ArcaMax

Dear Modern Age: If you are able (and want) to give your daughter the money to help finance her friend's trip, then do so. It's far less expensive to kick in for this girl's flight than for all of you to take a trip to Europe in order for these two to finally meet in person.

However, it's wisest for your daughter and her girlfriend to work out the finances on their own, with you generously offering to host in your home.

You should plan for a short visit. If things go so badly between these two that you feel compelled to remove this girl from your household and install her elsewhere until her return flight, then that's a bridge you'll have to cross if you get to it (I think this is unlikely).

Everybody here is taking something of a risk, and the best you can do is to assume the best, but allow for the possible downside.

Your 18-year-old daughter should overall be in charge of her own romantic life, including the complications of falling for someone who lives in another country.

Dear Amy: My father was physically abusive to me when I was a child, and emotionally abusive when I was a teenager.

I've been depressed for most of my life, with no sense of self-worth.

I confronted him when I was an adult. He tried to explain why he was that way, but he never apologized.

Now he is 93, and in a nursing home. I would like to get closure by telling him how much his behavior damaged my life, but I know it would hurt him at the end of his life. Should I get the closure I have needed all of my life, or should I keep it to myself to spare his feelings?

-- Still Hurting

...continued