Frustrated Amateur about to snap. Just Plain Weirdness here.

ok,
ive been posting over teh past hour with various questions but this one needs answering.
heres the problem:
for some reason or another, i cannot include a pointer to CDialog derived class(my main window) into my CListCtrl derived class or my CTreeCtrl derived class. if i do, i get a whole bunch of errors(and yes i did include teh header file).
Whats so strange about it is that i can create instances of the class inside my class member functions but i cant declare a ptr as a class member. anyone know why this is happening? i have a major project due in 1 week that this problem is holding me up on. if you need any extra info just reply and ill provide it. ill be checking the message board every time i refill my Dr. Pepper can.
thanks
L5

mail me the code of both the classes and I'll see what I can do.
Passing the CDialog pointer to CTree... has to work.