Your Turn

My parents are Eastern European, and therefore very overbearing, with no understanding of personal boundaries. I’m an only child, so, for better or worse, I have all of their undivided attention. Every few weeks we have huge fights because I say something about my needs and there’s a huge fight and I always end up apologizing and as though I have no power or say in anything. For example, a few months ago my ex boyfriend and I broke up. I had to spend the night at home after the breakup due to an interview that was near my parent’s apartment (I live an hour and a half away). When my parents…

In a feature I call “Your Turn,” in which you, the readers, get to answer the question, I’m presenting the following letter without commentary from me: A few weeks ago, I met an amazing man. He is respectful, kind, hilarious… and we fell for each other pretty quickly. We both met each other’s families after only two weeks. And because he is in the military reserves and is going away for about two months, we had the exclusivity conversation very early. At first, I wanted to wait to have sex with him. But after spending ten days either with him or talking to him all day, not to mention increasingly intense fooling…

In a feature I call “Your Turn,” in which you, the readers, get to answer the question, I’m presenting the following letter without commentary from me: I am to be married in July next year to the best man in the world. However, my mom and dad — who are paying almost all of the wedding — are very bitterly divorced. I have not had my mother in my life since I was 15 and it was not until a few years ago that I made up with her and built some boundaries so I could forgive her for leaving me. She is a slight wine-acholic — always been one — and…

In a feature I call “Your Turn,” in which you, the readers, get to answer the question, I’m presenting the following letter without commentary from me: I wrote to you previously about my girlfriend and me, who began living together after a few months of dating. She had discovered raunchy text messages I sent to a female friend. We had a long discussion about everything and acknowledged that yes, we did move in too soon, and a lot of our relationship insecurities stem from, I guess, our concerns about the relationship moving too fast. Honestly, I never really appreciated how effective an open line of communication is to remedy a problematic relationship…

My family has moved around a lot: New York, Brazil, California, Boston, back to Brazil, back to Boston, and now I am in Florida. I lived in Boston for most of my teenage years, and finished high school there as well. Most of my lifelong friends were made during that time. I moved to Florida on my own for college, and have been here ever since, making it about eight years now. I have my four best friends in Boston whom I have always kept in touch with; we visit each other frequently, talk on the phone or via chats whenever possible and try to keep each other updated with our lives…