Dear Queenie,

My daughter is planning to get married about a year from now. She wants a destination wedding in a place that is very far from where we live. My wife and I do not have a lot of money and we told her how much we can give her toward her wedding, but we can’t afford the trip to where she wants to get married and we refuse to go into debt for it and we told her that, but she just said we should find a way to work it out.

Queenie, I’m afraid this is going to be a problem in our family. What do you suggest?—Not made of money

Dear Not made of money,

Tell your daughter that you will deduct the cost of the trip to her wedding from the amount you are going to give her toward the wedding, and if the cost of the trip is more than you were going to give her, tell her you just cannot afford the trip at all and if she wants to have you there when she gets married she will have to get married closer to where you live.

She probably will have objections to all this, but just tell her as sweetly as you can manage that you are not “made of money”; how much you can afford to spend on all this; that it is up to her to decide how the money will be used; and that whatever she decides, you wish her well.

Dear Queenie,

A long time ago I was living with a wonderful girlfriend, but I got arrested and sent to jail for possession of narcotics,

She never came visit me in jail, she just went on with her life and met someone else and they got married and had a couple of children.

Queenie, that was a long time ago and I haven’t ever been in trouble again and I still think about her and I miss her a lot. Would it be okay to try to get in touch with her?—Sad Ex-boyfriend

Dear Ex-boyfriend,

No. If your ex-girlfriend were willing to forgive whatever you did she would have visited you or at least stayed in touch with you while you were in jail. Instead, she went on with her life without you.

It is long past time for you to stop looking back and start concentrating on your future without her.

 Dear Queenie,

My boyfriend and I have been going together for many years and he has asked me to come and live with him in his house. He says he would arrange things so I could stay in his house for the rest of my life if anything happened to him. But what if we broke up for some reason? Then what would I do and where would I go?

Queenie, what should I do? Should I break up with him now while I still have a place of my own?—Can’t decide what to do

Dear Can’t decide,

If you are not ready to move in with this man, just say “No.” You do not have to break up with him over it. If you would want to be married to him before moving in with him, tell him so, and see how he reacts. If he is not ready to make that kind of commitment, you can continue to “go together” with him, but keep your own home and the sense of security it gives you.

Dear Queenie,

Since my teenage daughter got her own cellphone she is always concentrating on its apps and doesn’t have any attention for the outside world. She hardly even talks to you unless it’s on the phone.

Queenie, what do you have to say about this?—Worried parent

Dear Parent,

This is common behaviour for teenagers, but often they take it too far and parents have to intervene. For one thing, you can insist that your daughter’s cellphone be turned off and/or put away during family dinners and other such family occasions.