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I have exhausted every avenue for advice and I’m getting to the point where I feel physically ill with stress. I’m 27 years old with three children. I have spent four years with my youngest child’s dad, Tom, whom I adored!! But Tom got depressed when his father died — two days before our son was born — after a 10-month battle with lung cancer. I kept trying to help but he wouldn’t admit he was depressed and said he was down because he doesn’t love me. I went to relationship counseling with him and then he went to personal counseling too. He told me over a period of about two years…

I’m a 31-year-old female who has never been in a relationship, been on a date, or had sex. Recently, though, I met a guy during a work event, he asked for my number, and he immediately started texting me the moment I got home. We got along just fine and started making plans. I was, of course, over the moon to finally get the attention of a nice man who seemed genuinely interested in me. But then, recently, during a conversation I said jokingly, “You must think I am the craziest,” to which he responded: “I wouldn’t say you are the most ‘anything’ woman I have ever met.” Which I interpreted as…

I’ve been seeing a wonderful man for about three years. I love him very much and he asked me to marry him along the way, but I said no. After much soul searching, I’ve realized the reason I said no was fear of continued emotional abandonment. We’ve worked on a lot of things in our relationship and we get along great, but, when something doesn’t go his way, he literally walks away from the relationship — no calls, no texting, and no real explanation to what he’s upset about. It’s always me reaching back out to see if he’s okay, and, ultimately, things get back on track again. It’s taken me a…

I have been in a relationship for six years and we live together. My daughter is white and married a wonderful Black man. They now have a child and are expecting another. My boyfriend is very distant with my grandchild and has said he will never accept a biracial grandchild. He explains that it is because he was raised that way. I want to have a relationship with my daughter and her husband and their children very much. But I love my boyfriend too. I feel that they are trying to make me choose between them and I don’t know how to handle the situation. I would like some suggestions please. —…

My boyfriend and I are both divorced (I have two children, he has none). Each of our most recent respective relationships were with addicts (my ex was a serious porn/sex addict and his was a serious alcoholic). We have both worked very hard to overcome co-dependency issues that we experienced in our past relationships. However, I spent over two years staying single purposely so that I could work on my issues while he dated the entire time between his last ex and our relationship. I worry that he didn’t give himself enough time to deal with what his ex did to him (cheated on him after 11 years, engaged in constant drunken…

I’m 30 years old and I have been in psychotherapy and on medication for the past year to address depression. As part of my long history with depression, I have committed self-harm on places on my body that aren’t visible in everyday outfits. For example, I need to wear swimsuits with full short bottoms, instead of a bikini bottom. For someone to see the scars, I would essentially have to be in my underwear. I have come clean to some of my friends about the depression, but I feel very uncomfortable talking about my self-harm and have not told anyone about that. I feel quite conflicted about this because I am interested…