Andrea Bonior

Q: We’d always talked about my mother-in-law moving to the area when she retires. I would welcome that. But now my wife says she wants her to live with us for the rest of her life. My wife says it doesn’t make financial sense for her to get her own place, that she can help us more with the kids that way, and that we owe it to her. But she’s healthy and could live another 30 years! And our house is very small. I’m floored by this.

Q: Ms. X and I were good work friends – ate lunch together and once in a while had coffee or went to a museum. She shared a lot about her life with me, but I never did. There’s something about her that I didn’t like, so after she left the job, I felt relief.

Q: No one is allowed to say anything negative, ever, about my husband’s cooking. He’s such a perfectionist and prides himself on doing everything just right, and once it’s up to his standards, he gets deeply annoyed if anyone mentions anything even minor about it. It has gotten really embarrassing. Help!

Q: Is there any advice you can give a financially struggling parent whose daughter was accepted to a top university but won’t be able to foot the $50,000-a-year tuition bill? If I could put my kidney on eBay for a good price to cover her tuition, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Q: Do you think it’s fair to have cigarette smoking as a deal-breaker in a relationship? I have given my boyfriend ultimatum after ultimatum, and he just won’t quit. He was supposedly quitting when we first started dating, and I made it totally clear to him that I would not date a smoker. Six months in, and no progress.

Q: I totally fell for a guy six months ago who I now believe is taking advantage of me financially. My heart is broken and I know that our relationship is not for the long haul. I want to fight to get some of my money back (I gave him “loans” for car repairs, paid some of his utilities and paid off some of his credit-card debt when his money was tight). My friends say just to cut my losses and drop it, that it will only get messier.

Q: My husband makes time for what he wants to do: happy hours after work, golfing on the weekends, etc. He assumes I will pick up the slack with child care. If I ever want to go to brunch with friends or go shopping, however, he acts as though he’s burdened. I’m very frustrated that everything falls on me and that I’m the one who misses getting any personal time.

Q: My wife is constantly texting and doing other stuff on her phone. We’ll start talking at dinner, and then she’ll get up and go for her phone. I know this is not a common complaint among men, but I will admit it makes me frustrated to feel like I’m talking to a half-there individual. She’s been my best friend for a long time, but I really feel like we don’t connect much anymore.

Q: My husband has been unemployed and job hunting forever. He is immensely talented but bad at the nuts and bolts of making things happen and has not been diligent about getting his resume out there. And now he’s not trying. I make a great salary and I could see him staying at home with kids someday, but I am nowhere near ready to start a family. How do I make him see that we need to jump-start something?

Q: I’m trying to decide whether to go to grad school after college. I know I’m interested in being a therapist but also can’t imagine getting a Ph.D. when I am already so burned-out on college. I’m a junior. Any words of wisdom?