Dear Margo: I need advice about my mother. I am 21, pregnant and happily married to a wonderful man. We recently moved from 20 hours to five hours away from my mother. Since then, she has driven me completely nuts!

All my life she has told me bad things about men, including my father (who's a great dad, and divorced from my mother since I was 5). She also likes to manipulate me and guilt-trip me. I can't even stand to be with her because she is obsessive-compulsive and complains about everyone and everything. Even phone calls leave me in tears because she just stresses me out so much.

With the baby on the way, she wants to visit more often and take me on six-hour shopping trips that I don't care to go on. My husband and I can buy the baby things just fine.

How can I get my mother to stop dumping her emotions on me without having her freak out? I would like her first grandchild to have a relationship with her, but it's hard for me to spend time with her anymore. — Stressed and at the End of a Short Rope

Dear Stress: You are at the crossroads where you're either going to have to get it your way or make yourself scarce. I think you must tell your mother that, somewhere between your hormones and your brain, you've decided that she needs to modify her approach to you or there will have to be a timeout.

There is nothing wrong with making it known that you no longer wish to hear what is wrong with men, what is wrong with your father, what is wrong with everybody and everything. By all means make it clear that you want her in the baby's life, but you cannot handle all the negative narrative.

Give her the chance to do better, and at least your differences with her will be out in the open. — Margo, transformationally

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Whose Work Is the Best of All?

Dear Margo: I have a longtime friend who's a well-known photographer. We have worked together for years, but since I moved to the United States, our contact has been kept at a minimum. Recently we've talked more over the phone, and I even visited him at his house and studio back in our country.

The point is he is doing a new book and he has been sending me some pictures for this future work, and I'm not crazy about these pictures. He wants to know my opinion, but when I told him I was not seeing as much passion as I used to see in his work, he got very upset and hung up.

I called a couple of times and left a message apologizing and reinforcing the value of his work, but he hasn't returned my calls. I value our friendship, but since we are not young anymore, he is 54 and I am 36, I thought he could take it.

I am an art director, and when I receive criticism it is always a wake-up call for me and I feel challenged. What should I do? Just let go and realize that maybe he was not really a good friend, or try to control the damage? — Brutally Honest

Dear Brut: The issue is not that this person is not a good friend; it is that he is thin-skinned and not really interested in anything other than praise. I don't see a way to "control the damage," unless it would be by playing yourself false.

These things happen in professional friendships, and you have to know your customer. It strikes me as too bad when a creative person asks a peer's opinion but really only wants admiration. — Margo, constructively

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Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers' daughter. All letters must be sent via e-mail to [email protected]. Due to a high volume of e-mail, not all letters will be answered.