Dear Neil: I have been in a two-year long-distance relationship with my boyfriend. We always talk, I love him very much, and it feels as if he loves me. He is very caring and has always been there for me when I have needed him. I’ve never met anyone else who really cares for me […]
Dear Neil: Help me with what I should do. I’m 29, and my wife of three years is unemployed and only occasionally interested in looking for work. In the meantime, I am needing to support both of us, pay the mortgage and pay for her health care and prescription drugs. That leaves me very little […]
Dear Neil: A few years ago, I read a column you wrote in the newspaper on how to decide if you’re in a relationship with the “right one,” and what questions to ponder when choosing a potential partner. Would you consider reprinting that article? Hopeful in New Zealand Dear Hopeful: I would be happy to […]
We all want variations of the same thing when we select someone to give ourselves to, to commit to, to marry or to live with. The problem, most people belatedly realize, is that no one is perfect, and that there are tradeoffs we are forced to accept no matter who we choose to be in […]
One of the important decisions people make about a potential intimate partner is forced on us very early on in a budding relationship. It’s about deciding whether to give the other person a chance, and how much we are willing to open ourselves up to him/her. Most people have had the experience of saying “yes” […]
Note: This is the second of a two-part series. When you are squabbling with your intimate partner over petty, small, nitpicky things, could you describe with confidence the hidden, more subterranean issues that you are fighting about? Most people can’t. Most people have, at best, an extremely vague idea about what pushes their buttons, or […]
Dear Neil: My fiancé and I are in a 15 month relationship, and we’re planning on getting married 5 months from now. But before we marry, we need some help. First of all, you would think that we have been together long enough so that we would have worked out basic living agreements. But no, […]
Dear Neil: I met a real nice man about six months ago. We have been out a few times and he calls me every day. We talk about a lot of things, but I don’t know much about him. He doesn’t live very far from me, but when I ask him to come over, he […]
Dear Neil: I don’t know how to start, but I am ever so desperate. I have fallen in love with a man who is 30 (I am 20), and we have been on and off for the past 18 months. We are also long distance, because he is in Belgium and I live in London. […]
Of the thousands of letters or emails I have received from readers of this column through the years, there have been certain themes or questions that have repeated themselves over and over again. Some people write of feeling unloved, unwanted or discarded in a relationship. Another group of readers write of feeling misused or poorly […]