I am a 30-year-old woman writing up a doctoral dissertation in cultural anthropology and living with my boyfriend of eight years whom I'm still wild about. He's a stubborn nonconformist, very loving, and an ace traveling companion. We used to have an apartment near my university. We were the only straight couple in our building, and it was a fantastic neighborhood, with great foreign restaurants, art galleries, independent movie theaters and drag queens casually shopping in the grocery stores. Then my boyfriend's father bought a house for us and we moved in.

I love the house but now find myself in the middle of suburbia. There are no drag queens in the market here, only young women burdened with small children in their shopping carts. This new environment, combined with turning 30, is putting me into an existential crisis. I feel like I can't make any friends here because our values would be so different. I find myself wondering whether I should want marriage and a baby and wondering why this is all bothering me so much. My mom went through menopause at about 40, and I feel like the walls of free choice are starting to close in. How can I decide what I really want without worrying about what other people want or expect from me?

I used to be able to write. I could write little stories, and my letters were always eagerly anticipated (and saved) by their recipients. Everyone told me I needed to write, instead of dithering my life away on other things. I took the writing for granted, as it came easily, but always assumed that someday I would do something with it, and then I became a graduate student in a social science. And now several years later, I find I've completely lost any and all ability to write, much less think. I can barely string two words together. And I'm very sad about this. So here I sit at 1 a.m., wondering: Is this a permanent condition? Has graduate school caused permanent brain damage? Or is my muse just annoyed with me?

I am a woman, 32, in a three-and-a-half-year relationship with a wonderful man, almost done with my Ph.D. I am Indian, he is European and we've had to deal with lots of obstacles in our relationship and have been fairly successful. But I have stayed in touch with an ex-boyfriend (also Indian) who, of all the men I have been with, is the one who stands out. He understands me better, and both he and I wish things had worked out differently for us. Do I risk my future with a wonderful man whom I don't love nearly as much, for a possibility of reclaiming the great love of my life? I am quite afraid of hurting this wonderful man. I thought I had all the answers, but I guess I don't.

I am in a terrible mess, but then aren't we all? I've been married for 15 years to a lovely woman, whom I love and care for, but I am desperately unhappy. We have no communication or shared interests, and our sex life is nonexistent. We bury ourselves in work and leave little time to run into each other at home. Life just seems to go on and on and on ... and on. I find myself thinking about divorce and fantasizing about Something More. I want children, I want passion and I want to be IN LOVE. My wife has had a difficult life and when I find myself considering the Big Escape, I am smacked by guilt and cannot bear the thought of causing her pain. To make matters worse, I met someone six months ago, a woman who is attractive, intelligent and compatible, whom I've grown physically and emotionally attached to, and when we had sex it was a joy and relief in ways I can't begin to describe here.

I've always considered myself a good person and don't like having an affair, but the friendship this woman provides is the only positive thing in my life at this point. Divorce terrifies me, yet I can't bear the thought of continuing to live like this: unhappy, dead to the world, my feelings and thoughts bottled up, masturbating in the shower every other day. Is there hope for me? What do I do about my wife whom I don't want to hurt? What do I do about my girlfriend whom I don't want to lose? What do I do about my inability to make a choice? I feel like I'm standing frozen, staring at the headlights of doom. I'm 35 and can't help but think I could have a grand life ahead of me if I could just ... do something.

I'm an American man living on an island off the western coast of France in a high-paying, offshore kinda job and in an intense, passionate relationship with a very vivacious Welsh woman. We live together, are together all the time, go to sleep together, wake together, eat together, drink together, play together, and I love her dearly, but feel I'm being smothered by all her Welsh passion. My only means of escape from her, outside of work, is running ... and she's getting faster! Should I train harder?