Dear Marsha,

Dear Friend Crush,

It does sound to me that there is some sort of deep connection between the two of you. It may be that he finds you as his closest and dearest friend, or it may mean something more. The only real way to know the difference is to ask!

There is no rule book on how you have to ask, so I would suggest being playful/tactful about it since you are so scared to ask him outright. In other words, you can find out from him his true inner feelings without actually asking him directly.

If the situation arises, then point out to him how compatible the two of you are, or how someone made a comment about how cute you two would be together.  You could talk to him about dating and what each of you think you would look for in another partner. You could ask him what others would think if the two of you started dating. Questions like these would give you a little insight as to whether or not he has feelings for you as well.

Pay close attention to his responses. If he is playful back, then he is probably interested in you just as you are in him. If he is hesitant or tries changing the subject, then he probably just thinks of you as a great friend.

This should ease your worry over losing the friendship with a simple direct question, yet at the same time give you all the answers you need.

Always,

Marsha

Dear Marsha,

Me and my girlfriend have been going out for nearly a year. We cant say to have been close because frankly we are on different continents but we don’t find a problem in that. That is not the problem though as silly as it may seem I do love her. We are both 17, the problem is she has been more sexually active then me and she has done it more then 20 times which I seem to think is a large amount, sometimes thoughts of her exs pop in my head and it angers me even I don’t know why. Its not fair on her that I shud be depressed thinking about them and what they  have done to her. Even if she dosent see them anymore. I truly believe I love her and I want this badness to end. Is there anything I can do?

Ex Depression

Dear Ex Depression,

To truly love someone is to accept them as they are and forgive them for their past mistakes. Yes, she may have been sexually active with a previous partner or partners, but that is not what she is wanting now. If she feels the same for you as you do for her, then she is choosing to give up all sexual relations for someone she feels she loves.

It may be harder for you to push those thoughts out of your head because you are jealous that you are not with her physically to hold her, caress her and to kiss her. This jealousy will fuel upon your thoughts and it will grow and grow if you do not put an end to it.

Can you say that you trust her 100% with your heart? If the answer is yes, then:

You have to tell yourself that she is with you because she WANTS to be with you.

She wants to be YOUR girlfriend.

She Loves you and only YOU.

Nothing in her past means anything to her. She wants to leave it all behind her and to focus only on what she has now with you.

Focus your relationship on communication, trust, and learning everything you can about one another such as your likes, and dislikes, common interests, family members likes and dislikes, etc.  By being committed to one another without the sexual connection, you will be amazed at how beautiful everything will be on the day that you two finally get to meet and be with one another in person.

I would suggest the next time a horrible image appears in your thoughts, to dismiss it right away and to immediately replace it with a more pleasant thought that involves just the two of you. If you write to one another, try pulling out a letter or card and reading it until the bad thought is gone. Do not let jealousy ruin your happy thoughts!

Always,

Marsha

This letter came from Ex Depression in a later email:

Dear Marsha,

in addition to that I don’t know if this is important, or  revelent but she has been unfaithful few times in the past when she drinks she is unstable and it is really hard to trust her. So I am easily scared of something bad happening I donnt know if this is any imporatnce to the previous question.

Dear Ex Depression,

You do not state here whether she was unfaithful to you or to her ex’s. This makes it very difficult for me to answer, so I will try to answer it both ways.

1. She seems far too young to be drinking and sleeping with guys so openly. This is of great concern.

2. If she has been unfaithful in the past to her ex boyfriends, then I think this letter/reply basically stands the same. You must forgive and forget her past and accept her the way she is trying to be now with you.

3. If she has been unfaithful to you, then it is not something I would feel comfortable telling you to overlook. I would want you to keep your guard up and ask you to not fall too deeply in love with her at this time.

You could also feel free to ask her to give up drinking all together. If she loves you and wants to be with you, then she should be willing to do so with ease. You should be more important to her than a drink.

If something were to happen to affect your relationship in a negative manner, then I feel it is better to do so now while you both have not had any physical relations that it is for it to happen later after you have met or after you have fallen deeper in love.

Always,

Marsha

Dear Marsha:

Dear Desperate Father,

I feel that you have every right to be concerned. We all want what is best for our children and having someone so much older of the opposite sex, and given his current circumstances, must be a little distressing and full of concern to say the least.

I admire that your daughter and wife are trying to help this man, but he must want that help first. Sneaking around into your daughters room is not exactly going about things the right way. Anyone can fall upon hard times, but it is how we hold ourselves up and what our actions speak as to what it makes us become.

