As long as she responds well to your boundary line, it’ll probably be OK for your friend. Not respecting drawn lines is INFURIATING (thankfully I say this based on my sister’s MIL, not my own).

Is “Jeff Goldblum” a type?

For me, it just took being bored of being bored. And that took three years. I don’t know how it happened or what got me out of the rut. What I can say is that I am someone who is normally into doing things and friends with people who are up to things and I got into a relationship with someone who was the opposite, and…

Yay for therapy and for finding a therapist you click with!

This sucks and I’m so sorry. I was in a similar situation - the feelings you have now (and for a while, probably) can be really confusing... but I’ll second what was said below: if he’s done, it’s done. One person cannot keep a marriage afloat. You are better off making a clean cut, and you will, in time, begin to real…

One person cannot carry an entire marriage.

I love the enthusiasm and your desire to reach kids that are like you were, but, teaching is a hard profession. I taught little ones and junior high age special Ed kids. It’s exhausting and not something people can just jump into. I get a bit offended when people are tired of their jobs and think, “Hmm, maybe I’ll…

This is the kind of problem therapy is there to solve. You need to better understand why you feel bad about your number and why you’re missing signals/picking the wrong kind of guy, and some intensive discussion with a therapist will both give you those answers and also some tools for how to change the situation. You…

Only to prison after her murder! No, we really can’t move. We have, however, beefed up our security at home and at work. We’ve changed phone numbers and email adresses. Somehow she finds our new ones. We don’t put our house address out there, but she found us by searching mortgage records. We can’t always ask our…

I got a really big doggie jogging partner (doberman) and the harassment vanished. Doggie magic.

Sometimes restraining orders only add gasoline to the fire. This woman has already been institutionalized repeatedly. She’s been out of work for at least 10 years. She lost all her money. She gets disability checks and a small stipend from a relative that we’ve notified of her latest behavior. She really has nothing…

It’s a tough time to go into education- the standardized testing, the common core, the charter movement, the union busting. Here’s another thing- those moments when you feel you are making a difference are few and far between. When people say, “Your work must be so rewarding,” I don’t know what to say. You need to…

That was/is still a great book! I read it cover to cover more than twice. It helped give me confidence in my own intuition.

And grabbed for a forced “hug goodbye” by a dude who just started following me because I had the nerve to walk past him carrying my groceries.

It’s super easy to document her harassment and threats. The problem is that my husband doesn’t want to file a restraining order and face her in court. He thinks that will give her the attention she seeks. I just want to bury her under the mental hospital. Enough already! 16 years! SIXTEEN YEARS!

Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your experience. I’m definitely still in the feeling-like-I-failed part, especially given how long it lasted. It’s like a sick joke, especially given the conversations we had about only wanting to get married once in our lives, get it right and stick with it, etc.

Ugh I honestly want to carry around a bag of rotten tomatoes. The next time someone honks at me because they’re in a hurry and I happen to walking through a cross walk at a slower pace than they would prefer I will chuck it through their window right into their dumb ass horse face. Signed, an angry pedestrian who has…

Cognitive Behavior Training was super useful for me. I only learned a few basic techniques but I still use them constantly.

OH MY GOD. I had a similar experience on a stationary bike during a physical therapy session. Except I did orgasm. Best day of physical therapy ever.

This is a spectacularly 80s/90s video. Spectacular.