DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My boyfriend’s brief marriage to his high school girlfriend was over way before he and I met, and he has told me more than once how he is completely over her.

Why then I ask you, does he still get all teary and sad when he hears their song, “Ready for Your Love”? It’s a really good song, and I used to like it, but not so much when I get the feeling my boyfriend is back with his ex in his mind every time he hears it.

Do you think it’s okay for someone to hold onto that kind of feeling when he’s with someone new? --- NOT OUR SONG

DEAR NOT OUR SONG: You may have your boyfriend’s heart now, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t entitled to memories he made before you were in his life.

His ex-wife may have been more than the high school sweetheart he married. It’s not unlikely she was his first real love, and that’s something that’s special and will forever be part of who he is.

I’d say let him enjoy his momentary reflections. They may bring him back to more of his past than just his romantic memories. For him it may be a brief connection to other people and places that were also precious to him when he was younger.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: I have worked in my store since I was a teenager. It’s where I made my money during my summer vacations, where I was brought on fulltime as an assistant manager when I graduated college, and where I always had parttime or fulltime work when I needed it when my babies came along.

The whole chain is now in bankruptcy closing mode, and not only is the store itself getting sadder and more empty by the week, but the morale of all of us still working there is, as one of my coworkers says, “lower than a snake’s belly.”

A big part of why we’re all so bummed, besides soon being out of jobs, is that this was a really good company to work for. Both our local and regional managers, and on up to the top of the corporate chain felt an obligation to us as much as to the bottom line, and some news stories and analyses make it sound like that’s a part of why the company couldn’t compete in the current retail environment.

I have been doing some serious thinking about what I want to do next, and although I have loved working in retail, my gut tells me it’s time to look elsewhere.

Don’t you think it’s sad to have to leave the work you love because of how sh##ty the industry it is part of has become? --- WILL MISS MY STORE

DEAR WILL MISS MY STORE: I agree it’s extremely unfortunate that people are having to leave the jobs they love because industries and businesses are undergoing radical changes or vanishing.

Although there may not be nearly as many retail outlets as there were just a few years ago, I think many of us continue to enjoy the experience of in-person shopping.

It’s possible you may yet find another store that will offer you at least some of the positive experiences you had at your current company. With the holidays approaching, you could potentially audition a new place by being hired as a seasonal employee. It might be worth a try before turning away from what you’ve enjoyed doing for so long.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: I know I’m not perfect, and I was always very careful not to come down hard on my daughters when they were growing up if they made what I thought to be mistakes. They are both smart, sensible women and I usually didn’t feel the need to hold my tongue too often through their growing up, and now they are fully-grown young women.

One of my daughters moved back from college after she graduated last spring. We get along well overall, but she has become a critical person, and for all the things I do right, at least in her opinion, all it takes is for me to do one thing wrong, as she sees it, and she goes off on me with sharp criticism and ridicule.

I try to take it patiently and hope this is just a stage she is going through, like all the stages she went through growing up, but it hurts me sometimes that she can be almost cruel to me, often for something I didn’t even know I was doing or saying wrong according to her.

She almost never says anything to me when I’ve clearly done something right in her opinion though, which would be helpful in some ways to give me an idea of what is right by her. There’s also the way she talks to me when she isn’t happy with me. It makes me feel even worse.

Sometimes I want to say something to her about how unfair or unkind she is being, but do you think that will just make things worse? --- TRYING MY BEST

DEAR TRYING MY BEST: I think it’d be a good idea to directly discuss with your daughter how her criticisms and the way she expresses them make you feel, and how they reflect back on her. For one thing, her behavior towards you is possibly being extended to other people with whom she has relationships, and not too many people enjoy being criticized for perceived “shortcomings.”

It sounds like your daughter is perhaps not quite the fully-grown young woman you believe her to be. She has yet to learn to cut people slack for falling short of her definition of perfection.

Part of being an adult is learning how to deal with all sorts of people respectfully and patiently. It sounds like you tried to teach your children that golden rule by your own example of refraining from criticizing them when they were younger. Your daughter may now benefit from a direct lesson from her mom in how to treat people better.