Relationship Advice

My mother-in-law is a control freak and she criticises everything I do, say or wear

Ask Roe: My husband’s family are controlling and he never sticks up for me. I see him as weak and pathetic sometimes

Tell Me About It: My wife wanted me to retire five years ago, and we had plans for travelling. I stubbornly kept putting it off

how can I get her more comfortable so that she will share this experience with me during our lovemaking ?

It took a long time for me to earn this child’s trust but I feel like I am getting sucked into her mother’s black cloud

Tell Me About It: ‘Extended family and friends subtly, and not-so-subtly, suggest that I’d be happier in a relationship’

Ask Roe: ‘Since breaking up with my only girlfriend I have not gone on a date or had any intimate contact with anyone’

Tell Me About It: ‘I really feel worthless and can’t see myself doing anything worthwhile’

Ask the Expert: Take the time to get a deeper understanding of what is going on for family members

I don’t want to be someone who breaks up with a loving person because they struggle with finances and anxiety

Tell Me About It: ‘I’m worried I’ll be put into a situation where I have to tell them something I don’t want to share with them yet’

Ask Roe: ‘I don’t feel comfortable taking to them about dates I’ve been on, or girls I like’

Tell Me About It: ‘Should I tell each of them that the other person has feelings for them or let them figure it out?’

Tell Me About It: ‘His insecurity is growing all the time and the fact that we are together over a year has not helped’

Ask Roe: ‘How do I cope with this domineering and manipulative woman?’

Her comments are making us wonder if she is worth the bother

Tell Me About It: ‘I now have questions about the rest of his family and their casualness about how she usurped our day’

Ask Roe: I worry people might be exaggerating or inventing things out of dislike for her

Tell Me About It: ‘He’s not kind to her and she has had to give up things she wanted, like marriage, because they are not what he wants’

Ask Roe: I both dread being asked and not being asked to her wedding

Regardless of whether they are still at home, or in their own place, younger adults seem to be finding it harder to form long-term relationships

Tell Me About It: ‘We have discussed living together in his country, and I have put my house up for sale’

Fallouts are not uncommon but they can damage the mental health of those caught in the middle. Here’s what psychologists recommend

Ask Roe: I’ve tried talking about us finding some middle ground, but my wife avoids the conversation

My dream in life is to be an agony aunt, but my advice would always be ‘leave them’. No considered empathy from me

Tell Me About It: ‘Our life together has been replaced by distance, with a deliberate decision on his part to engage in new activities’

‘Eat the frog first thing in the morning’, start a new notebook, and see self-care as a necessity not an indulgence

Ask Roe: ‘I just couldn’t cope at the time being single and a bit hopeless’

I’ve been in situations where I expected things to progress to a relationship, but then I get an unexpected message

Ask Roe: After the last miscarriage and a period of high conflict, I discovered my partner is having an affair with a colleague

Certain organisational building blocks need to be put in place if you want to successfully run an intergenerational family business

Tell Me About It: ‘I’m feeling overwhelmed by the state of my personal life’

Ask Roe: ‘She hasn’t cloned his phone but has speculated about doing so’

Tell Me About It: ‘He has been living a kind of Irish divorce of old where he still goes to family events with his wife’

Ask Roe: I spend my time feeling like a judgmental prude or feeling rejected by people I’ve never met

Tell Me About It: ‘He does not bring me to any of the kids’ events. It feels like I am not important enough in his life’

Ask Roe: He has apologised repeatedly, and is trying very hard to make it up to me, but my trust is damaged

Tell Me About It: ‘I find it hard to muster the enthusiasm that might be required to take any relationship to the next level’

Ask Roe: My father left my mother telling us that he is gay after almost 40 years of marriage

Readers’ problems in the late 17th century ranged from the mundane – unhappy marriages, difficult in-laws to the dramatic