Dear Neil: Five years ago, when husband’s ADHD/bi-polar son started acting out, I was so exhausted after working all day and then dealing with his son that I had no desire for lovemaking. After about a year and a half without intimacy, one night was all it took and I became pregnant. The pregnancy lasted […]
Looking for better self-esteem? Higher self-worth? Increased self-confidence? The following ideas about how to achieve a better relationship with yourself—which are really good rules for living—are taken from Don Miguel Ruiz’s excellent book The Four Agreements (Amber-Allen Publishing). If you want better self-esteem, make the following four agreements with yourself and then be sure to […]
Dear Neil: I’ve been in an on-and-off again relationship with a man I have two children with. I love him dearly and I want to be with him. But he wants to leave in order to determine what he really wants from our relationship and how he feels about me. He’s having a hard time […]
Dear Neil: I told a male friend I had sexual fantasies about him. At the time, he was living with a woman. I persuaded myself that if a man is a partner/boyfriend with a woman and not her fiancé or husband, he is actually available. I figured that if a couple isn’t married within two […]
Dear Neil: Our 33 year-old son has no contact with us, but he also doesn’t have contact with his brothers, aunts or uncles, cousins and grandparents. This has been going on for four years now. Why would he be this rejecting of his parents? Is there anything we can do to change this and bring […]
Dear Neil: I recently wrote to you saying my husband is having an emotional affair. You advised me in the paper to explore why our relationship has grown distant, and what we could do to rekindle the spark between us. But my husband no longer wants to try. He says we can’t recapture what we […]
Dear Neil: What causes some people to cheat multiple times with multiple partners, or to cheat habitually? Can a person who habitually cheats also love his/her spouse? Infidelity changes a person into someone who is deceitful, foolish, cold and calculated. What is that person’s point of view? How do I overcome these feelings that have […]
Dear Neil: I am 32 years-old, and I’m a mess. I grew up in a mess of a home—parents divorced when I was five. I had an abusive step-father. My father and I are now estranged. I’ve spent years trying to connect the dots between my childhood and the person I am, so I can […]
Dear Neil: My boyfriend (Type A personality) and I (Type B) are on the brink of calling it quits after an 8 month long-distance relationship. Up until about 10 days ago, everything was wonderful. Truly wonderful. We had begun discussing marriage and we were both sure that we’d found “the one.” But after finding out […]
Dear Neil: I got out of a ten year relationship, and five months later got into another one. After four months, I decided to take a chance and we moved in together. I have three children, two of which are teenagers, and there are expenses, house cleaning chores and cooking needs—none of which my new […]