Am I Activating Old Stuff
Both of my parents are emotionally cut off from themselves. When I went off to college I found the emotional connection to myself. Over time I slowly learned to trust myself in most of my relationships until now. I am in a long term relationship with a guy who says all the right things and […]
Miss Having A Partner
I am a stay at home mom with 2 small children and I am completely miserable in my marriage. I feel like a single parent because my husband wants nothing to do with me and the children. He financially provides for our family yet is not the least bit interested in interacting with us. He […]
Hanging In The Balance
I have a sense about my wife’s infidelities and have not known what to do about them. My fear is that if I do admit this to myself then I will have to do something about it and I am not sure that I am emotionally strong enough to do anything. I feel like my […]
Lying And Cheating
My husband has been lying and cheating on me for god knows how long. How could I be so stupid to think that he could stay faithful to me with a job that takes him jet-setting around the globe? Now what? There are many ways that you can begin to process your disheartening discovery. The […]
A Test From The Universe
I work a 10 to 12 hour day at a job that I love and don’t have time for anything that isn’t related to work, certainly not a relationship. I promised myself that if I got my dream job that I wouldn’t ask for anything else. I kept my word and haven’t put much thought […]
My Parents Marital Issues
After I graduated from college last year I landed the most incredible job. My parents set me up in a very chic two bedroom apartment that they bought as an investment in Manhattan. At their insistence I pay almost nothing in rent and they come into the city now and then and spend the weekend […]
What Is The Point Of Honesty
Why should we tell the truth if we know that it is going to cause the person pain and potentially put an end to an important relationship? This is an interesting question. I believe that it is important that we be honest and open with ourselves first and foremost. It is this ongoing relationship that […]
He Found Our Stash
My husband and I smoke marijuana recreationally. Yesterday our 14 year old son found our stash and confronted us asking if it was all right for him to smoke marijuana? We responded by saying that when he becomes an adult he can make that choice for himself. Should we have responded differently to our sons […]
An Inside Job
I look outside of myself as a way of gauging my feelings. If it is a sunny day and the stock market is up then I feel great. If however my girlfriend or my mother is upset with me I do not feel so good. My self esteem comes from how much I am valued […]
Father’s Day
It is almost Father’s Day, that one day that I think to myself ‘so what! Where was that asshole when I was growing up?’ Because I receive a card and phone call from him on every appropriate holiday I find the polite part of myself wanting to return the favor. In the store I read […]
I Never Feel Like I Am Enough
I really struggle with feeling like I am enough. Everything that I have accomplished I thought I was doing for myself but I always seem to be looking for recognition from others, especially my father. He expects everything from me that I expect from myself but I just want to feel like he is proud […]
Should I Stay Or Should I Go
I really do not want to be married any longer but I am afraid of splitting up our family. My own mother left my father when my sisters and I were little and I always resented her for that. I thought that my parents should have worked things out between themselves and kept us all […]
Progressive Parenting
We just had our first child. I have been thinking about how I was raised with so much disapproval by both of my parents as their way of controlling me. I would like my husband and I to do things completely different. Ideally I would like to never use the word NO with our son. […]
I Feel Anxious
I feel anxious all the time. I cannot attribute these troublesome feelings to anything specific however these feelings are very familiar to me and I am sick and tired of living like this. I know that medication is available for what is called Generalized Anxiety Disorder which is probably my clinical diagnosis but I do […]
Can I Break This Chain
My great grandfather beat my grandfather, my grandfather beat my father and my father beat me. I guess you could say it has been the family chain of pain. I swore to myself that I would never have children for fear of repeating this god awful family tradition. I am engaged and my fiance is […]
I Lost My Best Friend
My 13 year old dog died last week and I died with her. I have never felt such a deep sense of loss and sorrow. When I lost my mother two years ago I did not experience this depth of pain. I cannot get out of bed to go to work. I have not answered […]
My Alcoholic Parents
I started telling stories about my family in the second grade. It was then that I began to understand that my parents were different from the other kids parents. Both of my parents are alcoholics. I have spent my childhood, adolescents as well as a good portion of my adulthood trying to cover up this […]
Here Goes Everything
Dearest Jamie, I am having a delicious affair with a loving, oh so adoring and extremely attentive unmarried man who is 10 years younger than myself. I cannot remember when I have felt this happy. I keep waiting for the guilt and self hatred to set in, but it is not happening. If anything I am […]
He Wants Me To Find A Lover
My husband has not been interested in sex since he lost his job 14 months ago. He begs me to go on one of those dating sites for married people and find a lover. He is consumed with guilt about neglecting the emotional and physical aspect of our marriage and he says that it is […]
What About My Wife
I found the love of my life my sophomore year in High School. We dated until we both went off to college in different parts of the country. I thought about her all the time but we never reconnected until now, thirty years later. We found each other on Facebook and it has been life […]
What Is Going To Happen To Our Family
My parents are getting a divorce and I feel like my life is over. They have never fought in front of my sister and I and even though my dad travels a lot for work we never for one minute thought that they were having problems. My mom will not discuss the details about what […]
Have Never Prayed Harder For Anything
The happiest memories of my childhood are from the times spent with my mother. I was an extension of her and she loved and adored me with all of her heart. I wanted to be a mother myself one day too share this sweet relationship with my own child. I am 34 years old and […]
Worried For Our Mom
My parents got divorced when I was 13 and my brother was 14 and we have always lived with our mom and saw our dad some weekends when he wasn’t busy with his girlfriends. We are now 17 and 18 and our mom has not been out on one single date, that we know about. […]
What Was I Thinking?
My 16 year old daughter has been interested in boys since the young age of 13. Since this time she has either been crushing on boys or dating boys. She has repeatedly told me not to worry because she knows what she is doing. I have believed this to be true until last week. I […]
