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How do I continue a healthy relationship with my godparents who I love dearly, without feeling like I am disrespecting my own parents?

-- Feeling Torn

Dear Torn: These two couples cannot really have a huge impact on how you feel. Your feelings are your own to manage.

I suggest that you become well-acquainted, and accepting, of the awkwardness that emerges when you are all together. Children of divorce struggle with this, and often master these situations by compartmentalizing, not engaging in conversations about the other, and basically putting relationships into discreet boxes.

You should convey honestly to both parties that you love them both and that you want to maintain good relationships. Your desire to take this high road may eventually help them to arrive at a cordial middle ground.

Dear Amy: Thank you for offering your wisdom to the heartbroken writer who signed her question, "Laying Low." She was asking for your sage thoughts on surviving breakups.

I'm often amazed at how we in modern life tend to believe that painful things shouldn't actually hurt. Maybe it is because we were raised by parents who had been through tough times, and sheltered us too much. Now I think we are doing this to our own children.

I hope people are paying attention to your practical advice regarding loss: that it is important to feel your feelings, that loss is by its nature painful, and that the way out is an important part of our personal journey.

-- A Fan

Dear Fan: The journey through loss (as you call it) is rocky, snowy, and littered with switchbacks. And what is waiting at the end? More loss! -- but also insight and opportunities for growth.

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(You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@amydickinson.com. Readers may send postal mail to Amy Dickinson, c/o Tribune Content Agency, 16650 Westgrove Drive, Suite 175, Addison, Texas, 75001. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or "like" her on Facebook.)