I am a 43-year-old man who’s separated. I’ve been working as a coach at a local elementary school for about 16 years. I’m happy being single and playing the field.

Mostly it’s with the women at the school. The problem is, in the past few years I’ve juggled women outside this environment and it’s become difficult to keep up with them.

I can't help but juggle these women. For me, the more women, the better I feel. These women continue to let me do this and blame each other instead of me.

It’s fine with me, because I see nothing wrong with spreading my wings.

However, in recent times I’ve juggled so many that I ended up hurting one I was very fond of.

She didn't approve of my ways, and in order to keep all the others happy, I had to make sure she looked bad.

I regret it, but I can't change the lifestyle I choose. I don’t know how to change it even if I want to. I am most happy when I can play.

How do I change?

Juggler

You don’t sound as happy as you claim.

You hurt someone you like. You’ve juggled yourself into a situation you don’t know how to handle. Despite saying you’re happiest this way, you ask how to change.

Your single-life dream has become something of a nightmare because these aren’t balls or batons you’re tossing around – they’re people with feelings.

I suspect many readers today, of your admitted lifestyle, will simply dismiss you as a jerk and a user of women.

Some might even hope that you get caught out as a flagrant player, so that even your judgement, responsibility, and compassion as a coach of youngsters get called into question.

But then, you do ask how to change.

Maybe, hopefully, you’ve spun yourself into a situation that now seems uncomfortable.

If so, consider what you’ve revealed: Being with more and more women makes you feel better… a fact which implies that otherwise you don’t feel good about yourself.

You crave constant affirmation that someone wants you, you’re needy, perhaps addicted to sex but getting no real love and respect.

Get counselling. Learn who you really are when you’re not playing this immature, careless, emotionless game.

Then you’ll know just what you want to change and learn how to do it.

My wife eats her dinner in bed everyday, while on the Internet, phone, or playing video games until she goes to sleep. There’s very little intimacy or discussion between us.

My young daughter also eats her dinner in bed, no matter that I say it’s not a good idea. She sleeps with her hand on her mother’s tummy. I know she’ll eventually end this habit on her own, though her mother doesn’t stop her.

When she has an issue with me, she screams loudly and our other children can hear what’s going on.

What can I do?

Shut Out

Your marriage is a mess – no communication, no connection. She’s addicted to the Internet and her phone, and avoiding normal interaction with you, and possibly her children, too.

She keeps the youngest child close through touch, without considering how her Internet obsession will affect the child.

She needs therapy, but suggesting this will only cause more screaming.

Go yourself. You need professional help to look at how this pattern between you two started, and to see if there’s any hope of changing it.

 

My mother, in her 70s, judges everyone else's looks. She just makes herself look small-minded.

I guess she's always done it, but it irritates me more now. I've tried talking to her about it, to no avail.

"Boy that person got fat;" "Wow is he old looking;" "Look at the nose on her," are but some of her recent gems. She herself is very overweight.

How do I tell her that I don't want to hear this stuff, especially when I bring her grandchildren over?

Fed Up Son

Start with a moment of compassion. Say this: “Maybe getting older frightens you. Maybe being overweight makes you self-conscious.

“But when you make those negative comments, all people see is an unhappy old woman.”

Tell her that sadly, that’s all you and her grandkids also see when she judges others so harshly.

Instead of knowing her as the loving Mom and Grandma she could also be, if she chooses.