Both my fiancée and I are in new jobs important to our careers. We’re not a power couple – yet – but we’re a very busy, frustrated couple because we work long hours and have no time for sex.

She accepts that this is the price we have to pay to get established, so we can have the luxuries and leisure (including sex) later on.

I’m not so sure that’s a healthy attitude, when we’re supposed to be at the peak of our love and desire.

Frustrated Fiancé

Putting off a healthy, satisfying sex life for “later” is NOT wise. It prolongs feeling unhappy and creates distance.

You’re missing out on the benefits sex can bring to a busy, stressful life.

Those happy-making endorphins that come from sexual release can soothe your nerves.

And the intimacy of cuddling, kissing, and stroking can bring calm and closeness into your sense of being a great team in every respect.

Present happiness is what makes hard work worthwhile.

My boyfriend says he likes only me. When we first started dating, he was sweet and kind. But then I asked him if he liked anyone else, because he was spending a lot of time with my best friend.

He said no, so I trusted him. But when I asked him to the school dance, he said he was hurt too many times and wasn’t going.

Then he said he was going to ask someone and he asked my friend - the girl he’d said he didn’t like.

When I asked if he liked her more than me, he said, does it matter?  What should I do?

Need HELP 

Back off, he’s not the guy for you. Nor for your friend, either, since he’s still too immature to handle dating relationships.

Even very young people know that dating has some boundaries – you don’t hit on your significant other’s best friend. You don’t go around his or her back to ask someone else out. You break up before you move on.

Your friend didn’t play fair, either. She should’ve refused to go to the dance with him unless you said it’s over and you don’t mind.

However, this experience will help you, not them. You’ll know that a good guy doesn’t rush you while he’s seeing someone else, and you won’t have to keep asking him if he likes you. Meanwhile, invite a pal who makes you laugh to the dance, and enjoy it.

FEEDBACK Regarding the worried Grandmother (March 6):
Reader – “I was a very tall girl growing up, and also somewhat overweight. I was the recipient of constant comments on my height from my peers (and adults, too), and this made me extremely timid.

“Finding an activity I was good at, and liked, in high school (music) turned my self-confidence around. I could focus on what I was doing and not how I looked.

“I made friends who didn't care that I didn't have the appearance of a typical teenager.

“Better health, including exercise and wiser food choices, was a secondary effect of this.

“Any direct confrontation about my weight would’ve sent me running in the other direction, in those sensitive teenage and pre-teenage years,

“And that could’ve been deeply scarring.

“The best thing Grandma can do is help her granddaughter find an activity she can invest herself in and, like you say, make her feel good about herself. The desire to be healthy has to come from within, and it comes from valuing yourself.”

FEEDBACK Regarding the worried Grandmother (March 6):
Reader – “I was a very tall girl growing up, and also somewhat overweight. I was the recipient of constant comments on my height from my peers (and adults, too), and this made me extremely timid.

“Finding an activity I was good at, and liked, in high school (music) turned my self-confidence around. I could focus on what I was doing and not how I looked.

“I made friends who didn't care that I didn't have the appearance of a typical teenager.

“Better health, including exercise and wiser food choices, was a secondary effect of this.

“Any direct confrontation about my weight would’ve sent me running in the other direction, in those sensitive teenage and pre-teenage years,

“And that could’ve been deeply scarring.

“The best thing Grandma can do is help her granddaughter find an activity she can invest herself in and, like you say, make her feel good about herself. The desire to be healthy has to come from within, and it comes from valuing yourself.”

FEEDBACK Regarding the bride whose father and stepfather both wanted to walk her down the aisle (March 8):

Reader – “I was raised in the Orthodox Church, Ukrainian version. At such weddings, the guests and relatives assemble first. Then, the bride and groom come up the aisle together, alone.

“This confirms that they’ve made an independent, consensual decision as free-thinking adults to marry each other.

“They stand together as an autonomous couple, and their parents show their respect for their maturity, by staying put in their pews.

“When my older sister got married, my father made a point of explaining this to non-Orthodox guests, so they could understand the deeper meaning of what they were about to witness.

“My father once told me that he’d be embarrassed to be made to "give away" a daughter, and felt that this might be humiliating to the young couple who had the right to march proudly forth on their own.”