Dear Amy: My girlfriend and I have been together for more than two years. We deeply love each other, but lately there has been a lot of conflict.
First of all, I am an addict. I have been smoking marijuana for five years and have no intention of quitting unless my life depends on it.
Second, I really don’t enjoy being told what to do. I’m 19 years old and I’m letting her stay in “my” apartment. Since when does she control my life?
My girlfriend is also a very negative person. She worries about worst-case scenarios and always overreacts when anything goes wrong. Whenever I try to bring something up, she will shut me down. I really want to fix our problem but don’t know really whether it’s worth it. — Miserable
Dear Miserable: When you confess your addiction and then announce that you have no intention of quitting — unless your life depends on it — you hand me the opportunity to say that your life does depend on it.
Marijuana impairs your judgment and cognitive abilities, and your young and still-growing brain has been affected by this chemical influence. Proof of this is that according to your own list of priorities: Weed comes first, girlfriend second.
You could assume that your girlfriend’s excessive worrying is probably linked to your addiction. You haven’t made this connection because you’re a pothead, and the thing about being high is that you miss some fairly important stuff.
I appreciate your desire to work on your relationship, but until you clean up your own act and commit to recovery, you won’t be able to fix your other problems.
Dear Amy: My 13-year-old stepson and I have a good relationship. We love and respect each other, but have one recurring disagreement. Like any kid, he wants to be popular and perceived by his peers as cool.
Here’s the problem: He greases up his hair and molds it in the shape of a rooster’s crown. The kids call it a Mohawk. It looks amazingly stupid, but I keep that to myself.
I tell him that he’s trying too hard. What he thinks is cool really screams out that he’s not cool but needs some superficial affectation to impress others.
Am I making too big a deal out of this? My wife says to let him figure it out himself. Am I supposed to blindly support everything he does without offering the wisdom of my middle-age years? — Wondering Stepdad
Dear Wondering: I congratulate you on being such a good dad to this boy. I know you’re a good dad because you are doing the “dad thing” by worrying excessively about your son’s hair.
The modern “Mohawk” hairstyle has been kicking around for at least 25 years, and it is as cool or uncool as ponytails or rattails.
Your son’s hair probably looks pretty dumb, but he’s 13 and his job is to try things that may be quite embarrassing to you now, and to him later in life. Your job is to sit back, figuratively puff on your pipe like Ward Cleaver and not worry too much about something that really isn’t very important.
You don’t have to blindly support everything he does, but you do have to pick your battles. Your wife already knows this.
If your stepson is doing well, has healthy relationships and still likes his parents, then he sounds like a kid who is cool enough for school.
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