I love how open-hearted and caring my girlfriend is, but I wish she’d be a little bit more selective with who she cares for. Specifically, she’s still in close contact with her ex-boyfriend, his friends, and even his family. I know she’s not interested in him anymore—he has a wife—but they have a large enough presence in her life that I’m jealous, just, well, creeped out. For example, this past winter we had to go to her ex’s parents’ anniversary dinner, which was limited to close family and us. What were we doing there besides feeling awkward (or really, was that just me)? I love this woman and want to marry her, but I don’t want to inherit her ex and his clan as in-laws. My goal is to get her to put up some fences in her personal life.

Remember Dr. Lastname’s first theory of relationships: your partner is who s/he is, and you are who you are. Then add up the pros and cons of partnership while not letting false hopes elbow reality aside.

Plug your situation into that model, and you get your goal. Don’t try to get your socially over-connected girlfriend to put up fences. Instead, figure out whether her style is likely to work for you.

Social butterflies are often very interesting people. Friendship is their art, and it can be fun being married to one. You meet lots of people who would otherwise have never entered your life, get lots of interesting invitations, and actually expand your circle of friends.

Decide from the beginning, however, whether you like most of the people and social adventures that she connects with, or not. Of course, you also need to know whether your girlfriend keeps her priorities, and boyfriends, straight.

Unless you’re Virginia Woolf’s remarkably tolerant husband, Leonard, you don’t want her sleeping around. So check out her track record for commitment, availability, financial responsibility, and the rest of the basic partnership job description.

Also, check out your own track record for sharing your significant other with the world. Regardless of how fascinating she is and how easy-going you’d like to be, you may not be good at sharing. Don’t fall for her and then try to change her, especially since she’s going to be spending her time trying to change you.

Don’t be distracted by the social thing, love, jealousy, or any of that feelings slurry. If her references don’t check out with your basic job description for a partner, drop her or you’ll be sorry. This isn’t emotional, this is math. Even if the facts are crunched in your favor, be prepared to share, or move on.

STATEMENT:
Assuming that she meets your partnership criteria and that you like most of her friends and exes, and their exes, etc, here’s a statement to help you address your joint social priorities. “I need to know that you’re committed to our spending time alone and with my (much smaller) social and family circle, and that parenting comes first, if we decide to have kids. I retain the right to opt out of some social events. Otherwise, I enjoy your style and look forward to sharing in your rich social life.”

I love my wife, and I have since we met in college. She’s also been very devoted to me, supporting my fledgling career as an artist and even taking a part-time job as my manager (on top of her full-time job, which supports us both). The problem is that, as much as I love her and as much as I’ve tried to ignore my feelings for other men, I’m pretty sure I’m actually gay. To admit that I’m gay would mean divorcing her, which would not only break her heart when all she’s ever done is sacrifice everything for me, but throw every aspect of my life, personally and professionally, into chaos. I don’t want to hurt her or lose her, and, well, I don’t want to go on welfare. My goal is to be true to both of us.

When you identify as gay, it’s not clear whether you mean the identity, or the actual sex act. “I’ve got to be myself” means, yes, you’ve got to be who you are, but no, you don’t have to have sex, unless you want to.

In other words, if having sex is not more important to you than holding onto a relationship that is otherwise meaningful and important, you don’t have to do it. It’s really that simple. You can be gay, and proud, and also proud of not having sex except when you want to, and not hurting someone you care about.

Now that you know you can control your sexual urges, you’re ready to be a priest, or a not-so-young husband (or wife) whose partner can’t respond. It’s part of being a grown-up. One of the extremely un-fun parts, but a part nonetheless.

If you stick with your wife because she’s a good provider, supporter, and business manager, your relationship sounds somewhat one-way, and that’s not good for either one of you.

You need to love as well as be loved, and know that you can love. Otherwise, your secret identify will not be that you’re gay, but that you’re a user. There’s a reason users don’t get pride parades.

On the other hand, if your wife and you are good friends and have built a life together with shared family and invested energy that would be destroyed by breaking up, then you’ve got to ask yourself whether gay love, sex, lifestyle, etc., are worth more.

Putting sex aside, ask yourself how much of you you’re hiding by hiding this part of your identity from your wife. Most coupled people need to self-edit—not hide, just edit—even with their closest relationships (particularly with their closest relationships).

You don’t want to push your partner to hear and respond to what they don’t really want to deal with. On the other hand, if being gay is part of your everyday thoughts, feelings, and humor, then hiding it makes your relationship false, and does a disservice to her as well as keeping you from being who you really are.

In which case, you need to share your secret identity (without, hopefully, the complications of sexual infidelity) and see whether she can accept you while you try to figure out whether the new relationship will work.

You’ll be gay in theory, just not in practice, which’ll have to be enough if you also want to stay married.

STATEMENT:
If you happen to choose this option, here’s a statement. “I think I’m gay and need to be more open about that side of my personality. No, I don’t think I need to have gay sex or a gay lover, at least not yet. What I do need is to be more open about my real thoughts and feelings. I don’t fault myself for not having told you earlier, because I didn’t know myself. Meanwhile, if you’re willing, I’d like us to continue as partners and see if this can work.”

