CAROLYN HAX

While I'm away, readers give the advice.

On drawing lines that aren't ultimatums:

Over 30 years ago I was steady with a woman but not sure whether I was ready for marriage or she was the right one. Naturally, the subject of our relationship eventually came up. She told me that what she really wanted -- her goal -- was marriage and a family. She said that as much as she might love someone, if she concluded that a relationship wasn't leading to her goal either because she didn't want to marry the fellow or because he couldn't commit to her, then she would end that relationship and keep looking.

It didn't sound like an ultimatum, but it did make me think, and it framed the issue pretty well. I realized that I wanted the same things, and had wasted plenty of time already in relationships that were never going to take me there. Instead of feeling pressured, I saw her statement as a sign that she understood herself and had a plan for her life. In a sense, it inspired me. I proposed a few months later and we've been married for 29 years.

T.

On life after a frightening diagnosis:

My dearest high school friend had MS diagnosed about 20 years ago. I remember the day I heard because I went to see the movie "Beaches" and cried through the whole thing.

However, my friend didn't die nor is she incapacitated. In the intervening 20 years, she was divorced and remarried. Her second husband rode in bike-a-thons for MS until he suffered a traumatic brain injury. In fact, she is the main breadwinner and decision maker in her marriage. Who would have foretold?

She has five grandchildren, and plays with them, swims with them, takes them overnight. She teaches and writes, she travels, she plays the keyboard, and she is on Facebook.

We never know our fates. The beauty of life is accepting our truth, and building a life on that -- and enjoying each day.

D.

On adapting to a society with smaller and more mobile nuclear families:

I think people depend on family more than perhaps they should, and forgo developing friendships that could take the place of family, or at least defer some difficult choices.

I was raised by a single mother and spent time each summer with my one set of godparents and one single godmother. It was explained to me pretty early in my life that if anything happened to my mother, I would be living with these people, and my mother wanted me to have a good relationship with them. (Thankfully, she didn't die until I was 35, but she was sick a lot when I was young.)

My mother did have a sister -- but the two of them never got along very well, and my mother chose a different path for me. My godparents became good friends of mine and served as alternate sounding boards when I was growing up and needed another adult's perspective on my life.

Such adults extend your family, rather than limit it. For people raised in increasingly smaller families, extension provides additional resources and richness that blood family members may not.

A.

Write to Tell Me About It, Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or tellme@washpost.com.