Tag: relationships

Envy over her success led her husband, also a writer, to become violent. She fights every day for her safety — and to avoid being relegated to obscurity like so many writers who are mothers.

What happens when ordinary people play God to strangers? Leora Smith explores the history of one of the oldest art installations at Burning Man and the conversations that unfold there.

Deena ElGenaidi considers the ways in which adoring Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine from afar in her teens and early 20s provided a safe outlet for expressing desire.

Nicole Walker contemplates the nature of migration, and realizes there are two places you can never escape: the planet and your own head.

After a ten-year relationship ends painfully, Mona Kirschner finds herself searching for emotional and physical healing at a weight loss center in Brazil.

Laura Lippman, admittedly a rotten friend, is bummed by the ways in which friendships end as one gets older.

Robert Lopez examines what it means to be an assimilated American from Puerto Rico, and what was gained and lost in the process.

After Jay Deitcher sits silent as his wife is verbally assaulted by his father’s racist friend, he grapples with the ways his family has been muted by trauma.

After the death of her dog, Katie Gutierrez grapples with the ripple effects of her decisions — and how to live with uncertainty as a mother.

In the wake of childbirth and postpartum complications affecting her mental health and her marriage, Ukamaka Olisakwe picks herself up and starts over — in grad school.

Alyson Pomerantz reframes her understanding of illness when an allergic reaction turns out to be something else.

From straightening her teeth to finding her true love, Summer Block has reached the milestones in her life later than most.

Melissa Berman recalls what was said, and not said, between her and her beloved aunt as they approached her final year.

How does receiving a donated organ affect a person’s sense of self? Caitlin Dwyer explores the lives of organ donor recipients and their intimate relationships with donor families.

When her 13-year-old daughter finds love a stone’s throw away, Lisa A. Phillips confronts the inevitability of first heartbreak.

Joy Notoma grapples with saying goodbye to friends before a move, the complicated grief of shunning, and the way one parting can be a painful reminder of so many others.

On the profound loneliness of female desire in Lisa Taddeo’s “Three Women.”

What kinds of relationships exist between humans and animals, and what well-intentioned actions from humans bring harm?

A late bloomer as far as relationships go, my first encounter with heartbreak came from the track. It was junior year. The district meet: all big Texas sky and girls next to me adjusting hair ties and heat waves shimmering ahead. At that point in my life, I had devoted myself entirely to running. I […]

Brick had gotten a new jaw, nose, and cheekbones from a surgeon in California, costing him around $30,000, and still he was furious at women and the world.

As she prepares to leave the home she shared with her ex, Marlene Adelstein finds herself fixated on the husk of a nest hanging in the yard.

Nancy Jainchill recalls a ’70s sexcapade that helped her make (one month’s) rent, and began her exploration into women’s pleasure and sexual parity.

Matthew Salesses considers the impact of his wife’s passing, and other factors, on his experience as a human passing through the fourth dimension.

Hoping to reconnect to their love for the iconic musician, Kevin Sampsell and an old girlfriend go to hear his best known band play without him.

Never eat pot chocolate on a third date, and other lessons about love.

A BDSM relationship gone wrong helped Britni de la Cretaz find God.

Their mothers were secrets, right up until their deaths.

Golden Age antiheroes and the nasty women who humanized them.

Black women take power where they can find it, and sometimes that’s in a pot of hot, skin-searing grits.

My on-again, off-again love affair with Engelbert Humperdinck.