My boyfriend and I have often talked of marriage, we're very open. I truly love him with all my heart. He’s amazing in every way.

He's great with our son (not biologically his, but he loves him) and we talk things through a lot. We have fights just as any couple does.

My problem is this: We picked a ring. And I'm very excited.

But now I'm stressing about when is he going to propose (we hardly have time for dates or private time). I can't stop stressing!

I'm so excited to be his wife one day and wearing a beautiful ring on my finger, but now I’m constantly thinking about it.

Obsessing!

Get a grip on your own hype about this, or you may be unwittingly causing him to delay.

If you obsess about this proposal as a fairy-tale dream about you and a ring, instead of the happy but expected plan you’ve both made, you may overwhelm and scare him with your high expectations.

Be real: You live together, you raise a child together, you’re both time-strapped and perhaps financially tight, too.

So give him time to figure out when and how he can buy the ring and propose.

If you know that he can’t afford it easily on his own, raise the question of whether you should budget for it together… after all, this is 2016. You’re already sharing a life.

Then remember this: For your boyfriend to actually surprise you with his proposal, you must stop stressing. Otherwise, you’ll build so much tension about it, that the actual event may lose some of its sweetness.

You’re the one who can make sure that doesn’t happen.

For Mother's Day, my daughter decided to treat her mother-in-law that day, not me. She said we’ll do something another day.

I don't like her MIL – she’s abusive towards me and laughs at me whenever she can.

She’s sneaky and behaves in a way that makes my skin crawl.

She was the one who informed me that she’d be treated to a day out on Mother's Day. She’s delighted that I’m left out.

I plan on taking the high road, but it still sucks to get the rotten end of the stick.
What is your healthy spin on these abusive relationships?

Deeply Hurt

There’s more that’s unhealthy here than I can know, with so little background information from you. But I agree that there’s abuse being hurled your way.

Your daughter’s mother-in-law sounds manipulative and mean.

So the question is whether your daughter felt pushed into this Mother’s Day situation, or is actually thoughtless and unkind when it comes to you.

If the latter, your deep hurt (and whatever she feels) must go back to whatever happened in your mother-daughter relationship in the past.

Even if you had very difficult times, you two can still decide to try and resolve your issues now that you’re both adults.

To do this, you’d need a process of counselling together. With openness about whatever went wrong previously, and professional guidance, you two can create a new bond.

BUT, if this exclusion of you is all the nasty work of her MIL, your daughter needs your support in resisting this woman’s pressure so she can do what she knows is the right thing.

Only you know the answer here, to which one of them is abusive. If it’s BOTH, then instead of being hurt, be practical and self-respecting.

Change what you can, and walk away from what you can’t.

I sometimes wish to donate money in the memory of a person who passed away, if they were important in my life, or the life of someone close to me.

What decides this is whether I was able to attend the visitation or funeral, the level of closeness of the deceased or their loved one to me, and the charitable cause of choice.

Occasionally, families have asked for donations to a charity that I don’t wish to support, for my own reason.

Is it déclassé to donate to another charity that’s closer to my heart, or is it okay?

I feel that families should simply focus on the fact that their loved one was remembered, but I'm not sure whether this is an unusual perspective.

Uncertain

If you choose a charity that doesn’t openly conflict with the family’s preferred choice, then your donation and thoughts should be appreciated.