Last fall, I started hooking up with a girl who’s been a friend of mine since freshman year. It wasn’t anything serious, just your average friends with benefits deal, and neither one of us ever talked about her being my girlfriend or anything “real.” What I never knew before though is that this girl gets really depressed, and when she got really sick this winter, I was there for her because that’s what I’d do for any friend, whether we’re hooking up or not. She’s better now, but I’m kind of confused as to what’s happening between us. Sometimes I think I want to be her boyfriend, but I’m not sure I’m really that into her, and I don’t think she wants that from me, and at this point everything’s just really awkward and weird. I just want to know where we stand, or what I should do.

People often choose to be “friends with benefits” (FWB) because it seems easier than committing to a relationship, but don’t be so sure.

Having a FWB is like playing a fretless guitar that seems to offer musical freedom, but is actually more likely to produce noise unless you really know what you’re doing. In other words, don’t attempt a FWB situation unless you’ve learned what the rules are and can stick with them. It’s not for those who haven’t mastered their instrument.

You need that toughness and discipline so you don’t cross the line between friend and more-than-friend, which means being direct about your intentions (honorably limited) and vigilant about the many ways your actions can unwittingly contradict your words (by calling or sharing or sighing or talking too much).

Regardless of the actual ups and downs of how you feel, your words and actions should convey an unambiguous, consistent message. Otherwise, love or neediness may escape and create a situation you and/or your partner are not ready for.

Toughness is also necessary to determine whether your prospective sex-buddy has what it takes to stay within agreed-upon boundaries. Some agreeable friends really want something more and will be disappointed when it doesn’t happen.

This may sound like some pretty rigid guidelines for what should be a care-free relationship—I ordered the sex, hold the commitment!—but at least when you’re a boyfriend or girlfriend, you know where you stand thanks to some fairly universal relationship guidelines. Being a FWB is living a gray zone unless you draw your own line in the sand.

In your situation, charity made you cross that line and become your FWB’s depression counselor. Good for you as a friend, bad for you as a recipient of benefits, because now, no one knows what to expect.

If you did it because you really, really liked her, then you would want to upgrade, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Don’t over think your feelings about her, because when most people are interested in someone romantically, they know pretty fast.

If one of you not being single is what kept you apart when you first met, getting together now makes sense, but if the spark just wasn’t there, then that’s why you aren’t together. As such, the reason you hooked up has more to do with loneliness than a unique connection, and might be worth leaving at that.

If you decide that you truly do want to go for a love upgrade, be sure your erstwhile non-exactly-lover is a solid person who would make a good partner, and that the benefit of a successful upgrade outweighs the loss of what you’ve already got. After all, once you jump from friends to boy/girlfriends, downgrading back to friends can be tricky, if not impossible.

Check out whether he/she is steady in other relationships and not too needy, sensitive, or vulnerable to runaway feelings. Remember, Glenn Close’s character in “Fatal Attraction” promised an attachment-free fuck and was probably sincere (in her own nutty way).

It’s your responsibility to make sure things are what they seem. Then figure out whether you want to make beautiful music together, or whether you’re just not ready to jam.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a Mission Statement to share with your friend. “I think we’re good at being friends, with or without benefits, but I know I’m not ready to go further because I don’t think the chemistry is quite right. I hope our friendship helped you during the winter when you were depressed. It left me feeling good about our friendship and with the same overall impression that that’s what our relationship is meant to be.”

Like a lot of single women in their 30s, I’ve gotten into internet dating, but I’m not very good at it, because I really don’t want to be mean to anyone, and I don’t think it’s fair to make up your mind about someone when you don’t really know them. I mean, sure, I have a physical type, but what I’m talking about is that I don’t want to brush off some poor guy after one cup of coffee just because he’s not my dream guy right off the bat, know what I mean? And I don’t think you can really learn that much about somebody based on a few emails, so basically I end up going on a bunch of dates that often aren’t that much fun or, if they are, I don’t get a call-back and wind up ruminating for a week about what went wrong. My goal is to figure out how to make online dating work.

Online dating doesn’t work unless you’re tough and disciplined (see case above). That’s because getting attached to someone who can’t return your feelings will wear you out and make you feel like an unattractive loser. It’s the way we’re wired (pardon the pun).

If your priority is to make everyone feel valued, send them some of Oprah’s favorite things. If you want to take advantage of the wide reach of online dating, which will expose you to large amounts of raw suiterage and toxic jerks, learn how to become an efficient and effective screener.

First, decide for yourself whether it’s moral to reject people, especially if it seems to cause them pain. In my opinion, it’s immoral not to reject people (assuming you do it politely and respectfully). Better to be tactfully honest than grudgingly lie.

If you don’t just rip off the Band-Aid, you’re leading them on and assuming responsibility for their feelings, making yourself vulnerable to manipulation and guilt, and/or promising what you can’t really deliver.

Sure, you may feel guilty if someone looks pained by your decision not to continue contact, but that’s just a passing feeling. Know the difference between guilty feelings and real guilt and learn how to ignore the former.

Of course, if you’re too sensitive to pain, either theirs or yours, you’re not ready to go hunting in love’s wild e-yonder, because hunting usually requires a willingness to tolerate pain. Your goal isn’t to avoid pain (or cause pain), but to minimize it, learn from it, and not let it interfere with an effective search.

If you’ve decided it’s OK not to run a ministry for the horny and needy and that guilty feelings can be ignored, then you’re ready to learn the principles of wide-reach screening and discover that you probably know them already.

Begin by listing the 5 or 6 criteria for excluding candidates, regardless of attractiveness. They include drug-use, poor money management, unreliability, a history of backing away from reasonable relationships, an inability to say no to horrible relatives, and a lack of interest in the kind of future that you want.

