“Some of my female classmates were really happy to see me at the reunion,” Tom texted.

“Exactly how happy?” his wife asked.

“VERY happy,” he answered.

The Other Woman

It was their fifteen-year high school reunion at a fancy restaurant in Stockholm. The butterflies in her stomach soared when she saw him walk in. When he said “Hey, Anna…” and hugged her, she knew she was in trouble.

They hadn’t seen each other in years. He moved to another continent right after high school, and she thought her feelings for him were long gone. She’d gotten married, had a kid, and became a…

I had quite an interesting conversation with my ten-year-old friend Emilia the other day. She told me how her best friend Leslie upset her. Apparently, Leslie told Emilia that she’d rather go walk somebody else’s dog than video chat with her. “That’s so mean! Why doesn’t she care about my feelings? She should be a bit more considerate and not tell me things that may hurt me!” Emilia exclaimed.

I hugged Emilia and told her I was sorry to hear that she was so upset. I also told Emilia that it was only up to her to manage her own…

“Okay. Let’s start dating other people”, my husband said after we finished appetizers.

I met my husband, Jay, in front of a nightclub in two thousand four. We were both recent grads. I had a shady job selling carbon fiber centrifuge rotors, and Jay was unemployed. I didn’t care that he was jobless — he had a great smile, wide shoulders, and kind eyes. We talked for hours in the club's outside smoking area that night, missing the headliner and the rest of the party.

Over the next few weeks, I desperately looked for any excuse to spend time with…

I had an epiphany the other night: we focus on succeeding at our careers a lot more than we focus on succeeding at our relationships.

Career development is something almost every employer and employee I know thinks about a lot, myself included. All the companies I’ve worked at — startup to enterprise — proactively manage employee retention rate and overall employee satisfaction. At my current job, I use designated tools for goal tracking, responding to employee pulse surveys, manager check-ins, collecting real-time peer feedback, and for my annual performance reviews. …

One day my boyfriend introduced me to his friend Luna. The minute she and I started talking the topic of childhood traumas and therapy came up. Luna told me about the new therapist she found. He led guided psychedelic therapy sessions using various hallucinogenic substances. She said that a handful of those sessions were more effective than more than ten years of therapy combined.

Over the years therapy has become a hobby of mine. I’d been seeing a therapist on and off since I was fifteen. I believe anyone could benefit from therapy unless they had already reached enlightenment. …

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
– George Bernard Shaw

Changes happen all the time. The nature of life is fluid and uncertain, but we, humans, resist this part of reality. We like when things are stable, predictable, and in our control. Sure, some element of surprise is okay, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could control how many surprises we actually get?..

When my husband and I decided to open our marriage, I had a vision of what our life would be like. …

“Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every relationship you have.”

— Robert Holden

When my husband and I decided to open our marriage, I had no idea how everything would change. Polyamory turned out to be the most exciting experiment of my life, one that allowed me to explore my needs around love, connection, and sexuality. That type of exploration simply wouldn’t have been possible in any of my previous monogamous relationships. Suddenly, there I was — living completely freely, daring to dream, and making those dreams come true.

When I’d had a fantasy about a coworker and…

Last year at my virtual birthday party my mom raised a glass and said “There is absolutely nothing I could wish my daughter on her birthday, because her life is already perfect.”

What? Does she even know me?

Right around that time I started talking to my now ex about moving out. The world was starting to panic about COVID. All four of us were home twenty four-seven having meetings at the same time, including the kindergartner. My mood fluctuated between wanting to escape, break things, and hide under the blanket and wait it all out. To make matters worse…