Category: relationships
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Who Said Marriage Was Easy?
Mariella Says (in the Relationship section of The Guardian today, in response to a letter about a loveless marriage): “It’s easy to pontificate about tolerance and investment in a relationship and far harder to put it into practice. During times of difficulty it’s imperative we remember why we got hitched in the first place.” Dear…
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And The Progress Prize For Best Father This Father’s Day Goes To…
I’d like to say an early “Happy Fathers Day” to all those men for whom fatherhood hasn’t been quite what they expected, perhaps due to their own issues, the pressures of “toxic masculinity”, or perhaps because, (as in the old man’s case), they produced a square peg. First of all, I should probably justify my…
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The Twelve Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Get Married
We go through different phases in our marriage. Sometimes we love each other with the intensity of Jack and Rose in Titanic; sometimes he’s George and I’m Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Normal, right? It didn’t take me long to work out that marriage involves a lot of hard work and luck. There…
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Sharing Your Fantasies On A Middle-Aged Weekend Getaway
She luxuriated in the fresh white cotton bedlinen of their four-poster bed as she looked up at him. He lay over her, on his haunches, a quizzical look on his face, the muscles of his arms twitching. He was still beguilingly ripped for a middle-aged man. She shivered as she watched him devour her body…
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I Must Thank My Son For His Mental Illness
The boy turned twenty-one last week, and while part of me wants to scream and holler with excitement, pride, and relief, the other part wants to sit in a corner, rocking and licking my wounds. Many of you will be familiar with our journey with Kurt, our son. It was one of the reasons I…
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Snoring: First-World Marital Problems In Middle Age
There’s no doubt that there are certain times in a marriage – like right now as the old man’s feelings of disdain and disappointment penetrate the bedroom wall because I am still in bed at 10am on a Saturday morning – that prove more testing than others. But if Trump thinks he’s got problems with…
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A Postmortem Of Twenty-Five Years Of Marriage
As we hurtle towards our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary – celebrations and condolences for which are still under negotiation – it seems to me that the timing couldn’t be more perfect for a postmortem of our relationship. I’ll be honest with you, as the product of divorced parents, I never expected our marriage to last, and…
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Forgiveness And The Ability To Say Sorry
Ask any member of my family and they will confirm that one of my biggest faults is my lack of forgiveness and more pertinently my inability to say “sorry.” It is not something I can deny, and neither will I apologize for it – obviously. Perhaps my absence of empathy in this regard has something…
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My Kids Will Be Able To Say A Lot Of Things About Me, But Never That I Didn’t Love them.
A friend asked me the other day about how I felt about Mothers Day, and I knew that the question was loaded – you see, I haven’t had a mother for a long time. And for the first time, it struck me that I don’t view the celebration from the perspective of my own mother.…
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The Sins Of The Mothers
In view of Mothers Day in the UK yesterday, I thought I’d tell you about a funny little conversation I had with my son last week. For those of you with younger kids, be warned that like me you will reach a point with your almost-adult kids – usually at the end of seven years…
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Why Every Parent Needs To Watch Lady Bird
Described by Empire as ‘A coming-of-age story like no other, Lady Bird is smart, emotional, funny and completely original. Rarely has a directorial debut been so assured, so singular and so heartwarmingly affecting,’ the movie Lady Bird has been critically acclaimed worldwide, and as a sucker for any movie that offers the secret to parenting, it…
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My Virtual Affair With Jon Hamm And Those Rumors
Some of you might prefer to forget the post I wrote about my sex dream with our prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull – and if not, here’s a reminder. It was one of those bizarre dreams that must have been instigated by medication or alcohol, or a mix of the two. And while some of you tried…
LOUISA SIMMONDS 