I have been married 10 years. After two the physical element ceased. You aren't even married yet. I can guarantee you that there is no possibility that a relationship can survive where prior to even being married the physical attraction has ceased. You will want to make love to other women to fill that hole (no pun intended). She will do the same. You must realize the no matter how beautiful the two of you are and how well-educated you are (God! You place an inordinate amount of weight on that), if there is no physical chemistry you cannot survive the thirty or forty or fifty years that a successful relationship will take. You will stray. She will stray. The mental and emotional parts are very important. But that ultimate desire to touch and feel and love (physically) the other person MUST be there over the long term for success. It really must. She's beautiful. You're beautiful. Get out now. Find the one you truly love (AND lust after).

You've got an in with the landlord and that is about the only place you're going to find legally enforceable relief right away because he is the only person with real power over the living environment.

Explain to him, cajole him, work him, beg him, pay him, whatever it takes. If he evicts them or even threatens eviction, they will leave and your mom won't. She will not take on that type of change. If he understands what type of people he is dealing with and/or he cares for your mother (if only as another human being and good tenant) then he may act quickly on your (and to an extent, his) behalf.

Also, your mom's loneliness is driving a big part of this. That needs to be addressed to get her out of the grips of this.

I generally appreciate the irreverent "I am not adopting the normal parenting hysteria" article as much as the next guy (and I am a guy/dad). I too hate the seemingly new parenting as some sort of zealous religion craze that replaced the “do whatever you want as long as you don’t die” style parenting that our parents practiced. But something about this piece just depressed the hell out of me. I realize that the author is exaggerating a bit for the sake of humor and to make a point. But I really hope that he’s not nearly this jaded, this put off by the whole process.

If he is, I really feel sorry for his kid(s). Part of parenting in all its glory, as many readers have said in one manner or another, is all of the excruciating, repetitive, sometimes boring movement into the mental and physical world of the child. The child can throw a ball against a wall for hours. We need the stimulation of a book or the internet. So we throw the ball against the wall with the child until we are about to break because we are parents. The child is amazed again and again by what is novel to him or her and what is unbelievably mundane to us. Yet we feign amazement because the child wants us to share his or her joy. It’s all in the job description and if you can’t muster the energy, then you picked the wrong profession (the second time around).

I wish he'd stated whether or not he liked "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." He seemed to take the question as exclusively intended to elicit whether or not he saw his work in the film. I thought the interviewer was (also) simply asking whether he liked the movie. That would have been interesting to know given his background.

I am an atheist who was raised Jewish and during my childhood years was not an atheist. I went to a private Hebrew school, went to synagogue, etc. I am now an atheist. I guess that is only relevant to the following advice in that I have lived on both sides.

You must not have children with this person. There is no room for an atheist in a family where one of the parents' Judaism is of importance to them. The reverse is also true. There is no room in a family for a Jew where one of the parents' atheism is important to them. If you have kids, you and your husband will be doing something very detrimental to them. Living in a religiously conflicted home is very unpleasant (did I mention that despite the fact that I was raised as a Jew, one of my parents was a practicing Muslim and my Jewish upbringing was a result of a pact they made for me to raised in that way).

Please do not do this to you, your husband, and especially to your future children. Some things simply cannot be as much as we want them to be. A practicing Jew raising children with an ostensibly active and zealous atheist in harmony is one of those things.

Your boyfriend's hygiene (or lack thereof)is not the problem. He is depressed or suffering from some other mental issue which is causing him to detach from the world and that has manifested in part by his lack of personal care. I have seen this in other people and it seems to manifest where they either are too depressed to care for themselves or too distracted by some emotional issue to consider basic necessities (or both).

You need to help him realize this may be the actual problem and get him to seek help (or help him yourself if he won't seek help).