My daughter, 24, recently said she was going to Spain to stay with a friend for two weeks. The day she was returning we received a text message saying she was flying home on Royal Jordanian Airlines from Amman.

My wife and I were hurt and frustrated that: 1) She hadn't told us where she was really going; 2) She went to a dangerous part of the world and stayed with a person she’d met playing games on the Internet.

Well, she made it home safe and sound and feels that justifies that her decision. We respect that she’s an adult but feel she doesn't understand the incredible risk she took.

How do I get her to understand that?

- Concerned Dad

The issue isn’t Jordan, it’s your daughter’s deception.

Travel anywhere is open to dangers (the Madrid train bombings; subway terrorism in London, 9/11 in New York, etc.), so drop the Jordan aspect.

Her big risk was staying with someone she’d never met personally, far from home, without anyone knowing her true whereabouts.

Worse, she showed absolute unconcern for her parents’ anxiety level and confidence to trust her.

She did NOT act like a responsible adult, by not thinking of how anyone could’ve reached her if anything had gone wrong at your end, or hers. Tell her all this, and drop the subject… as well as your faith in her judgment, until she proves otherwise.

Eighteen months ago I became friends with a male colleague and it progressed to multiple daily phone calls and then to dates, which he always initiated.

After three months, we became physically intimate, which he also initiated but stated that he wasn't ready for a relationship, due to personal issues, he just wanted to be friends.

Eventually, I spent every weekend at his home, was privy to his finances, etc. However, he still refused to acknowledge that we were more than just friends.

To me, it’s been a relationship. His actions completely contradict his words. I know it sounds like he wants to have his cake and eat it too but I have feelings for him that I’ve never had with anyone else.

We haven't been intimate in several months, nor seen each other in person but we still can't stop communicating almost all day, every day.

- Can’t Stop

Apparently someone has stopped the personal contact and sex, and that means the “relationship” part is over. Whoever called it, did the right thing.

He DID have his “cake” from getting you to accept an arrangement in which he called all the shots.

The reason it’s hard to let go of those feelings is that you were made insecure from the start, forced to try and convince him it was a union with a future.

While the passion together may have been equal, everything else was unbalanced, so this was not a healthy relationship for you and you’re well out of it.

You didn’t read his lips, but it’s time to read mine: It’s over.

Is my husband right to go out five nights a week, leaving me alone with the kids?

He says he needs to relax from his hard day’s work?

- Lonely and Tired

All parents have to work out an agreed plan for time together with their children, time alone with each other, and personal time for each of them.

He has no idea how to be a father and partner, so get a sitter and both attend parenting classes one of those nights.

I’m 19, and living with my boyfriend of two years.

My parents haven’t talked to me in three years, I left an unhappy home life, because I’m East Indian and my boyfriend isn’t. But I miss my family, so I’ve decided to return home.

I love him and don’t know how to make him understand why we have to break up.

- Lost

Explain to him that you’ve recognized how much you need your family in your life and that your relationship with him would always be strained unless you try to mend the hurt feelings back home.

You’ve already made the decision, so it must be what you need to do for your personal peace.

Once settled, time will tell whether you two are eventually able to get back together or whether he was an important part of your maturing to know that you need family love and support.