From the marriage therapist to the matchmaker, what are their strategies for coping with petty grievances?

Paul C Brunson, 50, co-host of Married at First Sight and Celebs Go Dating, and head of global research at Tinder, has been with his wife and business partner, Jill, 50, for 32 years, married for 23. They have two sons, aged 10 and 13.

It must be hard having both children live so far away. Try to find a place you can explore your grief and loss – and avoid comparing your life to that of your friends

My husband and I have two daughters who emigrated some years ago to two different countries on the other side of the world. Since then, they have married local people and have each started a family. My husband and I are in our 70s, having retired from busy professional careers. I had always assumed that we and our daughters, whom we adore, would continue to be close, and that we would play a role eventually in helping them to rear their children. I was wrong. My friends talk endlessly about their grandchildren and having fun with them on an almost daily basis. Their joy is palpable but I am bereft. I don’t like contacting my daughters and their families on Zoom as I don’t want them to see me crying. My husband is sympathetic but sanguine and resigned to a future in which our real contact with our girls will be, at most, one or two visits a year while our health holds out. Do you have any advice for my broken heart?

I really feel for you. It’s hard to be away from family in this way, but it sounds like your daughters emigrated some years ago and so I wonder what’s triggered you writing in now? Has something recently happened to make this particularly hard? Maybe there’s also something happening – or not happening – in your wider life that you could fix or change to help buffer you against this obvious sadness.

Chris, 71, and Joke, 73, met at a party in New Zealand in the 1970s. Married with five children, they have seen each other through cancer and have moved to the other side of the world and back

As a student in the early 1970s, Chris was enjoying life at Auckland University. “I was studying history and classics, and dating a girl called Plonie,” he says. Their romance fizzled, but they decided to stay friends. “We didn’t see each other that often, but she started going out with one of my best friends, Brian, so we were still in touch.”

In 1976, Brian married Plonie, and they had a housewarming party to celebrate moving in together. By then, Chris was a postgraduate student, studying for a master’s in Roman and Greek history. At the party he spotted Joke, Plonie’s older sister. Although he had seen her before, they had never properly spoken.

Ashley, 33, a doctor, meets Eva, 32, a buyer for works in film and TV

What were you hoping for?
Someone to go along with my hare-brained schemes, and open all the links I send.

Choking during sex has become mainstream among under-35s. How did we get here?

Anthony* has been in a relationship for 10 years and chokes his partner during sex around one in every 10 times. The 29-year-old, who works in the health and fitness industry, noticed his partner liked to be touched around her neck, which over time led to experimenting with more pressure and “choking”.

“It was like, ‘Oh, OK, like, this is a nice thing. She likes this. And it’s kind of getting me in the mood as well,’” he says.

Just interrupt and say, ‘Sorry, I can’t bear film plots’

The question I am a woman in my 30s and I notice I can find conversation unfulfilling. When I am with new people, I find myself either having a bit of commentary in my head or doing lots of listening to their problems, as they might overshare things and I feel as if they are dumping on me. Such conversation feels unsatisfactory. This is not a feeling I get with older friends, where sharing and turn-taking is mostly natural and comfortable.

I notice that on dates someone might tell me anecdotes and I feel they aren’t connecting with me – sometimes a man will describe to me the plot of a film and I might be feeling desperately bored and be longing to be asked a question about myself or have a bit of back and forth about what is happening in the present moment. Do I have to push through that bit until I get to the comfortable conversation and parity stage?

After a few dates, Marg Arnold was charmed by the new man in her life. When she discovered they both owned the same ‘sexy tool’, she knew they had a future together

• Find more stories from The moment I knew series here

I’d been single for a couple of years when I won the booby prize in 2006. My family has a history of breast cancer so, although I was shocked, I wasn’t too surprised to find myself on the receiving end of a solemn diagnosis.

Living in regional Victoria made cancer treatment tough. I had chemo and radiotherapy locally and travelled to Melbourne for a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

The TV presenter, 59, on compulsive eating, turning 60 and the secret of a good marriage

We lived in Jordan during the Six Day War in 1967. It was scary. My British mum and Jordanian dad turned hiding under the table into a game. When my uncle offered Mum a gun to put under her pillow, she refused. That’s an Anglo-Arab upbringing.

Mum fell in love with Dad at first sight, in the BBC canteen. She worked for the French Service, he worked on Arabic. She requested a transfer to his department. Before long, they were married.

Annie has a very demanding job, and fetish sex is one way she can truly let go. Luckily, Jake shares her sexual curiosity

How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

We’ve been together for 14 years now and I think we’re just lucky that we both have high sex drives and are naturally sexually curious

Jake doesn’t have particularly strong sexual preferences himself as he’s driven by his partner’s pleasure

Extreme giddiness, sudden bliss, unexplained friskiness: was this a new strain of Covid?

An adult crush is such an elusive creature, like a snow leopard or a rare bird that you know exists but never see. I’m not talking about a celebrity or a musician crush, or in the case of my friend’s 24-year-old daughter, “I get crushes all the time, Shanti, on TikTok.”

“On TikTok?!” Good grief.