I would be very curious as  to why he is homeless. There has to be a reason that he is no longer welcome at his parents home anymore. Perhaps they passed away and he was left without family? Perhaps they simply could not afford themselves and he took it upon himself to step out of the home to make it on his own but found it more difficult than it was in his head at the time.  If either of these are/were the case, then by all means I would continue to support my wife in making efforts to find him shelter and a good job to get him back on track again and to let him know that he doesn’t have to be alone during these difficult times.

If he is homeless because of criminal issues such as drugs, alcohol, abuse, etc.; I would be even more concerned and try to keep my daughter and wife out of the picture as much as possible until you had time to straighten things out with him the correct way first.

Find out his history. Find out all details of why he is homeless. Explain to him that even if it were something of his doing and he wishes to change his lifestyle now, then you are willing to help him if he first is willing to help himself. Tell him that he is old enough to understand right from wrong and hiding out in your daughters bedroom or having/allowing her to skip school to help him is not going to be accepted. There is no reason to jeopardize your daughters education and future just because his has been tarnished. Any mature man will understand your requests and if he obliges, then help him in every way that you can. No man or woman needs to be treated as if they do not exist.

If he does not comply with your wishes, then tell him he must leave or be forced to leave one. Feel free to contact your local authorities to have him removed at any time. I doubt your daughter, at 16, will understand, but you can step back and say you gave him a chance and he was not willing to change himself, therefore you know you are doing what is best for your daughter and family.

Always,

Marsha

Dear Marsha,

Dear Callie,

Why would you ignore Hayden if you liked him? If you brush him off until he graduates, then you may have blown your chance to get to know him better. You may wonder all of your life if this was the guy that you were meant to be with because of all of the uncanny circumstances taking place around him.

Make friendly chats with Kayla. Try to speak to her whenever she is around. Then feel free to ask her questions about Hayden. Tell her of the events that have occurred recently and how ironic you find it to be. Get her take on the situation and see if she is aware of anything.

Do not be discouraged no matter what direction the outcome may turn out to be.  If you talk to him and he really does like you, then be happy that you were bold enough to make the choice to talk to him directly.  If it turns out that he has a girlfriend, or a crush on someone else, then still be happy that you opened yourself up to a friendship with him that may not have been there had you stepped back and ignored him.

Always,

Dear Marsha,

The thing is I’m not sure about that,for all I know,I can be wrong and just thinking too much but….they weren’t like that before.I will be confronting my big brother soon about this cause I know he’s depressed ever since his ex broke up with him and I’m afraid he has become more depressed than ever because there is this possibility that they are going out or one of them might have feelings for each other.

Regards,

It really touches my heart to know you are such a loving and caring sister and that your brother means so much to you.

It used to be a rule of thumb that a friend does not date a friend’s ex. This rule was general knowledge simply because of the feelings that were involved. Unfortunately incidents like these happen all the time.

I would question if your brothers friend was really a true friend or not. If he were a true friend, then he would have known how much your brother cared for his ex. He would have not even thought of dating this girl because he would have put his friendship with your brother first. It would not have mattered who broke up with whom or the reasons either.

I think that the first thing I would do is to let things drop. Try not to mention anything to your brother about his ex. Instead, try getting his mind off of things. Take him along with you to any outings you and your friends may have, or involve him in something different all together that has nothing to do with either his ex or his so called friend.

The only thing that can heal a broken heart and/or a broken friendship is time.

Always,

I am 14 years old, and I have a friend who is also 14 years old. We have some problems with borrowing money. I have never borrowed from him, but he has borrowed from me a fair amount. Certain things include a DVD, some candy, some sodas, thing like that. I remember one time (though it was a year or two ago) doing the math and finding out he owed me $10 then. Since then, I have loaned him $2 for 2 $1 bottles of pop. So, the total is $12. Maybe I should also mention, one of the times I loaned him a dollar was on my birthday.

He has not um… “gotten around” to paying me back yet, although he insists it is only $8. The DVD alone was $7, (and then include the other things) and I know he hasn’t payed me back yet.

I am absolutely, positively, 100% sure that it was $10 a year or two ago because like I said, I did the math (Recently, I scored literally the highest in my grade on a math test, so I don’t think a mathematical mistake is the problem) And then add the $2 since then. What can I do to get what he really owes me without being too rude? (Unfortunately, he is rather hot-headed, so if it comes to that, I may have no choice but to be slightly rude) Finally, one thing I don’t want to do is convince him to let me borrow money and then keep it as payback.

Please help!

Money Problems

Dear Money Problems,

At least your friend acknowledges that he does indeed “Owe” you money. It may not be the number you came up with, but it is a higher number than the $2.00 you just recently lent to him.