Then, while you’re chatting and searching for interpersonal chemistry, keep your list in mind and say good-bye whenever a red flag pops up. Time is short, screening is tiring, and the hunt is on.

STATEMENT:
Use your criteria to prepare a statement. “I’m interested in a reliable, hard-working, loyal grownup who can manage his/her money responsibly and is looking for a committed partner to share (name your future). I’m not in need of friendship or sex and I don’t have much time to chat, but I’ll get back to you if you’re interested and seem to be a possible match. ”

I’m what we in the gay community call a bear (burly and bearded). My ideal physical type, however, is the exact opposite, twinks (young, skinny man-boys), which I know isn’t exactly rare for anyone, gay or straight. My boyfriend, on the other hand, looks way more like me than my physical ideal; instead of looking lean and barely legal, he just looks like a suburban dad. Either way, I fell for him and what we have is really great, but I still feel guilty when I find myself checking out younger/leaner guys, which basically happens whenever I leave the house. I love my boyfriend, but I can’t stop my infatuation with other bodies. My goal is to get twinks out of my head before I do something stupid, like not keeping it in my pants.

Trying to change your sex fantasies is like trying not to be gay; it won’t work, you’ll think you’re out of control, and then you’ll act out of control.

Not only is trying to change your fantasies dangerous, but trying to satisfy them usually makes it impossible to have a stable relationship. Sad news, but at least Bill Clinton feels your pain.

The fact that we have persistent, driving sexual urges of any kind is necessary for the preservation of the species, but it usually causes more unhappiness than joy. Yes, there are couples who are very hot for one another and are also long-term, stable friends, but it’s rare (and often fictional). For most of us, life gets in the way, even if the relationship starts out with lots of hot sex.

“Life” includes aging, stress, diabetes, balding, kids, and the powerful odds that, with time, something or other will bump your sex drive or your partner’s into something less than compatibility. It’s what you do with incompatibility, rather than the presence of sexual compatibility, that’s the measure of a good relationship.

If you have imagination and ambition, you’ll have lots of yearnings that you can’t satisfy except by doing things that are bad for you. If you are indeed a wise man who is ready to withstand the pain of unsatisfiable urges, then don’t worry; even as those urges get worse, you’ll be prepared.

You’ve obviously learned from experience that a good partnership/friendship is hard to find, and that making the right body type your first priority is stupid and makes it all but impossible to find the right person. Otherwise, you would want some twinkerbell to be your one true lust.

So, for the sake of your long term goals and making the best of what you’ve got, celebrate your ability to tolerate frustration; grin and bear it, as it were. At least don’t shit in the woods.

STATEMENT:
“I wish I wasn’t twink-obsessed, but I know what’s good for me, and I’m proud of looking for and staying with the right person, particularly since I had to screen out some strong urges. I’m not ashamed of them. They are what they are. I’m proud that I can tolerate frustrating them for the sake of something more important than raw sexual pleasure.”

My West Virginian grandmother used to tell me that I was built like a horse on its hind legs, which is to say, I am a white girl with an African booty. I clearly have a sense of humor about it—I led the charge with J. Lo jokes back in the day—but I’m always worried when I meet guys that they’re after me for the fetish, not my personality, because believe me, I’ve been burned enough times by men who couldn’t see beyond my butt to the personal attached to it. I have girlfriends who are Asian who have the same problem, but none of us know what to do to avoid jerks. My goal is to find out if a guy actually likes me, instead of just what’s behind me.

If you’re attractive, you get dates, but then you’ve got to be a rough, tough screener of stallion-flesh, or you’ll wind up heart-burned by spending too much time with guys who fail to connect.

If you’re sweet, passive, and overly concerned about feelings, guys with needy sex drives will chew you to pieces because sex-drives notoriously trump decency and common sense. Guys don’t want to be jerks, but the little head doesn’t care how you feel or what will happen next, and he rules supreme.

So your goal isn’t to find someone who really, really likes you for who you are. It’s to fend off the many applicants who don’t and can’t so that you’ve got room on your dance card if and when the real thing arrives.

If you’re already the horse here, then you need to become a dick whisperer. Learn to read the little head’s mind.

Don’t equate niceness with friendliness. When interviewing job applicants, don’t worry about whether they will feel rejected; your priority is to find the best qualified without worrying about whether or not they can protect themselves. Screening dates has a similar protocol.

Act professionally, and move on as quickly as possible to rule out the unqualified. Screen out those with credit card debt, drug use, a bad history of relationships and/or work, or big differences in what you want out of life. They need not apply, they don’t need a hug.

If you decide to date, don’t get distracted by cute and charming. Once you charm one another, you’ll forget your job, which is to screen. You don’t have to charm; trust your booty to take care of that problem.

If someone really checks out as a good guy (after the detectives and your little-mind reading skills have verified his story), and you think the chemistry has real potential, despite (or because of) his being butt-struck, then go slow.

Sooner or later, reality will set in and you’ll both get a chance to see if you can work together/he is truly ready for this jelly.

STATEMENT:
“It takes a tough girl to screen horny guys because the work is rough and dangerous. My goal isn’t to make others happy or generate positive chemistry. If I can keep my focus on finding out facts and making good choices, regardless of my own urges and sensitivity and the charm or guilt-trips being thrown at me, I should be proud.”

