Advice columnist Annie Lane is a young wife and mother with a gift for helping other people solve problems. In a voice that's sympathetic, funny and firm, Lane provides common-sense solutions to life's dilemmas.
Dear Annie: I used to love the holidays, but now I am dreading them. I have recently been divorced.
Dear Annie: My daughter recently passed from complications of myasthenia gravis.
Dear Annie: It seems impossible for me to mend my relationship with my son. He is 38 and I am 68. Back when he was 22, he came out of the closet and told us he was gay. It took me nearly two years to accept that, and two years of hardly talking. Finally, I accepted it — with a few years of counseling.
Dear Annie: My wife and I feel we are being taken advantage of by our family and friends.
Dear Annie: I am having a problem with my mother-in-law and my husband. She is a control freak who wants to control my husband. His sister died a year ago, and his mother told him she wanted to have a memorial dinner at our house. She never spoke to me about it. In fact, she doesn’t speak to me at all, due to a prior bad experience.
I am writing in response to the letter from “Concerned Care-Daughter,” who said she was approaching caregiver burnout.
Dear Annie: My husband, “Craig,” is an attentive, considerate and truly loving partner. The one quality that causes me to lose sleep is this: He is in his late 70s, yet he enjoys the attention of young women, ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s.
Dear Annie: A close friend’s father died suddenly two months ago, and she’s been distant ever since. We’re relatively young, and this is my first experience having a close friend lose a parent.
Dear Annie: My wife does not work outside the home.
Dear Annie: Our best friend’s son just got married in July. We gave them a generous check as a gift at the beginning of June when we saw the son and his fiancee at dinner. We were not going to be attending the wedding later in the month due to a prior engagement.