I think that with his past amounts not being paid back to you from two years ago or so, then there could be other issues. Perhaps he is not as financially able to afford these small things as you and your family may be. Or maybe he doesn’t yet know the value of money.

If I were in your shoes, I would not expect the money back. I would probably look to other forms of repayment such as helping you clean out your garage, or ask him to tag along with you somewhere that you may really not wish to go to alone such as a wedding or family reunion. You may have a better chance of getting your money’s worth in that direction.

In the meantime, you do not have to loan him any more money or items unless what you are loaning him you will not expect back. It would be better to give him items instead of hovering a price tag over his head for years.

Always,

Marsha

Marsha,  hope that you can help with some advice.

My 17-year old son is a senior in high school and is quite popular in school,  and for the most part is just a pretty good kid.  He is an athlete (one of the best in his school in all sports),  and one of the bad aspects of this school system is that it is a badge of honor for the girls or boys to have sex with the most popular athlete.  There is a girl that he says that he does not like,  but every so often,  he goes over to her house to “hang” out with her,  whatever that means.

Over the past couple of days,  he has been bringing the mail inside,  which is something that he normally does not do.  Today,  I happened to be at home when the mail arrived,  and included was a package addressed to him from a company that I did not recognize.  I did some investigation on the Internet (three clicks with a Google search) and found that this company is a distributor of condoms.

How would you advise that we, his mother and I,  go about handling this situation.  My first intent was to present the package to him in the presence of his mother and make him open it,  but it will devastate her,  for this is something that we have hope and prayed would never happen.  In addition,  if we were to elect to discipline or punish him,  what would you advise?  You will see by my signature,  what sort of problem that this situation might pose for me and my family.

Thanks for your help.  Looking forward to your reply.

PreacherDJW

Dear Preacher DJW,

Please take a deep breath and try to look at this situation from your sons eyes.  With condoms being easily accessible and sometimes given away for free at most any store, health department and/or school, he is showing some sort of inner guilt by making the decision to order these online and have them delivered to the house. He has no desire to want anyone knowing he has them besides himself. He knows that you, his mother, and God would strongly disagree and disprove of premarital sex, yet he feels the need to protect himself from disease and/or  having a child out of wedlock.

If you were to call him out on this package, and make him open it in front of his mother, you will be causing him much stress, anger, and embarrassment on a decision that he has already thought long and hard about. There is no need to punish or discipline him in this manner. I fear it would only do more harm than good at this point.

If you really wish to get to your sons inner most feelings, than I would suggest taking a walk with him. Drop the Preacher title for this walk and only use “Dad”.  In other words, do not walk and talk to him as a preacher or from a preachers point of view but be as a loving and caring dad instead.  Open the discussion casually, do not jump right on to topic. Ask him how things are going in school, sports, or other events. Then tell him that you feel it is time to talk to him about sex openly. Let him know that it is an urge that all teenagers have both male and female. Tell him that you were a teen once and that you remember the pressures. If you had premarital sex yourself, then do not hide it from him. Let him know what it was like.  If you had any regrets, then tell him about those too. If you did not have premarital sex, then tell him about all of the urges you fought off and how determined you were to save yourself for the right gal. You may wish to explain to him that once you have given yourself to someone, then you can never get that part of you back again, and that it becomes much easier to give yourself again and again be it the same person or another. Remember to keep the conversation between DAD and SON. At the end of the conversation, lovingly hand him the package (hopefully unopened) and tell him that it came in the mail for him. You do not have to say that you KNOW what is in the package, just let that remain silent. He has to make his own decision now. He should piece together from the conversation that there is a possibility of you knowing what is in there.

As far as the mother goes, if you are in fear that she will be devastated over this situation, then tell her only what needs to be told. Ask her to continue praying for your son and let her know about him having normal teen urges. There is no need to let her know that your son purchased condoms. That was supposed to be something he did in confidence and if it were not for the power of technology at our fingertips, even you would not know what is or could be in that package.

Remember in your heart, that you have done the best you can in bringing your son up in God’s light. You have sowed Gods word into him throughout his upbringing, that seed will always be there. Proverbs 22:6 – “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Always,

Marsha

Friend or Weed?

Dear Friend or Weed?,

Let me be upfront and honest with you. You show your immaturity by even admitting to smoking weed and saying you do it in a safe and mature way. There is nothing mature to a teen smoking weed. You using it as an excuse to ease your stress is a cop out because deep within you know it is wrong and illegal.

Ronnie has made a respectable decision to not be associated with those that use illegal drugs. He was probably also very disheartened when he discovered that you were into such things, and he probably knew that you were fibbing to him when you said that you quit smoking it.  Ronnie may desire to go on to college and live and healthy and clean life.  It was probably a hard decision on him to make, but you have to respect him for doing so and his reasons behind it.