I have a history of getting claustrophobic in relationships. Once I’ve been with a guy for a while, I start to worry that he’s not really the one, and that I’m missing my chance to be with the one by being with him, so I cut him loose and start all over again. I usually feel some regrets, but I don’t stay single for long, so those regrets don’t really last. This time, however, it’s different; I dumped my boyfriend a few months ago (after living together for two years), and now that I’m old enough to think seriously about starting a family, I’m worried I just lost a guy who would’ve been a great father and a good partner. Then again, I’m also worried that if I do get him back, I’ll just get restless and ditch him all over again. I always thought that, if I found the right person, my restlessness would go away. My goal is to get over my claustrophobia and get settled down.

Some people are born restless, and, while it would be nice if love and/or therapy could take away your ramblin’ urges when the time is right, it usually doesn’t work that way.

Being restless doesn’t have to mean that you’re immature, afraid of intimacy, or defective in any way. Restlessness has its good side; it keeps you moving into new adventures, and may be a survival trait if you’re a hunter, entrepreneur, or musician. It’s not good, however, when it comes to relationships.

If your goal is to stop your restlessness as a precondition to settling down, you may find yourself on an endless hunt for Mr. Right and/or the right therapist. Meanwhile, time goes by, your feet keep moving, and you lose boyfriends, your eggs, and then your teeth. In the process, you feel like there’s something wrong with you.

Meanwhile, looking for endless love as a solution to your restlessness is a good way to find Mr. Wrong. Guys who stir up huge amounts of passion are often outlaws and narcissists who will waste your time, break your heart, and further help me build my practice.

Instead, assume the claustrophobia won’t go away, and decide for yourself whether settling down and partnering up is worth the pain.

The potential advantages are: kids, steady company, and someone to watch your back/”Lost” with. The potential disadvantages include: claustrophobia, boredom, and feeling sad whenever you see a possible adventure that you can no longer pursue.

Don’t pay too much attention to what other people think (certainly if those other people are in romantic comedies). Adding up the pros and cons for yourself is the only way to get the strength you’ll need to stick with your decision.

Either way, your decision will hurt and make you unhappy, but that’s life on, or rather off, the road. If you think you can be restless and also be happy, you’ll become a perpetual patient, and that’s good for only one person, me. And I’m not going anywhere.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to keep the doctor away. “I’m restless but I want to settle down and I know it won’t be easy. I’ll try to find a reasonable candidate and then see if I can do it. I need someone solid who will give me breathing room and I’ll also need the independence to make good use of alone time.”

I love my brother to pieces, but I get so annoyed with him because ever since he’s been old enough to date, he’s dropped everyone when he and his girlfriends get serious, and he seems to jump from serious relationship to serious relationship (I swear he’s lived with every girlfriend since college). It’s one thing to ditch your friends when you move in with a girl, but your family? He goes to his girlfriends’ families for holidays, vacations, forgets about Dad’s birthday…and I know he’s serious about these girls when he’s with them, but they’re girlfriends, we’re blood, and it’s not cool. My goal is to get my brother to realize who comes first.

You probably love your brother as much as you do because, when he’s busy being your brother, he’s all yours. By now, however, you should suspect that it’s his nature to be over-attached, whether it be to you or anyone else.

Good news is, his abandoning you isn’t personal. The bad news is that you’re not so special, and he’ll do this to all his close relations (excepting maybe the girl he marries).

The yet-more bad news is that, if you confront him and make him feel guilty, you may do nothing but drive him away. If he doesn’t have the perspective to see his behavior as a problem (and that’s a strong possibility), then he’ll see the problem as yours; you’re too needy, controlling, and clingy. He’ll tell you to see a shrink, and here you are.

So give up your old dreams of a close, consistent friendship with your brother. Then, if he’s still worth maintaining a relationship with (and I assume he is), your goal is to do your best with someone who is either totally available or not at all.

Your brother knows who comes first; the problem is, it’s no one but the one he’s with. Unfortunately, loving your brother means accepting sparse leftovers.

STATEMENT:
Refer to your general procedure for staying friends with the seldom-available. “I will keep things friendly and superficial. I may contact him regularly, but infrequently, by email rather than directly, using no more than two sentences, and in no way that requires a response. If and when he is available, I will increase my availability if I wish, but never present myself as more available, or more eager, than he.”

I’m interested in a woman here at work, which automatically has two complications. First of all, we work together (although not directly, we’re just both teachers at the same elementary school). Second, despite being an educated guy in my 30s with hobbies and friends and all those good normal things, I am and have always been a completely incompetent flirt. I do not know how to be charming or cute, and I have no idea how I’ve gotten women interested in me in the past (and yes, I’m a math teacher). Do you have any flirting tips for the socially inept? My goal, simply, is to get the girl.

Thanks goodness flirting isn’t necessary, or many of us would never have gotten a first date, math teachers wouldn’t be able to propagate, and Poincaré would never have conjectured. Fortunately, there’s more than one kind of mating ritual for humans.

Ever if you were good at it, you’d find that flirting has its drawbacks. Because it’s fun and sexy, flirting tends to start something up before you really know where you want to go (see: the case that follows this one).

Particularly at work, getting attached and then getting to know someone is a risky way of dating that can turn a normally shitty day at the office into an endless trail of tears (and into good business for me).

If you’re a flirt, people may like your company and want to date you, but not necessarily do business with you. Unless they’re totally charmed, there’s an element of mistrust. Flirting is a two-edged kind of magic that, if you have it and use it, can often do more harm than good.

