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There are few things less your business than what name your daughter-in-law carries after the wedding. This is a personal decision. You will alienate her, and possibly your son, by announcing your opinion or trying to change their minds. In family life, there are times to bite your tongue – this is one.

This woman is becoming your daughter-by-marriage, and possibly mother to future grandchildren. Don’t get off to a poor start. It will influence how you relate to your son and his family for many years. Be respectful. Choices have been made.

Your future grandchildren do not have to carry her name only. Many couples who keep their own premarital names use the mother’s name as a middle name and the husband’s name as the child’s last name. In addition, your daughters can, if they like, use their maiden names as their children’s last names. Naming children is much more flexible than people realize.

As sad as the loss of your child is, many people feel that unmarried, pregnant sons and daughters are a humiliation for their family. Childbearing and rearing is reserved for the commitment of marriage. Unwed parenthood mostly indicates an inability to control one’s impulses and/or a poor upbringing, despite what the media tells you.

You say your boyfriend’s mother is not sorry. Quite the contrary, I am sure she is very sorry. Sorry she raised such a thoughtless, irresponsible son, and sorry that her grandchild would have been raised, at risk, in unwed mother poverty. No one wants this for any member of the family.

You have nothing with this young man, no commitment, no engagement, no marriage, nothing. You both grievously hurt this woman by your thoughtless behaviors. She said some terrible things about you, and you did some terrible things to her. If you want to begin again, with a better relationship, realize and take responsibility for the pain you have caused, and ask forgiveness.

It sounds like the lady is still committed to her husband and family. I think it is time for you to move on. In addition, relationships that have pity as a component usually do not work well. Marry your equal.

Your wife is walking out on average approximately every two years for a few months and comes back ready to try again. Several things come to mind when I read this: first, your wife may need the drama of the great split and reconciliation in order to feel loved. Second, you and your wife do not know how to dissipate the tension in your marriage. She is the canary and needs to leave, get rid of her tension in a safe environment and return. Third, there is a fear emotional intimacy in your marriage.

You have not mentioned marriage counseling. A good licensed family therapist can teach you both the ways to achieve what you want in your marriage and for your daughter. Negotiate with your wife to get into therapy together.

When I see people in this come-go-come pattern, I think they want the marriage but are unable to cope with a part that they might not even be able to identify. There are two great books by Gary Smalley; one is called If He Only Knew and the other is Love is a Decision. They are both on my website bookshelf  Start with If He Only Knew.

Your wife obviously has emotional problems. With a history of suicide attempts, I would take her statements seriously, though they are part of her controlling behavior.

Your are her husband (ending the marriage is a separate issue) and you have a moral obligation to make sure she is cared for in therapy. She is emotionally ill, something that you were aware of when you married her, since she has past suicide attempts in her history. You need to sit down with a therapist, explain the situation, and get her into therapy.

I understand you are unhappy and dissatisfied. Anyone would be. The extent of your unhappiness does not nullify your obligations to your wife. I am not saying you have to continue the marriage, Instead, you have to meet a husband’s obligation toward his wife with respect to her safety.

You are engaged to a young man who does not enjoy or want physical contact or physical affection. He considers all except the most hands-off of relationships to be obsessive and demanding. He considers love a weakness and rejects physical affection.

I agree that one should not rely on physical love to make one happy in a relationship, but physical love is how a man and a woman bond, repair, and express their emotional oneness. It is the ultimate intimacy between them.

He has received these ideas from his parents so they are foundational building blocks of his personality – not a Stoic philosophical fad. 

This twisted way of viewing relations between men and women is part of his basic make up. You must realize that how he treats you now is as good as it will get. Your relationship may deteriorate, but it won’t get any better than this. Can you live with this – forever?

He won’t tell his parents that he is engaged to his beloved because he refuses to submit to any questions, criticisms, or interference. This is typical decision from a controlling and closed personality.

Your fiancée may be intellectually intelligent but he is emotionally broken. You have no way of getting him to pay more attention to you. He doesn’t have the capacity to give a woman the affection, caring and consideration she requires and deserves as his life mate. He may be minimally affectionate on occasion, which will cause you to hope for change. Affection, for him, is a bargaining tool, at best, a method to control you. There is no fixing this.

Your fiancé is severely emotionally broken. You are considering marrying a man who is missing large parts of his emotional brain and his emotional body from navel down. You are settling for shreds.

There are women who delude themselves and think that with their overwhelming love, warmth, and understanding will change their men. Women who ignore all the warning signs and even the clear, outright words of their beloved. Women who are blind to everything except what they want and what they need.

Ten years later they sit in a counselor’s office demoralized, depressed, empty, and upset. They say they are dead inside. They feel killed. All that is good, lighthearted and loving has been repeatedly rejected. They have been trying to get the affection they need from the stone they married.

Sometimes men and women fall in love with the wrong person. Falling in love is an opening of emotional boundaries to another. It occurs for many reasons, including pity and loneliness. I have known men and women to fall in love with severely mentally ill, as well as known violent people. 

Even among the most feeling-driven of people, the head must evaluate what the heart wants. An intelligent, step by step evaluation of what the future would be like married to the beloved. How their weaknesses and strengths will appear and intensify ten, fifteen or twenty years down the road with twenty extra pounds, a jumbo mortgage, and three kids.

You are already asking for things your beloved cannot provide. You seriously need to reconsider this relationship. I hope you pay attention to what he says to you and break through the noise of your own needs.