Dear Rose,

I am 46 years old. I am happily married and have three great teenage children. My husband is a great guy. He’s a great dad, great provider and is very loyal to me and the family. Lately I have gotten in touch with an ex fiance in work through Facebook. I was very in love with him way, way back (and we was with me). But he broke up with me (was “scared”) and just vanished from my life. He was VERY happy to get back in touch. So we were corresponding for a couple of months and talking on and off. Then suddenly he felt that I was making him feel “guilty.” And he didn’t explain WHAT made him feel guilty. So he just stopped talking to me.

I feel confused, hurt and duped again. I had NO intention of leaving my husband or and no intention of even MEETING UP WITH HIM. I just wanted to be friends again because I really care about him and enjoy being in touch. My sisters tells me to just forget him and stop thinking about him. My father is really mad that I would even dare talk to him at all and that it is a complete disloyalty to my husband. What should I do?

Hi I am 21 years old and still live at home with my parents which is okay with me but one problem I am old enough to have a driver’s licenses and nobody at all family or friends will teach me and i am really willing to learn how to drive. I will listen I am a good listener I really want my driver’s licenses really bad because i want to be able to have a way to places like to church or to work or something like that its really stressing me out and making me really angry what do i do about this?

Dear Rose,

My parents have spanked me (20 years old), my sister (19 years old), and my brother (12) everyday for over a decade (a few times in public), along with talking to us like we are dogs. They have recently stopped spanking my brother, but the scars still remain. Me and my sister are having really difficult times in our lives and we couldn’t figure out why (My sister is married unhappily and pregnant at age 19, I did a lot of drugs, and dropped out of college). I have come to realize that this might be the cause of some of our current problems. My problem is my brother is a preteen who is having a lot of trouble in school. He has very low self esteem, confidence issues, and he’s quit caring about doing anything except being alone in his room. My parents continue to scream at him, tell him how horrible of a child he is, and threaten violence to scare him into submission. They think that just because they stopped the actual act of spanking that they are automatically better parents. I have been telling them for years that this is not an effective form of punishment but they would just tell me to shut up, quit thinking I’m a “know-it-all”, and that’s the way they were raised and they “turned out fine”. Now he’s growing up and having A LOT of problems and they can’t figure out why. I try to explain it to them, but they refuse to believe me and say I’m wrong. What can I do to make my extremely stubborn parents change their ineffective parenting techniques before its too late and my brother ends up like me and my sister?

Sincerely,

To me this is very complicated. I come from a very small town out in the middle of no where. My parents are farmers and I am what we call a hired man for them, (I help them farm but don’t have any land or investment in farming myself.) I have been helping them all my life. I’m 32 male, not married. These are the problems I have been experiencing lately and am very confused in how to deal with them: 1. I am wanting to find a wife and settle down and start a family. 2. I am wanting to move on from the farm and start a different career in a more urban area. 3. I am not getting along with my father/boss. Now to describe what exactly these problems are. The first problem is I am like a normal guy and am wanting to find someone who wants to share our lives with. I am getting lonely. All my friends are married and seem to not have time for me so I don’t get to even visit with others much. The problem here is I live in a very small town (300 people) a long distance from any larger urban area. There are no single women in my age range nor any I am interested in any where close to where I live. I have tried long distance relationships but I can’t seem to make them work. I get very lonely by myself and it increases when a large majority of the time we are away from each other. I always wonder what they are thinking about this relationship even though it is easy for them to say through emails and phone calls “Everything is okay” I need some body language to find out how they are feeling. So usually long distance relationships end horribly when there is no physical connection for us. I don’t want 2 of us to go through any of those anymore. The second problem is I am losing interest in farming. I feel secluded staying out where there are no people around you all day stuck on a tractor for what can be days depending on the time of the year. I am not a very social person and blame this partly on the seclusion I feel in this career. The third problem is me and my father do not get along. We have a true love hate relationship. We have always argued and fought throughout our life. We would have a very verbal disagreement and then not speak and avoid each other for days sometimes. The past couple of years he has escalated his bitterness towards me. When we have our busy times primarily when we are seeding the crop and when we are harvesting the crop it can be very stressful and when problems arise he turns around and blames them on me and this causes constant tension between us. He literally will blow up at me for nothing. And in the past couple years, even if we are not arguing he is always giving me dirty looks and his voice has changed in a more snappy demeanor. I feel I never start an argument with him. I usually just blow off my problems thinking that is just life and we all have to deal with them. But when he starts a fight I don’t back away. I feel that I am not going to let him get away with blaming me for these life problems. The past couple years though sometimes I have just tried asking him what exactly his problem is with me but he refuses to talk about that, he just continues yelling at me over his generic problem I caused. So I usually just turn around and yell back accomplishing nothing. Most people would just obviously leave a problem like this if they had to work in this environment. But this is my father and working for your parents on the farm is a long family heritage. This causes a huge amount of guilt when I think about leaving. It is just me and my parents working on the farm. I know if I were to leave, some of the work would not get done if I was not there to do it. This farm is much too large for just one man to handle, but my father is too stubborn to realize this and will not downsize. If anything he wants to buy more land and machinery and the only thing stopping him is my mother and I. I dont feel hiring help would solve this problem either. There is not much for available workers to hire in the area because of the remoteness. If we could find another worker I don’t believe they would last very long having to deal with my father’s bitterness. For these reasons I have huge guilty feelings stopping me from leaving. If I was to go through with leaving, I fear the farm would fail and it would cause huge amounts of resentment towards me from my father. So for years I have just stayed and put up with the lonliness and tension. The winter is slow for us on the farm. I have been considering leaving for the winter and going to the city for 5 months and try working a different career and socializing with new people. This is not the easiest to find employment because of the economy right now but I would still like to try it. My father will not talk to me about this because he does not obviously like the idea. After the 5 months I will return in the spring and help start to seed the crop. I have also been considering going to University. I look at job ads online and all the interesting ones require an education. I am having alot of trouble figuring out what to take because all I really know is farming which I have lost interest in. And going off to University would mean my intentions are to walk away from the farm. I am leaning towards engineering but like everything else in my life I am just unsure. But that doesn’t have to be decided many months down the road I realize everything I have told is biased on my side of the story. But like I had earlier discussed my father will not discuss his problems or what the solutions are. He just feels better blaming me for them while being self assured I will not have the guts to leave. The only person I ever talk to about this is my mother. She wants me to do what I want to do but she doesn’t understand the guilt I get from even considering leaving. I am not sure what your reply will be nor what your advice will be. But hopefully talking about it will help me deal with it and make a decision.