Even with internet dating, flirting often backfires. While two flirts are having fun playing verbal tennis, they often lose track of what they really need to find out about one another. They forget that their goal is not simply to connect, but to find a good person, and that good people are often not good flirters.

Finally, there’s Bill Clinton, the Olympic heavyweight of flirts, who proves that flirting can both win friends and influence people . . . to want to end your career (and maybe wring your neck). It’s a tough gift to manage.

Take advantage of what you’ve got, which is an opportunity to get to know someone you’re attracted to before you have to think about asking her out. Working together gives you a chance to see what she’s like, and how the two of you get along under pressure.

You get to see how she deals with kids, bosses, hard work, and colleagues. With luck, you can form a bond of friendship before you have to deal with love or sexual attraction.

You might long for the fun and sexiness that go with flirting (as opposed to the more straightforward tactics at your disposal), but remember, you’re smarter than that. Since you’re co-workers, you want this equation to result in a relationship, not a carefree fling. So get to it, and remember, show your work.

STATEMENT:
Then, if you still want to date her after you’ve gotten to know her, there are non-flirtational ways to move forward without having to be eloquent, attractive, or cool. In other words, without having to make a fool of yourself. “I’ve noticed we work well together and have a very positive chemistry. I wonder if you’ve thought of exploring a more social and personal relationship.”

For whatever reason, I always find myself getting hung up on guys my friends and I call “flirtrons”—guys who flirt with everyone and everything as if they were robots built that way. The problem is, I don’t realize that they’re not flirting with me on purpose until it’s too late and I’m hooked (and then hurt when the interest isn’t mutual). I want to know, what makes these guys act this way, and how do I get better flirtron-dar. My goal is to stop falling for guys who don’t give a shit.

The first mistake most people make when trying to correct bad behavior is trying to figure out why they do something instead of just skipping to how to stop it. That’s like starting a seminar to debate the sources of a fire before reaching for the extinguisher.

In your case, you hope that knowing more about your weakness for compulsive flirts and/or their reasons for being that way will give you a way to stop wanting them. Don’t do it, because by the time you’ve figured it out, your house will have burned down.

Don’t ask why some people can flirt without getting hurt but you can’t—even if you figure out an answer, you’re unlikely to change—and don’t ask why some guys don’t mean what they say.

Whatever answers you come up with won’t allow you to change them, or the fact that there are a lot of them, and you’re attracted to them, and they’re bad for you. God makes lots of bad things, and your job isn’t to study them, but to recognize and avoid.

Now that you’re ready to accept the fact that you’re an incurable flirtronaholic, it’s time to plan your own rescue. Until you’ve got yourself under better control, don’t talk to men unless you’re accompanied by a friend who can pinch you when she sees that you’re connecting too much. That’s right, you need a designated flirt-monitor, because you don’t need “flirtron-dar,” but a flirt detector that administers sharp shocks.

When she pinches you, stop, shut up, and walk away, and afterwards she can tell you what she saw that identified the guy as a flirtron, and at what point you should have reduced the intensity of your contact and didn’t.

Draw up a list of flirtron identifiers: lots of eye contact, conversations with momentum and emotional content and entertaining topics that leave you wanting more. It’s not normal for men to be like that. It’s exciting, but also combustible.

Don’t worry that your reticence will drop you out of the relationship market entirely, just off the market for guys who crave your (or any girl’s) attention. Naturally, we think firemen might be your perfect dating pool.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a mission statement that will keep you away from your deadly weakness. “I admit that I’m a flirtronaholic. Finding one male friend requires screening out 100 flirtrons and, in the absence of good instincts, I’ll rely more on my friends and develop procedures for keeping myself under control while I do the screening that must be done. ”

My son was diagnosed with severe depression when he was a freshman in high school. I know it’s supposed to be a hereditary disease, but neither I nor my husband have any history of it; we both come from stiff-upper-lip backgrounds, and when our son attempted suicide, we were completely taken by surprise. He was also doing drugs, and we didn’t know it. He’s doing much better now, seeing a therapist weekly, but I still worry about his going off to college next year. He doesn’t share much with us, but I know he wants to do what’s “normal.” I don’t want to intrude on his relationship with his therapist or undermine his confidence or make him feel pressured, but we need to decide whether he’s ready to go. My goal is to make the right decision without hurting him in the process.

You can’t protect your son from of having an illness and all the trauma that goes with it, so for your own sake, and against all your instincts, don’t try.

On the other hand, if you try too hard to avoid all potentially painful issues with your son and stick to being stoic and reserved, you’ll be helping him avoid the hard choices he has to make, instead of doing your job.

Life is hard, precisely because it includes illness and drug abuse on top of the usual high stresses of being adolescent and finding a way to be independent. It’s a clusterfuck, and you’re the motherclusterfucker; you’re all in this together.

You’re right, you need to make decisions about whether he’s ready to go to college, but if you guess wrong, he’ll get pushed into relapse and a worse sense of loserness. Then you’ll be out a big chunk of tuition that will have done him no good and won’t be there later, when it might help.

In other words, on no level can you afford to be squeamish about dealing with the issues of his illness and drug abuse just because you’re afraid of hurting his self-esteem. Life is responsible for hurting his self-esteem, and while you gave him life, the transference of responsibility doesn’t work that way.

Instead of trying to make things right, try to prevent further damage. You’ve got painful topics to discuss, but that’s why you became parents: to experience a new level of pain. Starts from childbirth and it’s only downhill from there.

