Columns

My husband and I have been married for almost six years, and together for 10. We are in our early 30s and have started trying to have a baby. We stopped using birth control in January and we still don’t have that positive test. The tension in our relationship is getting so tough. I got my period two days ago and my husband acted like I miscarried. I was disappointed, too, but I guess I don’t show it as much. He said it was like I didn’t want kids, and I said I didn’t feel like mourning every period. We have a doctor’s appointment next month and we are trying until then….

My boyfriend and I have been dating for 4.5 years. I am late 20s and he is early 30s. When we first began dating, he had just been informed that his father had cancer and was not expected to live. For the first two years of our relationship, we were traveling a lot to his family’s home, helping his mom, etc. My boyfriend is a very intelligent but emotional person, and the eventual death of his father took a big toll on him. He has always been a drinker. He went to a large state school where the culture was “drink, pass out, drink some more, stagger to class, watch football.” Not…

I saw this question from a reader of Slate’s Dear Prudence and was so appalled, I had to share it with you: I had a baby two months ago. About two weeks ago, my husband had to go out of town for a few days, so his mother came to stay with the baby and me. One night I heard the baby crying, and heard my MIL go to him. I thought she was going to bring him to me to nurse so I stayed in bed for a while. When she didn’t bring him, I figured she was just rocking him back to sleep and went to see if she needed…

I’m a 36-year-old professional woman, with my own place, a career, and graduate degree. I have no children, have never been married, and am pretty laid back. I tend to approach relationships at the speed of lightning, though, as in I get attached very quickly and I also am intimate with a man more quickly than most women I know. Recently, I reconnected with an old friend online whom I haven’t seen in probably six years. He divorced two years ago and is the father of an adorable 7-year-old. Anyway, we met up for cocktails, one thing led to another, and we ended up having mind-blowing sex for the entire night until…

I am happily engaged to a wonderful man. We’ve known each other for almost a decade, and we’ve been together for almost two and a half years. Before we got together, I had a history of cheating whenever I was bored or unsatisfied in relationships. It was mostly a result of being young and having no desire to put forth the effort to solve relationship problems, paired with a case of youth-induced egocentrism. My fiancé and I dated before when I was a teenager and he was in college, and the relationship ended when I cheated on him. He’s forgiven me, and the problem has been resolved for years. Since we began…

I have been dating my boyfriend for nine months. We get along great and I am head-over-heels in love with him. I have very minimal baggage if any (no kids, I own my home, I have a great job.) My friends and clients always tell me I have my shit together. He, however, has all the baggage. He comes from a home that had men coming in and out of it all his life. His mom had three kids all by different men, and he is the product of a drunken one-night-stand. He met his now ex-wife in high school. They dated for a few years, broke up for a year, got…

My husband and I have been together for five years and married for one. I am 25. Whenever he is upset about something, like if we had an argument or I snapped at him about something, he will be pouty and childish and avoid me for the whole evening and come back and expect everything to be OK even after avoiding me all night. I have told him I don’t like when he avoids me all night and it is not OK. For instance, yesterday all day, my toe hurt like I had been stung and I couldn’t see what was wrong but it made my whole foot feel numb. I asked…

I live in Belgium and am currently in a relationship with someone who grew up in Croatia. His mother is Belgian but lives there with his father, on a beautiful island. He moved here five years ago to study, and he has decided to stay since he’ll have more work opportunity here. We started our relationship one year and four months ago, and I can honestly say he’s everything I ever wanted. He asked me to marry him, and, of course, I said yes. We’ve been living together for eight months now, and, although we sometimes argue, it has been super. We even work together as a team (we work in advertising)…