My husband of 40 years has begun to slip into some very bad social habits. Out at a nice restaurant he blows his nose into the napkin. Among other gross habits. Where do I go from here?

This is a sad story. I just split up from the woman I have loved for eight years. It was my decision, on account of unhappiness, incompatible sexual needs. I feel terrible guilt because she is 35 and wants a family and now she feels she is too old. We had our first serious problems three years ago, and she thinks if I had ended things then it would have been better for her, but now her life is ruined. She is a very attractive and intelligent woman but very bitter toward me.

Our problem was that she was abused as a child and she seems to need rough forced sex with a man who can control her against her will (her words). The few things we've tried (bondage, fetish pornography) don't do anything for me. In therapy, I came to realize that I have a great and passionate love for her and that she needs some serious help before she and I will be sexually compatible. I don't wish to lose contact with her in case she and I can one day be together again, but she is so angry and bitter she is making my life hell at the moment. Do I deserve this? Should I put up with the insults and anger and hope that one day she realizes why I ended things?

I'm working on a story I am really happy with, and I was feeling very good about it until the horrible shooting in Littleton, Colo. The climax of my story involves a child trying to solve her problems by using a gun. I don't intend to romanticize violence, but I fear it may be read as such. Should I put this out of my mind and go ahead and write what I feel? Or is there a time to sacrifice our art so that it won't inspire readers to inflict pain on others?

I often think of my first love, whom I met after I had spent several years overseas in the military. We met, fell in love, planned to marry, and when I returned overseas she met another. This was over 20 years ago. I met a wonderful woman and we have been married for nearly 20 years. We have great children and a very good life. Still, I think of the first woman I loved. I don't really yearn for her; I think I yearn for the memory of how we were and for my lost youth. Do we all think about past loves, or is it just me?

I am a 42-year-old single mother of two children who are three and six years away from college age, respectively. My ex-husband is irresponsible and sees the children only about four days a year, if at all. I used to arrange an occasional weekend to myself by sending the kids to the grandparents, but my parents are getting too old and my in-laws aren't available (and the kids find them boring anyway). I am a communications writer for a big corporation, and I want desperately to write fiction. I wrote a story that was rejected but with an encouraging note, and I want to repair it and resubmit it. I know I am a good writer. I read Fitzgerald's early stories and I know I'm already better than that. My job takes a lot of time and my kids don't want to lose their mom to her study for all the hours that she's home, and I don't want to miss my kids these last few years that they are still at home.

The only time I get a good stretch of writing time is on some Saturday nights, after about 10 p.m. I want to be able to write for four to six hours a day.

What the hell should I do? (If you met my kids, you'd tell me to stop whining.)

I recently found myself in the position of having a young man whom I like profess his long-standing and deeply felt love for me -- in a bar, after work. Alcohol was undeniably a factor in this conversation, and I told him so. He said, "That's your opinion. I am in love with you and have been for at least a year." The problem is: I am 36, he is 24 and I know him from work, and though I am attracted to him, I can't honestly say I'm in love with him. Is it immoral to explore the possibilities of a relationship with someone who has already made such grand declarations, if you don't feel quite the same intensity?

I'm a nice guy with an OK job, I'm decent to my loving girlfriend, I volunteer to help kids with math, I ride a bicycle to work. But I write these vile little mocking stories and poems about my co-workers, friends and neighbors. It's the only time I feel glee, when I'm writing something sarcastic and mean and share it with people. Some feelings, naturally, have been hurt, some friends have been lost. I've tried writing nice things about people, but it sounds like something you'd read in a church bulletin. I wish I had the imagination to make up stories about people I don't know, but that's like writing about marionettes. The real people I know are in my head and they are hilarious! What can I do about this sinful glee?