You don’t have to be critical or grim or sad to discuss this issue. Yes, you have to push the sad fact that he has not one but two chronic conditions—depression and a weakness for drugs—but, having accepted that, you’re free to celebrate the good work he’s done and talk about realistic options.

It’s possible to push your son towards making good decisions without shoving him into a wall. Don’t be afraid of doing the heavy lifting parenting can require; time to forget your upper lip and, instead, stiffen your resolve.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a formula. “You’re recovering nicely from a bad bout of depression, but we know that the brain can take a long time to recover fully and that you’ll always be vulnerable to relapse and, probably, drug abuse. Life is hard, and that’s the way it is. Now, you’re doing your job perfectly; you’re sober, you work as hard as you can at school, and you use therapy to get stronger. Let’s look at how you’re doing with your current course-load, get input from your teachers and therapist, and consider how much structure you’re likely to need next year and whether it’s time yet for you to live away from home while continuing your work.”

I love my parents, and we have a good relationship, but if the issue of my sexuality ever comes up (I’m a gay man), all hell breaks lose; my mother sobs about how the family name is going to die, my father pleads for me to try and find the right woman, your typical Jewish soap opera. I know they’re not really bigots and all the hubbub comes from a place of concern, but enough already, you know? None of us is getting any younger, I’m not getting any less gay, and yet they refuse to tone it down. My goal is to get my parents to calm down about the issue before it drives me away completely.

The tough part about having loudly protective parents, as opposed to quietly protective ones like the mother above, is that loud is harder for parents to control, once they’ve gotten into the habit.

People always say that telling the truth is important, but in reality, telling the truth is more gratifying than important; unbottling all of your feelings and unbottling all of your hard liquor have a similar emotional result (and similarly damaging long-term effects).

This truth urge is especially strong for some people when they become parents; it feels right, somehow, to smite the person they’re trying to protect. It expresses all feelings at once, love and hate, protection and punishment. It’s a lost weekend of honesty.

If they were too restrained, instead of too verbal, you’d have an easier time. Then again, Jews wouldn’t be Jews and the Mediterranean would be a basin of peaceful civilization, instead of a crusade magnet for the entire world. [Full disclosure: if you missed it before, Dr. Lastname is of the tribe.]

As such, don’t make it your job to stop an honesty drunk; you can just try, and be ready to get out of his/her way if you can’t get through. If you try too hard, you’ll prolong the juicy, emotional battle all crusaders are itching for, and everyone gets hurt.

Instead, try diplomacy. Show them there’s a better way to be protective, and that they don’t need to worry because you’re pretty good at protecting yourself. In other words, honor their parental functions without addressing their negative feelings.

Think of it as an endless process that may not succeed until your parents are too old, tired, or senile to keep up the war—you (I-srael) versus your family (Parents-stine). L’Chaim.

STATEMENT:
A business-like and formulaic manner can help you keep your emotions under control and provide you with a ready exit. “I know you worry that being gay will prevent me from having a normal life and expose me to lots of pain and trouble that I wouldn’t otherwise have, but the same could be said about being a Jew; it’s not for those who wish to lie low and play it safe. I can’t say there isn’t pain, but thanks to you, I’m ready to manage the problems and pursue what’s important, which is still work and friendships and being a Mensch. So genug, enough has been said, things are going well, and fear is not helpful.”

Do you think sex addiction is a real disease that needs therapy, or is it a way to make a big deal out of nothing that helps cheaters and the people they cheat on feel better while people in your business get paid? I love my wife—we’ve been together for almost 20 years—but I don’t think anyone would say I have an disease because I grab a little extra action if the opportunity comes along. I don’t think she knows I’m not faithful, it doesn’t happen that often, and I don’t think it hurts our marriage at all. It’s not like I have a steady mistress; I just end up going home with women I meet when I’m traveling sometimes, because it’s nice to feel young and like I haven’t lost it, whatever it is. As far as I can tell, everyone wins, because I feel better and my wife is less annoyed by my constant begging for sex. So my goal is to figure out if the way I live my life, which seems to be A-OK, is actually reason to go into rehab.

To rehab, or not to rehab. That is the question.

You’re raising the timeless question, and obviously, we’re not going to tell you to let your feelings be your guide, or, for that matter, your daddy, your minister, your rehab counselor, or your parakeet, Ray.

As to the validity of sex addiction, it either doesn’t matter, or it depends on your definition of illness. I define illness as something wrong with your body that’s personal, important, and out-of-control, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s cellular or behavioral, neurological or psychiatric. Or kinky.

Some people have lots of guilty feelings over nothing, others have no guilty feelings ever, and others are swayed by whomever they spoke to (or whatever website they read) last.

In reality, you can figure out the answer to the rehab riddle yourself if you’re willing to push aside false hope and wishful thinking, as well as unreasonable guilt.

Wishful thinking is believing there’s no risk of anyone’s getting hurt because, so far, no one has been hurt; that’s what it means to think with the little head. Unreasonable guilt is feeling so bad about having sinned that the only way of getting relief is to do it again.

That said, let’s look realistically at the risks and benefits of a sexual adventure. The benefit is a good (or even great) feeling, but the risk is that, despite your efforts to be discrete, your cover may get hit by an STD, a partner’s passionate clinginess or nastiness, or some other accident. You’re the one who knows best what happens after the great reveal in terms of your wife’s feeling hurt and/or deciding to end your partnership.

