Columns

A year ago I met two guys. They are both friends of a girlfriend of mine. We’ll call them Guy A and Guy B. Guy A and Guy B are certainly not the best of friends, but they used to work together and do the occasional happy hour together. I had a random one-night stand (OK, two-night stand) with Guy A. I immediately regretted it, not just because Guy A is a jerk, but because I was getting to know Guy B and thought we would be great together. Both guys are long-distance, so after meeting them I would communicate with Guy B through text almost every day. Eventually, six months after…

I have been dating my boyfriend, “Mark,” for about 1.5 years, but we were friends/FWBs for about 1.5 years before that. We do not live together, but we spend every other weekend together. His 15-year-old daughter has had a best friend, Michelle, since 5th grade, and Mark has gotten to know Michelle’s whole family well. Before Mark and I started dating, when we were just in a FWB situation, I took my kids to a hockey game and Michelle’s family was there as well. I thought her mom, Dana, gave me some evil looks when she saw Mark come talk to me, but I dismissed that thought immediately as her husband was…

I recently got married and we agreed to stop actively preventing pregnancy for now. Emotionally, we’re not exactly ready to have kids though financially we are. Ideally, we would wait three years, but we would feel very blessed to have a baby before then (we had my fertility tested and there are some issues; if I was unable to conceive, we would likely adopt). We want to ease into the process, especially since I’m still young, and be as prepared as we can, which is why these thoughts of readiness are coming up now. When my husband and I first met, we were not in a good place emotionally. Both of us…

I married an abusive, cheating drug addict. I was with him for 12 years and have been divorced for nearly two years now. I’ve been dating a man, seven years my junior, who was a cocaine addict before we met. It’s been seven of the best months of my life. He felt he had hit rock bottom and stopped doing drugs cold turkey right before we started dating; he didn’t see a counselor or attend meetings. I think this has shown great strength on his part. We have been practically inseparable since day one but still have our own lives, so it’s been great. Last week, he told me he’s very unhappy…