A journalist and author's musings on love, marriage, divorce and life
Posted in Divorce, Expectations, Marital plan, Marriage, Midlife, Parenting, Relationships on Nov 24th, 2015
Nothing will make you think more about what marriage is about than a divorce. But there’s divorce and then there’s divorce. When I divorced in my 20s and we had nothing — no property, no savings, no kids — it was emotionally challenging, true, but that’s about it. If someone presented me a way to […]
Posted in Beta marriage, Cohabitation, Divorce, Expectations, Marital plan, Marriage, Relationships on Nov 17th, 2015
Whether or not you said “until death do us part” in your wedding vows, and an increasing number of couples don’t say it anymore, most of us believe marriage should be lifelong even if they don’t always end up that way. Of course when the words “until death” were added to the wedding vows, in […]
Posted in Children, Dating, Divorce, Expectations, Relationships on Nov 10th, 2015
The media is still trying to figure out the recent splits between rockers Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale after 13 years, and country singers Blake Shelton and Miranda Lampert after four years when it was revealed that The Voice co-hosts Gwen and Blake were an item. According to Gwen, “There’s been loads of people that […]
Posted in Expectations, Gender, Men, Relationships, Wife, Women on Nov 3rd, 2015
Halloween is over, which means it’s a rapid slide into the holidays — Thanksgiving to Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa leading into New Year’s. Instead of considering the last two months of the year the most wonderful time of the year, many people consider it the most stressful time of the year. Especially women. It starts with Thanksgiving, our […]
Posted in Divorce, Expectations, Family, Love, Marriage, Relationships, Stereotypes on Oct 27th, 2015
Marriage is hard work but worth it. If you end up divorced, it means you didn’t try hard enough, you don’t know what commitment means and you’re putting you own happiness before your family’s — or all of the above — and that’s why you have a failed marriage. What divorced person hasn’t heard that […]
Posted in Expectations, Love, Marriage, Relationships, Sex on Oct 20th, 2015
I have been thinking about security lately, not in an Ashley Madison hack kind of way, but the way we seek security in romantic relations and what we gain — and give up — to have it. It was spurred by watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona again, the 2008 Woody Allen movie that explores the very […]
Posted in Divorce, Expectations, Heartbreak, Love, Relationships on Oct 13th, 2015
I had been thinking about heartbreak. It wasn’t that I was experiencing any at that particular time, but like every who has lived a few decades, I’ve had my share of it. And I wondered — did my experience with the often excruciatingly painful reality of heartbreak influence how I moved forward in love and […]
Posted in Dating, Expectations, Family, Friends, LGBT, Marriage, Millennials, Relationships on Oct 6th, 2015
Lena Dunham is in a bind. In March, the Girls creator boldly told Ellen DeGeneres that she and her boyfriend of three years, Jack Antonoff, would not be tying the knot until same-sex couples could, too — a noble gesture that Brad Pitt announced at one point, but then he and Angelina Jolie went ahead and […]
Posted in Expectations, Love, Marital plan, Marriage, Relationships, Weddings on Sep 29th, 2015
A month or so ago, I offered to work with a newlywed couple to create a marital plan. I got a polite, thanks but we’re just too busy and [new husband] isn’t too interested anyway. My The New I Do co-author Susan posited a similar question her friend about to marry. “Oh, we’re good,” the […]
Posted in Expectations, Family, Marriage, Men, Relationships, Women, Work on Sep 22nd, 2015
I was talking to a GenX journalist friend, in the midst of a divorce, about marriage, divorce, etc., and we acknowledged that, unlike Boomers and Millennials, GenX men can be a bit confused about the massive change in gender roles and what women are looking for in a partner. As we continued our free-rambling conversation, […]