Whatever happens, it will involve lots of pain for you and your wife (and your kids if you have them), and lots of business for yours truly, never mind realtors, lawyers, jewelers, you name it.

For most people, that kind of marital apocalypse is an emotional and financial catastrophe. On the country music timeline, begin with “My Cheating Heart” and wind up “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed.”

You may think you’re in the clear if your partner subscribes to an “open marriage” and tells you she doesn’t believe in jealousy. Again, if that’s what you’d like to hear, don’t trust your ears until you ask yourself what she’s really likely to do, given all you know about her and her past relationships.

Remember, you’re not asking for permission from your mama; you’re the papa and a grown-ass man whose job is to figure out how things will really work out for the entire family.

So don’t wait until you’re scared by the evening news or local preacher or shrink to find whether or not to rehab. Look at the risks realistically and then do what you think is right.

If you decide to stop and can’t, then look for whatever help is simplest, cheapest, and most available and move on to costly treatments only if you absolutely have to. Remember, as much as you’d like to think that the costliest intervention—a month at Betty Ford—is more likely to give you the strongest, most permanent, temptation-resistant self-control, it’s not so.

If your sexual behavior is out-of-control and can do serious damage, and there’s a treatment that might work, then it’s worth a try. Start cheap, however, before you plunk down a college-tuition’s worth, and remember that treatment may not work. Or you can keep going, and pay the equivalent of my entire Harvard bill during your divorce.

Either way, the decision is ultimately yours, and hopefully things will work out better for you than they did for rehab Hamlet.

STATEMENT:
Write up a risk-reminder before the next time you leave town. “There’s nothing wrong with the pleasure of being attractive but there’s lots wrong with what can happen next. If I think the risks of causing harm are too great, I’ll do my best to avoid temptation. I may feel like a nervous wimp who’s afraid of what other people think. In reality, I’m doing what’s necessary to manage my life and do what’s right.”

When I was a teenager, I used to shoplift a lot, and I stopped, like a lot of kids, when I turned 18 and could get into real trouble with the law. That was a long time ago, and while I haven’t stolen anything from a store with a price tag on it since then, I do, and I’m not proud of this, grab any freebies I can get my hands on. For example, everything from the sugar packets to the toilet paper in my house is taken from local coffee shops. I want to stop doing it, because I’m really ashamed of the habit and I know it’s stupid, but I honestly feel like I can’t help myself. My goal is to stop taking things, whether or not they’re free.

Any behavior that doesn’t measure up to your standards of control will make you feel bad, but if control-of-everything was important, then those iron-willed guys who like to see how long they can hold their fingers in a flame (you notice they never hazard other body parts) or tolerate vigorous self-lashing would be the most virtuous, instead of the most insane.

Your goal then isn’t to feel in control (or put any vulnerable body parts at risk); it’s to have enough control over the controllable things that really matter.

You can judge the importance of any behavioral control problem by asking yourself how much harm the problem is likely to cause and how hard it is to control.

Don’t question whether it’s an addiction or not, or, at least, don’t do it more than once. Questions about whether or not you need withdrawal symptoms to define something as an addiction, or what the difference is between addictive and obsessive behaviors, help you dodge the tough question you don’t want to face, namely, how you’re going to deal with it.

Instead of debating the nature of addiction, ask yourself whether you have bigger behavior problems that are harder to notice, like, say, not doing enough with your life. Often a weakness for petty thievery is a sign that you don’t have other goals that are more important.

So add up the risk assessment of your out-of-control behavior. No, you’re not likely to get arrested, but you’re not going to like yourself for the fact that whoever sits down on the can after you’re finished, both with the toilet and taking the TP, is in for a nasty surprise. You need to ask yourself whether you’ve got better things to do with your time and, if not, what are you going to do about it.

Don’t ask yourself whether this sin will prevent you from getting into heaven, or even whether it will cause you embarrassment. Instead, imagine that your time is running out, and then wonder whether you’ve taken on enough meaningful tasks in life, like making a living and caring for others, to make you proud, with or without an iron-will.

STATEMENT:
Keep your smaller guilts from interfering with your bigger concerns. “I don’t always like my behavior or control it as well as I should, but I do my best with the bigger, harder responsibilities of life and that’s the source of my pride.”

My husband and I divorced two years ago after twenty-five years of marriage. Believe it or not, the divorce was amicable; I’ve never been truly happy in my marriage, and the second our youngest left for college, I told him I felt trapped and finally needed a chance to find myself. See, my husband was the first and only man I ever dated after a very sheltered, lonely childhood, and I’m haunted by the feeling that my life is missing something because there’s so much about life I feel like I’ve missed out on. Now that I’m on my own and have a chance to find my bliss—to be in a true, loving relationship—I wonder if my unhappiness from my husband stems from the fact that I might actually be happier with women. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s not something I ever even had the chance to consider before, and all I do know for sure is that life with my husband, especially sexually, was never really gratifying. My goal is to find someone, anyone, whom I truly connect with before it’s too late.

It’s nice if finding and making the right sexual connection gives you a greater feeling of connection to life and relationships in general, a realization of who you are, an acceptance of your place in the universe, etc., etc., whatever. That’s what certain of the early 20th century novelists were trying to argue, and maybe the whole sexual liberation movement of the 60s and 70s was driven by that hope.

In reality, however, sexual identity is just one factor in what makes human connections meaningful, and you can’t be sure that your feeling of disconnectedness is a matter of sexual identity or, in a broader sense, that it’s within your control.