Pot is an expensive drug as well.  In my past experience of knowing  several that smoked weed, those same people usually found it “Ok” to party and throw even more money down the drain. They would end up selling their own personal items just to have that little “High” for the day. At the time, they too thought it was “Ok”, they would claim that they were not hurting anyone, and it was always one excuse after another as to why they felt they “Had” to have that high.

http://www.well.com/user/woa/fspot.htm This website is a very informative site that tells the facts of smoking marijuana. I think  you should go over all of these carefully.

There are numerous websites telling us that Marijuana is “OK” and not harmful, yet as I read most all of these sites, there is one thing I found in common on ALL of them… The writer smokes weed!!!  This means that they too are grasping at excuses to cover up their own wrong doings. They are looking for any reason to make their life style “OK” in society’s eyes. This does not make it “Right” by any means.

If you are sincere about keeping Ronnie as a good friend, then give up your habit and maybe even ask Ronnie to help you. Tell him that your friendship means more than any drug every could, and mean it!

Always,

Marsha

I am a 16 year old, gay, junior in High School. I go to an Alternitive Education center due to falling behind in school. The school has less then fifty students whom attened it. I am openly gay, however I do not shove it in people’s faces. Recently we got a new student, I’ll call him John. When I first saw this guy something went off in me. I was almost speechless. This guy is one of the most attractive guy’s I’ve ever seen. John is very shy though, he’s never spoken to me before and I’ve never spoken to him, due to my shyness, I don’t plan on talking to him anytime soon. I find myself liking John, very, very much. I honestly think about him night and day, I’ve never felt this way before about a total stranger. John does not seem like he would be gay or bisexual, looks can be very deciving however. What puzzles me about John is I find him staring and looking at me quite often in class. I have him in two of my periods. Could he be staring because he is one of those people with a staring problem? Perhaps he is just curious? Maybe he finds me attractive, or he is taking a liking to me. I’m not sure, he’s very hard to read. I don’t feel love, or have “urges,” about him, it’s just a very profound liking and attration toward him. It’s as if I’m almost under a spell. I find it all very crazy. I also find my heart skipping a beat when I know he’s looking/staring at me. I recently confessed my attraction to him to one of my very closest friends. She seem sort of pissed off at me for unknown reasons. She told me he is a major d**k. I asked her what made him a d**k and she told me something on the lines of he had got a girl pregnate and left her. I just can’t bring myself to believe this. Everyone I know including myself thinks John is a very shy but a guinuine nice guy. My close friend also explained to me, almost rubbing it in, how straight he is, how there was not a chance in the world he could be gay or bisexual. Why would she rub that in? Does she like him as well and I’m just missing that? I just have this overwealming feeling, inuitiveness that he really is. Could I just be thinking this because I like him so much or is this a real feeling I’m having? I honestly don’t know what to do. Your advice is more then needed. Thank you very much for your time!

-Dazed and Confused

Dear Dazed and Confused,

Overwhelming attraction is something that a lot of teenagers experience, it’s partly to do with all the hormonal and chemical changes that happen at this age, which make feelings and emotions more intense than they will be at any other period of your life.  Of course – knowing “why” it happens doesn’t help you deal with it, but at least you should know that it’s entirely normal and something a huge percentage of teenagers will experience.  Some will refer to this as Lust or Puppy Love.

You have not known this “John” long enough to label your feelings toward him as LOVE.  Right now you are having an infatuation with all that is unknown about him.  This is making John seem more of a mystery guy to you, and that mystery is causing your “under a spell” like feelings.

Your friend may have become upset with you because she too has taking a liking to this boy.  She may be pointing out negatives about him to steer you away from him, OR to prevent you from a heartache later down the road. There is also the chance that your friend is telling the absolute truth.  Maybe he is straight.  Maybe he did get someone pregnant. Maybe he isn’t with her anymore.  This absence of being with her may not have been a choice of his own though.  His parents may have had a say in this circumstance.  If this is true, then maybe John is in the need of a very good friend to talk to. There are so many “If’s” to this current situation.

The only real way to have any or all of these answers is for you to get to know John.  You may be shy, but what is a hello and a smile going to hurt as a starting ground?  The next time you and some of your friends plan on doing something after school, be sure to invite him along.  If he goes with you all, then consider striking up conversation with him about something that happened in class perhaps.  Take it slow and try not to seem overwhelming at all.

You must also ask yourself if John is straight, how is that going to make you feel? Are you still willing to be his friend? There is no law that states a gay/lesbian can not be friends with someone that is straight and of the same sex.  You just must prepare yourself for the truths, be them what you want to hear or not.

Always,

Marsha