Andrea Bonior
Special to The Washington Post

Q: I feel like my wife always makes decisions for us both, and then gets annoyed when I want to adjust the decision. She acts like I am trying to do things my way and win, when in reality she was the one who chose to do things her way in the first place. When I try to talk to her about this, she says that I always leave decisions for the last minute and so she feels the need to make them. I don’t feel this is the case; I think it is an excuse. It has gotten to the point where any given day we are having conflicts about this and it is starting to take its toll.

A: I am having a dissertation flashback here, as I am feeling the need to operationalize a variable. What exactly does each of you consider “the last minute,” and how unacceptable is it? Might there be some relatively easy compromise here, like her presenting a matter that requires a decision and you two agreeing upon a deadline for it to be hashed out, with a clear-cut means of collaborating to get there? (OK, maybe not so easy.) Perhaps she is exhausted, with many decisions falling on her by default, and you not realizing how much mental project-managing she does without your initiating any effort to help. Or maybe it’s the opposite: She is indeed making excuses for her need to control things, and this is a pattern of steamrolling you to get her way. (Does the her-way-wins mentality extend to other parts of your interactions? To what extent does she generally take your feelings into account?) Likely it’s somewhere in between: She’s got a planner’s personality and is generally uncomfortable with your time frame on things. So propose that compromise, and see what it brings.

Q. I have lied to my boyfriend about my job since the night we met. I blurted it out in an oversimplified way and he misconstrued and I didn’t correct him, as we were drinking and I didn’t think I would see him again. It is not fundamentally incompatible with the truth, but if he were to find out, I know he would view me differently (even if he could get over the lie). We have been together for four months and I know it is bad that I haven’t told him and will only get worse. Please give me a pep talk.

A: Like my desperate need to stop Googling “True Detective” spoilers, you know what you have to do. You even know why you have to do it, and what the negative effects will be if you don’t. With every week, day and nanosecond that passes, your lie grows. Your emotional intimacy is further jeopardized, and his right to be upset gets bigger. So figure out the least painful way to get over this hurdle. Sending him a text first, saying that there is a misunderstanding you need to talk with him about? Writing the whole thing in a note? Forcing yourself to blurt it out? If you’re looking for the extra boost an advice columnist can provide, here it is: I have seen these types of things absolutely kill relationships. Often. Early, apologetic honesty trumps continuing deception every time.

Q: My 25-year-old daughter is very sensitive, I would say oversensitive, to any sort of criticism. It makes it hard for us to have a conversation, because I fear that even the mildest of things can set her off to be hurt. I don’t think she is happy, and I think this is a symptom of it, and yet even the idea of having a conversation about how she seems to be unhappy makes me certain she will take it as a criticism. I find this to be a major obstacle keeping us from having a close mother-daughter relationship.

A: You don’t say how she responds. Lashing out in anger? Getting sullen? Dramatic? You can address that dynamic first in a concrete, straightforward way without some larger pronouncement about her character. “You have gotten quiet, and you seem upset about XYZ. I am sorry if I hurt you. I know it feels more comfortable to ignore me, but I feel confused and rather hurt myself when this happens, and I would love to find a way that we could talk through these times better. Our relationship means so much to me.” If you can get her on board with acting on her feelings in a more functional way in the moment, then you can eventually get her on board for the meta-conversation about feelings management in general. But I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you to take a super hard look at the “criticisms” you are lobbing at her. (You wouldn’t be the first mom to not realize the sting of her words.)

Andrea Bonior, a Washington, D.C.-area clinical psychologist, writes a weekly relationships advice column in The Washington Post’s Express daily tabloid and is author of “The Friendship Fix.”