife and family who are dependents. 

You need facts, not verbal and emotional abuse, to help you decide what to do.

It may also be possible that you and your daughters can eventually manage yourselves - with part-time working schedules so someone is there for the babies.

However you work it out, you don’t have to accept everything this man says. You call what you feel “love;” I call it intimidation.

I’m a mid-40s female with a problem mother-in-law; she has a weird habit of coming up behind me in my tiny galley kitchen and either pinching my sides, patting my rear end or groping me in some other way. 

My husband tells me to tell her to stop if it bothers me, but I’m not sure she consciously realizes what she’s doing and how strange and inappropriate this is. I guess she thinks she’s being affectionate, but frankly, I mostly feel molested.

I was molested as a child, and she knows that. Whenever she does this, I get really upset and have a panic attack. She knows I don’t like it!

I’ve been sorely tempted to reach around and stab her with a kitchen knife. I feel sick and angry.

She only visits a few times a year, but one of these times, I’m going to flip out.

- Creeped Out

You had me, up until the “stabbing” desire. 

Get to a therapist. This is about your past experience of being molested more than about your mother-in-law.

Yes, she’s insensitive, but yes, she’s undoubtedly trying to reach out with compassion for you as a hurt child - which is what a good MIL thinks her DIL is: another adult “child” of hers, like her son.

He’s the one who can take her aside and explain that your past abuse has naturally left anxiety about being touched this way. He should help her understand that even if you know she means well, she needs to express it in other ways, not through touch.

I like my girlfriend of two months but it might not be mutual. 

We used to be intimate often enough but now every time I’m in the mood, she’s not even trying to be. She doesn’t feel good, she’s tired, or moves further away from me, telling me not to touch her.

So I just leave it at that, and the next day she acts like nothing happened.

- Lost

Speak up and discuss the change. Is there a reason why she’s more tired, are you seeing each other much more than before, have you settled into a boring routine, or do you have different sex drives? 

To stay together, you both need to compromise, not just resort to reaching out versus rejection.

Try having definite “date nights” a couple of times a week, and vary it between fun/romantic/different.

If that doesn’t get the sizzle back in the relationship, it may have fizzled.