I totally get that; my partner and I have the inverse of “I love you more” arguments (“I missed you, but not as much as you missed me.”) Neither of us are super-mushy in public, but we are secure enough in ourselves and our relationship to not need constant affirmation. And our lack of mushiness is what makes the…

I can attest this by experience. Once the word “divorce” came up, my ex-husband became super attentive and appreciative seemingly overnight. The morning we went to our marriage counselor to officially call it quits, he even initiated sex (this from a man who had refused to even give me a hug for months). His behavior…

if you live in the Midwest, there’s a horribly-named chain of stores called Dress Barn that actually sells super cute, reasonably priced dresses. When I had to dress up for work, the bulk of my wardrobe came from there. The rest came from JC Penney sales racks, which are a great place to buy cheap blazers.

My niece and nephew were being molested by their cousin while attending their aunt’s daycare. Their bio mom was aware, but didn’t do anything because she didn’t want to have to pay for daycare. When my sister and her husband (the kids are his) found out and cited this as a reason they should have custody, the judge…

Pale Fire is one of my all-time favorite books. My college advisor (English and Theatre, so I was working toward a degree in bartending and serving) always gave me shit for bitching about slow-moving narratives he assigned while reading Pale Fire in my free time.

I am so sorry for your loss. My mom had a miscarriage before I was born, and she has always been very open about it with us kids. The most affecting story, for me, was when an old friend saw her in the grocery store shortly after she lost the baby. No one knew she had been pregnant, and she had been married for…

I once logged onto Jez and had an ad for a crisis pregnancy center. I have no idea how that happened. I also regularly get ads for gay vacations and “A Place for Mom” on my solitaire app...I am 30, female, partnered with a male, have never been pregnant, and am firmly pro-choice. Someone’s algorithm needs serious work.

I have been getting AARP cards for several years now. I’m thirty. The only person who calls me old is my partner. So much confuse.

Sleep paralysis is the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced. It is one of the few things that has ever made me reflexively pray to get rid of...whatever.

Jessica Jones is the best depiction of sexual assault and its lasting effects that I have ever seen. And so much of that is due to what it doesn’t show.

There’s assessing potential partners as a natural human reaction, and there’s living your whole life based on it. I can see an attractive person and register that they are someone I may like to see naked. That’s a reflex that I can’t control. I can, however, control how much I continue down that mental road. That’s…

It’s like he has never seen HIMYM and the only intelligent thing Ted ever said: “Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.”

When I asked for a herpes screening after a past partner thought he had symptoms (false alarm, luckily), I was told that if you are tested when you aren’t exhibiting symptoms, the test has a 50% accurate rate, so the clinic I went to didn’t test unless the rash was present. Which kind of left me wondering what the…

Depends on the relationship. I had a tinder hookup who deserved an award for quality pussy-eating but was such a redneck bigot that we literally made a deal to keep our conversations 100% sex-related in order to keep doing it. As soon as I found a replacement who could eat pussy and not make me want to stab him after,…

One of my proudest moments took place in high school. Lisa, the bitchy “cool girl,” called me a lesbian (an insult, as far as she was concerned). I smiled, walked over to where she was sitting, and rested my hand on her leg. “That’s interesting; I didn’t think my crush on you counted,” I deadpanned. She didn’t speak…

I did eventually get real help. Moving away for college helped, too. It’s sad that the first impulse for so many people is to look to religion to solve concrete real-world problems.

My parents sent me to a FoF-approved counselor for my depression and self-harm..he was completely useless. He didn’t have a degree in counseling or anything related; he was a retired pastor. And he told me on day one that he had no experience with anyone who self-harmed but since it was basically the same thing as an…

My ex was the villain (his mom left me her furniture; his friends openly supported me in leaving his bullshit), and I would have loved for him to bring up divorce so I could stop trying to save a doomed marriage single-handedly instead of blaming myself for not being a good enough wife.

Nothing feels better than ending a toxic marriage. And if he leaves, it makes it that much easier for his wife to let herself off the hook and move on. I’m sure he has a friend or two whose couch he can crash on and complain about his bitch of an ex-wife for a while. It’s win-win.

I was married to this guy’s doppelganger. Alcoholic, depressed, couldn’t hold down a job or keep up the house while I worked. He wanted kids but there was no way in hell I was bringing kids into that. He was verbally abusive and angry no matter what I did. I left. OOT’s wife needs to do the same. She’s already a…