We all lie at some point, about something.
Whether it’s a small lie or even a major one — lying happens — even to the best-intentioned people.
However, most of us do not consider ourselves to be pathological liars.
But what IS a pathological liar, really? And how is it different than being just a plain old ordinary liar?
The term pathological liar gets thrown around a lot. It can be used as a way to describe a person who has been caught in many lies or who has betrayed someone in some way. Uttering the phrase, “She/he is a…
It all started with an argument about the man I was dating.
My close friend — who had been one of my best friends during some of the most formative years of my life — was angry with me. Her hazel eyes were blazing with fury and her black hair was sticking to her wet cheeks from crying.
She had always been opinionated over the men that I chose to date and it was no secret to those who knew her that she herself was only into dating women.
She was several years older than me and had taken me…
Relationships are a journey full of peaks, valleys, and weird, unexpected gray areas in between.
Caring for a partner and their needs is not without a certain sacrifice.
Relationships take a concerted effort. Marriage is a serious commitment.
Those of us who have experienced these kinds of relationships already know all of these things.
Staying interested and engaged with your partner after many, many years is not only a challenge but it often takes remembering who it is that you are in a relationship with — and why you were attracted to them in the first place.
Losing that intoxicating…
Relationships can often be painful, draining, and uncomfortable — even though we may cherish them greatly.
This is because relationships require us to crack open our most vulnerable selves — to unveil the parts of us we may not like or the parts we rush to hide.
Relationships require far more than fanciful dreams and giddy lust. A real-world partnership and/or marriage with another human being takes guts — cold, hard, gritty guts.
It’s not for everyone.
Though we may see couples out and about holding hands, touching one another tenderly, or looking lovingly into each other’s eyes, there’s always…
Have you ever been cheated on?
Have you ever been cheated on while being a faithful and devoted lover to the person who cheated on you?
If the answer is YES, then you’ve most likely dealt with a healthy serving of pure, unadulterated pain. You’ve most likely felt that heaving, sobbing ache of despair.
A faithful lover attaches themselves to a person whom they simply can’t see past. A person they never want to stray from. A person they’d never even think about betraying.
Being a faithful lover to the end no matter what the circumstances are can be a…
There are oodles of ways we can sabotage our own sex lives when our train of thought goes off the rails. It’s so easy to give in to distraction — to worry. It’s not hard to lose the desire for sex because of the things we think about.
Here, I offer you 3 ways you can enhance your train of thought and get yourself back on track in order to get into a more relaxed sexual mood.
Look, we’ve all been there. Whether it’s worrying about how our fat jiggles, if our scars show, or if our…
The idea of two people getting married and spending eternity together is still an incredibly romantic idea for many people.
A married couple being together for decades is often cause for a celebration where everyone congratulates the couple on making it that far.
But what are we really congratulating them for? The fact that they have remained legally married and living together for a very long time OR whether they are still faithful to one another and genuinely happy to co-exist together after all those years?
I would argue that those two things are not always the same.
The reason…
During 2020 we ALL had to adapt to unforeseen circumstances that not only inconvenienced us on a day-to-day basis but also significantly destroyed lives and families permanently.
We had to find new ways to entertain ourselves and we also had to find new ways to cope with how our lives and communities changed due to a virus that spread rapidly throughout the world.
At first, when the schools and businesses shut down, it felt like it would only be for a few weeks — maybe a month at the most.
But it wasn’t just for a week or a month…
When life offers us new opportunities to grow — it’s vital to open those doors and learn everything we possibly can.
This includes learning from the lessons our romantic relationships teach us — if we’re willing to learn.
When I look back on my first marriage and mentally re-live how that relationship went — I am absolutely floored by the behavior I put up with and how long I put up with it.
Of course, it’s no big surprise that my first marriage looks substantially worse as I look back through that rear-view mirror with the perfect lens of hindsight.
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Experiencing anxiety attacks while also trying to be a healthy and functional partner in a relationship can be extremely challenging — and not just for the partner who is experiencing the anxiety attacks.
When you’re a partner to someone who has acute anxiety, it can be quite demanding to deal with their particular issues. It can strain not only the relationship itself but the individual who is often attempting to calm the anxieties their partner has on a regular basis.
I realized that my own anxiety had reached a dangerous peak when my husband and I recently went away for…
Writer, Partner, Lover, Mother & Stepmother. Ponderings on sex, love, parenting, step-parenting & the journey of life. Meet me there. www.theponderingnook.com