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I know you aren’t regularly updating your site, but I wanted to send a request for advice, in case you feel any interest in responding. I am really struggling with how to manage my relationship with my mom as an adult. I recently became a parent, and as I’ve been reflecting on what kind of parent I want to be, I’ve gotten angry sometimes with how my mother treated me. A few examples: – She slapped me and my siblings as kids. This is actually pretty common in the cultural community we’re from, but the other day she denied she had ever slapped me. (Her exact words: “What are you going to…

I’m 31 and met a man almost four years younger than me on a dating site. I’m a divorced single mom, so I know my looks aren’t what they use to be. Anyway, we connected so well, it was like we became best friends in a short amount of time. We became intimate and of course it was pretty amazing; everything seemed to be going well, except for one thing: he never took me anywhere. When I finally brought it up, he claimed he thought we were just FWB, which wasn’t the case, and that he was attracted to me and liked me a lot, but couldn’t be with me due to…

I met a girl about eight weeks ago and we really hit it off. On the second date she told me that she had previously planned a trip to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with another guy. Climbing that mountain was her life’s dream. She was training five hours a day. She had only met the guy once before for a couple days and wouldn’t see him again until the trip. She explained that he was a “sugar daddy” whom she had met on an app. It was her first. The trip of almost three weeks required her to be having sex with him and essentially acting as his girlfriend. She wants…

I plan on moving shorty after my youngest graduates high school. He is 15 now and I also have a 17-year-old, both boys. I moved in 2013 to Illinois from Wisconsin so they could be closer to their dad. I have no family and no close friends here. My boyfriend lives in Georgia, and I want to move there after graduation. My mom and sister act like I’d be abandoning my sons though. Their dad will still be in Illinois, and although they are welcome to move with me, I doubt they will because they don’t want to leave friends. I have been visiting my boyfriend a few times during the year…

(Trigger warning: mention of suicide). Almost ten years ago now, my husband died by suicide. It was gruesome, and I found his body in our home. We were married two years and the suicide was a shock to everyone. I was both bereaved from the loss and deeply traumatized by finding the body. I was a mess. It was my job to divide up his possessions. I made boxes of his favorite things for his friends and family, saved a few things for myself, and liquidated the rest. My brother and my first husband weren’t particularly close, but they got along well enough. I gave my brother my first husband’s Rolex. I…