When I married my husband 18 years ago, he drank socially and sometimes went too far. Since his mother died in 2004, he's been drinking regularly and hiding it from me.

Last year he developed medical issues, which cause fluid retention and caused a 75-pound weight gain. He's been hospitalized twice. He may need a liver transplant but they won't even do a biopsy until he's stopped drinking for six months' minimum.

He's been seeing a rehab counsellor, attends Alcoholics' Anonymous meetings daily, and takes medication to curb his cravings. He IS trying. But I'm so tired of fighting over this and don't know how to help him anymore.

Our teenage kids wonder why their father just can't stop drinking. Otherwise, he's going to die. I've been seeing a counsellor myself, which helps a bit, but am told there's nothing I can do.

I've contemplated asking him to leave so we don't have to watch him die, but I married him till death do us part. What can I do?

So Frustrated

Hang in! What you're experiencing is FEAR, and that's natural. But you can't run from this reality. He's there, he's trying, and it'd be unusual cruelty to leave him and to separate him from his kids, let alone you, at this crucial time.

Clearly, grief over his mother's loss escalated his alcohol abuse. Now you're letting grief - in anticipation - take control of you, too.

Your children need to see role models of strength, not despair - all that you can muster, and whatever he can gather. Continue your counselling and be his greatest support.

My friend's husband of 22 years fell in love with her sister 17 years ago. The day after he confessed to my friend, the two ran away together.

Everybody was stunned. Her husband had been loving her. Her parents found the couple and took her sister home. She soon married someone else.

My friend and her husband moved away had another child. However, whenever her husband sees her sister, he's emotionally excited and creates drama.

Now, her in-laws are visiting and the whole family badmouths my friend. Her sister-in-law says she doesn't respect his mother, even though my friend's doing her laundry, taking her everywhere she wants, etc.

Now her husband only wants his family to visit them, not the wife's. He doesn't want her to go to work, and wants to know if she's going to her parents and complaining. He says she should thank him that she's living in his house. He now sleeps in a separate room and doesn't want to talk to her.

My friend loves her husband and children (21 and 9). What should she do?

Worried

Your friend's dangerously close to being isolated and controlled by her husband. What she calls "love" is dependency. But she has legal rights, and needs to learn them so she can respond if he gets nastier.

She must tell her parents all that's going on. And she must see a lawyer. She needs more than just confiding in a friend, but having people ready to help her.

If there's a community person whom her husband respects, she should talk to that person and see if any community pressure can be brought to bear on him. He either treats her better, or she needs to seek a clean separation in which she's financially secure. The home environment is unhealthy for her children, and potentially unsafe for her.

Whenever I take my granddaughter to her ballet class, the other girls' mothers ignore me. I'm the "older woman" they don't need to get to know. However, I'm not only active, healthy, and have valuable life experience, I'm a freelance nutrition/weight-loss consultant.... one of the very issues they chatter about!

Do I break in and tell them I have many of the answers they're seeking and end up giving free sessions for an hour? Or do I sit there seething that I'm not considered "a person."

Annoyed

They can't know if you don't mention it. Their very lack of life experience (and politeness, it seems) has them too insular to look around and include you, at least with a hello.

So show them what grown-up women look like - the ability to talk to anyone, to share information, to be generous with specialized skills. They need you far more than they know.