I'm 48, father of two, nine and eleven. Their mother's 39, we've been separated for four months. Our problem's been going on for several years.

I'd lived a wild single life, with little contact with my family. My father died when I was 18. My wife's parents spilt when she was six, and she rarely saw her father after.

At 18, she moved in with a guy for seven years. We started dating three months later.

Now, I want to slow down and be a family, only go out occasionally once a weekend. She's been on stress leave from work for a year. We've had marriage counselling, she's seeing someone for depression. I've started therapy for anger management.

Even after having kids, she'd be out till two or three am, or spending the night. She'd lie about where. I'd get mad. At home she'd be in bed early, spending no time with me.

We're deep in dept due to her poor money management, and I'd get mad about that too.

I still love her madly and still want to be a family, but she's enjoying this new freedom of no one trying to control her. What should I do?

Lost in Limbo

Get your priorities straight during this critical time: Be a "family" for your kids. Give them the time and help they need to adjust to your separation and the after-effects of anger and fights.

Continue with your own therapy to find other strategies than anger and control, to handle situations you don't like. And be supportive to your wife's counselling (without intruding) as she desperately needs to probe what's driving and depressing her.

You two are out of sync from the deepest levels on up. "Loving her madly" is unfortunately not enough to bridge this huge gap. You both need to find new and separate ways to get past old hurts and losses, before you can consider trying to be a team again.

I dated a guy two years ago. My best friend was my go-to advice girl about him. I didn't like him enough, so I ended it.

Later, we reconnected. My friend encouraged me to go for him, but said she didn't actually like him.

I ended it again but he still wanted to be friends. Then he started hanging out with her, a lot, and he didn't even go to our school. She avoided talking about him. I felt hurt and suspicious.

I couldn't be open to him OR her anymore. I REALLY missed her but couldn't trust her. Our friendship deteriorated until we stopped speaking.

After ten months, I finally asked why she did this. She reminded me that she'd said that if I didn't want her to hang out with him, I just had to say so. But now they're true friends.

How can I ask her to stop talking to him? Shouldn't she know how to treat friends' ex-boyfriends?

I now feel I was a bad friend and there was a serious miscommunication. We both find it hard to get past this. How can we get a good friendship back?

Missing Her

You blurred the rules, but there's hope for the friendship. By expecting her to consider him off-limits - despite your saying otherwise - you created a problem that you can now resolve.

Consider it a life lesson: When you've been guilty of mixed messages, a sincere apology can clear the air. Be open again, and treat her friendship with this guy as valid.

I'm 21, he's 32. We got together just for sex but it turned into a four-month relationship. He talked about me moving in, getting married. His ex-wife, also 21, had left him for another man.

Soon, he was going through my phone, checking on me at work, leaving nasty comments on Facebook to any man who left a comment. We fought daily because he distrusted me, without reason. He broke it off, because he "couldn't stop hurting me."

He's twice invited me over just for sex. I don't want to give up my love for him. Was it ever love for him?

Lost

His actions were from need, not love. He's not over his ex-wife's cheating, and uses sex to get close but turns it into control.

Do NOT hook your image of love on someone who repeatedly hurts you. It's a dangerous pattern that'll follow you in other relationships.