There are too many excellent advice columns to keep up with, so we're committed to bringing you links to the best advice column questions and answers every week. Here's a roundup of the most interesting, thought-provoking and surprising questions that our favorite columnists addressed in recent days.

How Can I Convince My Girlfriend, Who Paid Cash For The $1 Million House We Live In, To Share Her Inheritance With Me?

My longterm girlfriend and I disagree about whether a $30,000 inheritance left to her by her great-aunt should be “her” money or “our” money. She wants to spend a large part (almost a third!) of it on expensive supplies for her hobby. I think that we should save most of it and use some of it on a vacation since we both find traveling extremely romantic.

My argument is: 1) I don’t care about her hobby, but we’ll both enjoy a trip abroad; 2) we’ve lived on only my (admittedly low, since it’s academia) income for over a decade, so according to her own rule about entitlement to “her” windfall, shouldn’t she technically have been entitled to none of my wages all these years?

Her argument is: 1) she had to put aside her hobby for many years to raise our children (it’s not a safe art form for young kids to be around) and yearns to return to it; 2) she paid entirely in cash for our $950K house at the beginning of our partnership (though my income pays the property taxes and maintenance costs), therefore she alleges that we haven’t actually been living on solely my income because I’ve been saving on rent all these years.

I feel resentful of the double standard about control over finances and hurt that she would rather prioritize her own joy over our shared joy. She feels impatient to reconnect with her hobby and hurt that her contributions to our lifestyle are unseen.

How do we reconcile our different viewpoints? How should the money be allocated? Is there something that we’re missing?

[Slate]

Elizabeth Spiers rules that the letter writer doesn’t get a say in how the girlfriend spends her inheritance. “I don’t know how many years you’ve been together, but has your (by your own admission low) income totaled up to at least a million dollars over the years?” she asks. “If you’re going to keep score regarding who contributes what, then you need to get the math right.” Read the rest of her answer.

How Can I Get My Daughter, A High-School Senior, To Spend More Time Researching Medical School?

My daughter is a senior in high school. She is currently enrolled in four AP classes (biology, physics, chemistry, and calculus) and completed two others during her junior year. She has one of the toughest course loads of all the students in her grade. She is incredibly hardworking. She also pursues extracurricular activities in the performing arts at a very high level, and despite these other commitments, and her being a year younger than the rest of her classmates (she skipped a grade during elementary school), she is consistently at the top of her class. She has gotten accepted to nearly every university that she has applied. I am well aware that this all sounds great, but I have some major concerns.

She has declared that her goal is to attend medical school and it’s clear that she is genuinely interested in the sciences and medicine. She has read numerous books on these subjects and loves discussing ethical and scientific topics at the dinner table. However, I don’t see her taking any real initiative to make this goal of hers a reality. She has spent very little time researching medical schools, the MCAT, or the courses she’d need to take in college if her goal is med school. She just keeps talking about how she wants to be a doctor and doing nothing to further that plan. Every time I mention that she has to be proactive, that in order to achieve her goal she has to plan for it and work toward it, she tells me that she is too focused on making it to the next day (with regards to her schoolwork) and has no time to do anything about that right now. I have been telling her how important it is to have a plan, and not to lose the forest for the trees, at least since she started high school, but it seems I haven’t gotten through to her. I know she’s smart, but I’m skeptical that she’ll get anywhere if she continues to take things day by day and hope for the best. Her refusal to think about the future is frustrating and disappointing to me. What should I do?

[Slate]

Michelle Herman advises the letter writer to leave their daughter alone. “Unless she asks you for advice — about how she should spend her time over the summer after graduation, about what to major in in college or what courses to take her first semester, etc. — let her be,” she writes. Read the rest of her answer.

How Can I Explain To The Person I’m Dating That I Love-Bombed Them Because Of My ADHD And Now They Give Me The ‘Ick’?