If it isn’t, your goal of finding a better connection can become self-destructive, because then you believe that you’ve failed to find meaning in your life, which is worse than the pain of feeling lonely and disconnected.

So here is what no one has been telling you about the birds and the bees: no one is guaranteed a connection. Sometimes people feel disconnected because of their personalities: think Aspergers, cowboys, sea-captains, Richard Nixon.

Sometimes you never have the opportunity to find people who are on your wavelength. Life can be lonely and sometimes there’s no solution, and some solutions are worse than the problem.

It’s no coincidence that a major source of connectedness is shitty-but-intense relationships. Yes, it’s easy to feel connected if your lover is dramatic and sexual. That’s the kind of person who will ramp up the volume whenever things get boring and insist on a big fat fight so you can have a teary, sexy make-up.

You may have seen such a person on TV, on, say, Maury, or in reality, ruining the life of a friend; great sex, total misery, good for reality TV and, later, a gold mine for clinicians like me, who enjoy hearing about the drama and feeding off it without having to live it.

So your goal isn’t to connect, but to try to connect if you can, and if you can do it in a way that’s consistent with your values.

Look around for someone or something to connect with, but be warned that, if it hasn’t happened by now, it may not be meant to. You may have the wrong kind of personality; or, unless you’re careful, the connectedness you find may be bad for your health.

It’s not all bad news though; if you don’t find what you’re looking for (and I’m not saying you won’t—I don’t know you—I’m just worried by the fact that, if connection hasn’t happened after all these years, it may not happen at all), the lack of connection doesn’t make life meaningless. That notion, again, is romantic bullshit. It’s more important to have relationships that can grow over the years and that share life events and are honest, without necessarily becoming intense or sexual.

If you’ve raised children who know you love them, and shared parenting and life’s problems with a husband over many years without killing one another, you’ve accomplished two of life’s biggest achievements and made the world a better place, even if your feelings didn’t go ting-a-ling.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to protect you from making too big a deal, or too personal an issue, of your connectedness. “I’d like to find someone or something that grabs me more than what I’ve found so far, so I’ve done everything I can to give myself a better opportunity. But I also value what I’ve done—being a good, caring mother and wife—and nothing can take that away. And if I don’t find what I’m looking for, I can take pride in knowing that I’ve been brave, taken risks, and pushed myself as far as possible without losing my commitment to being a good parent, doing good work, and being a good friend.

My wife and I have been together for a long time—I don’t want to get into numbers—but it’s only been fairly recently that she’s completely lost interest in intimacy, and while I know that’s what happens with age and such, this whole change has made me feel not just frustrated, but a bit emasculated. I’m not saying that I’m as eager as I used to be, but she really seems completely turned-off by me physically at this point, doesn’t even want to be close, and even though she doesn’t seem angry at me in any other way and assures me she’s just urgeless, nothing can convince me that something isn’t wrong. Either way, the whole deal leaves me feeling irritated and patronized. My goal is to figure out a way to get my wife to respect me again.

Even if your wife doesn’t respect you—and there’s no reason to think she doesn’t—there’s nothing you can do to change her feelings except make them worse by attacking her for not having her old sex drive. At that point, you’ll certainly never get laid.

Don’t make the mistake of equating sexual attractiveness with self-worth. Obviously, that’s the way our nervous systems are wired, and the media take full advantage of that wiring to sell products (feeling attractive feels good!). Unfortunately, like most things that make you feel good, it’s not terribly good for you.

So it’s not surprising the media perpetuate another stupid notion; that a strong sex drive is a normal part of being a healthy, attractive person. Bullshit. Sex drives vary tremendously, and without notice—even for the outrageously attractive.

Some people have lots and some little; the less sex drive you have, the smarter/more logic-based your decisions about people and relationships, so obviously there are advantages both ways.

And here’s one of the saddest things: even if you find a partner whose sex drive is very compatible with yours, there’s no guarantee it will stay that way or that, if yours or hers drops off, that doctors or healthy living will fix it. If anything, it’s more like the opposite.

You’re almost guaranteed that, sooner or later, things will change for her and/or you and not at the same time. You’re fucked…and not. Really, all the books and articles on sexual therapy and the availability of sexual therapists should shout out the truth: there’s seldom a cure.

Now that you’re properly bummed, let’s get to the good part. Your sexual incompatibility is not personal and, if you can keep yourself from making it so, you can make things better.

No, you can’t expect your wife to enjoy herself the way she used to (unless you and she get lucky and her sex drive, for whatever reason, comes back) and, if your pleasure depends on hers, too bad.

If she can give you pleasure without being excited herself, however, and you have the time and a positive relationship, you should be able to negotiate yourself into some fun you both can feel good about (or at least less frustrated).

It’s not that she doesn’t value you enough to have sex, but she may value you enough to agree to compassion sex, which, while not ideal, is better than no sex at all.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a proposition that protects you both from any implication of failure. “We’ve been lucky to have a wonderful sex life and it’s happened, in part, because we both enjoy sex. But it’s also happened because we’re good friends and we like to give one another pleasure, so, even though your urges have disappeared, we may still be able to have some sexual fun. How about I do more of the shopping, so you have less to worry about, and then we can take a little time to relax in bed and I can try to give you a little pleasure to match the great sexual pleasure that you give me? I continue to find you attractive. I want to find some other way to give you pleasure. Think about what I can do to make this work for us.”