I couldn’t help writing a letter in response to the recent column titled “Past Due.” I don’t know if you can pass my letter on to the lady who wrote that letter to you, but if you could, it might help her.

Basically, at 23 years of age, I was in a relationship with a man I thought was going to be my husband. I wanted very much to start a family with him one day, and I behaved accordingly. He was very sweet toward me and acted very much like a faithful, permanent partner.

For the first five years of our relationship, we lived apart and saw each other mainly on weekends. It never occurred to me to worry about marriage at that point, although I was upset when he said he didn’t believe in marriage. Worse, he professed not to like children.

Although these were deal breakers for me, I stayed, thinking he would change his mind. I thought I loved him too much to leave. I thought he would change once we moved in together and he saw how wonderful it was to live with me.

Well, after five years, we managed to get work in the same area and moved in together. Not only that, we bought a house in our joint names! We were then living in a beautiful country town, with a primary school just around the corner. We had a huge double income and everything anyone could want before starting a family.

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I am a husband and a father of four little girls, married to my wife 15 years. In the early years of our marriage, we were affectionate and spent time together.

After two years I reluctantly, to put it mildly, agreed to move to my wife’s home state so she could be closer to her family. This was hard as I left my family, friends, job and church, but I ultimately decided she was more important to me than where I lived.

My wife is one of five kids. They are a close-knit family. Dinner get-togethers after church on Sundays and other family functions were a frequent part of our new lives. At the same time, her family began an entertainment farming business on the family farm.

It seemed innocent enough, but I noticed the time spent with her family seemed too frequent, and I began to feel a little annoyed. Her parents seemed to be more intertwined in our personal lives all the time. Our marriage decisions were becoming her family’s decisions, and I regularly found myself on the defensive.

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My husband and I have been separated three months, after two years of marriage and nine years of being together. We were a close and loving couple, who travelled the world together and recently talked about starting a family.

Out of nowhere one weekend he just lost it, and I no longer recognized him. There was emptiness in his eyes and no emotion when he spoke to me. Two days before, he told me he loved me and I was the most important thing in his life.

When I asked what was wrong, he said he was tired of the routine and felt no more passion. The days that followed I cried every night because of those words and the change in his eyes. I left so he could take some time to think.

After 10 days he told me he no longer wanted to “planify” things and no longer wanted to be accountable for anything. I don’t know what triggered this. He said he didn’t either, and he had nothing to reproach me with and that I’m “perfect.” He just wanted to be alone.

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First Steps

I recently married an amazing man who has a 4-year-old daughter. I adore my stepdaughter, but when my husband and I first started dating, this little girl was out of control. She stayed up ’til midnight every night, ate nothing but junk food, and threw tantrums that went unpunished.

My husband’s mother watches her and another grandchild during the day. Unfortunately, my husband let his mother take the driver’s seat as my stepdaughter’s parent.

When my husband and stepdaughter moved in with me, my mother-in-law was less than thrilled. She encouraged my stepdaughter’s tantrums when I picked her up, using the other child not having a playmate as an excuse for why she should get to stay.

I approached my then fiancé about loving discipline tactics and putting his daughter on a schedule that allowed us to spend time as a family, have a healthier diet, and give him and I a little time together alone each night.

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My future mother-in-law went from liking me to not liking me in the matter of one evening when discussing the budget and guest list with her. My parents are paying for the wedding. His have not offered, and who knows if they’ll pay for the rehearsal dinner.

My fiancé and his family are penny-pinchers and have a difficult time understanding how anyone can spend $20,000 on only one day. As a wedding planner, I have cut many things out and saved us on many aspects. But when his mother asked why I plan on putting $1,500 towards the gown and said I should rent my dress, I got upset.

Furthermore, my fiancé decided to bring up my best friend’s wedding, which is her second one, that only cost $5,000. When my dad stepped in, his mother calmed down. However, a couple of days later she sent my fiancé a text message expressing her now concern over us getting married, saying she didn’t like what she saw and that my dad treated me like a princess.

To top it off, she suggested my fiancé make me sign a prenuptial agreement because the odds are stacked against our marriage. This was after my fiancé and I had a conversation about the wedding budget and worked out all of our concerns.

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