I want to preface this by saying that I care a lot about this person, so I really really don't want to hurt them. I have diagnosed ADHD, and I tend to "love bomb" people when we first start flirting and dating. Not to try to manipulate them, but because I have a tendency to hyperfixate on them, and they become the only thing that I can think or care about within the first few dates.

Then, after a few weeks, I usually find out something about them that gives me the "ick." The hyper-fixation wears off, their conversation get boring instead of being the most fascinating thing ever, and the small things that seemed like quirky issues reveal themselves to be fundamental differences. I often don't even understand why I found them physically attractive.

This happened to me recently, to someone that I've been talking to for about three weeks. They've been burned very hard before, so I worked hard to earn their trust. But after our date a few days ago, I got the "ick" massively. My heart drops when I see their name on my phone because I don't want to talk to them. They text me all the time and tell me that "I make them so happy,” and that they "have never felt so loved before." I feel trapped. I know I could easily leave and nothing would really affect me, but I know that it would hurt them badly. And now they are starting to question why my behavior has changed. I told them I am tired, but I'm so embarrassed. I don't know how to explain to them that I was just hyperfixating on them and don't feelings for them anymore.

[Boston.com]

Meredith Goldstein encourages the letter writer to seek help for this problem with their ADHD treatment team. “Let them know this is messing with your dating life and that you'd like to break the cycle,” she writes. “I'm sure there are specific therapy exercises to stop patterns of thinking so you can figure out whether you really like someone, are sick of them, or haven't seen the full picture yet.” Read the rest of her answer.

How Can I Get My Son, Who Graduated From An Ivy League School But Now Lives At Home, To Stop Embarrassing Me?

My 25-year-old Ivy-school-graduate son lacks motivation, and it’s, quite frankly, embarrassing. He was fired from a job he was overqualified for and just moved home. He would be happy to game all day and live cheaply under our roof indefinitely.

What can I do to help him find his way, and what do I tell “well-meaning” friends about his circumstances? Am I horrible to feel his lack of ambition is a reflection on our parenting choices and to want to protect myself?

[The Washington Post]

Carolyn Hax points out that the letter writer’s son may be depressed. “Let him know that you know it’s a really tough time to try to launch into adulthood — and that we all need do-overs sometimes,” she writes. “Tell him you’ll help, just ask.” Read the rest of her answer.

Am I Wrong To Be Annoyed That One Side Of The House Next Door To Our Beach House Is Unpainted?

My husband and I own a second home at the beach. We rebuilt ours, but most of the houses in the neighborhood are modest. We were happy when our neighbor hired painters last year. (The paint was peeling badly, and the shingles were droopy.) The odd thing: They painted the whole house except the side that faces us! When my husband asked our neighbor when she planned to finish the job, she said she ran out of money. Am I wrong to be annoyed? It can’t cost that much to paint one side of a house.

[The New York Times]

Philip Galanes counsels the letter writer to either offer to pay for the paint job or to learn to live with the unpainted wall. “If your neighbor paid the painters an hourly rate, it’s possible she spent her budget,” he writes. “And if she’s out of cash, it doesn’t matter how little it costs to paint one side of a house.” Read the rest of his answer.

Isn’t It Rude To Turn Off The Light While A Cat Is Eating?

My son is currently ill, and I visit his house to help with his dog and cat.

The cat's food dish is in the basement, kept separate from the dog's dish in the kitchen. The cat often wants more food after dark, so I turn on the light in the basement to go fill her bowl.

My son asks me to turn off the light when I come back upstairs, even though the cat is still eating. He says she can see in the dark because there's a little bit of light from the open door to the stairs. I feel it is rude to turn off the light while she is eating. What do you think?

[UExpress]

Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin side with the letter writer’s son. “As a compromise, you might suggest a motion sensor — as long as you are sure it will not scare the kibble out of Frisky,” they write. Read the rest of their answer.

Read out last week's column, where a homeschooling parent who wants to follow their child's interests at the expense of multiplication and division, a boss pressuring a teen worker to attend a "girls getaway," and a letter writer micromanaging his girlfriend's pregnancy.