The intimacy of a break up — I’m going to let you in on a little-known secret. Are you ready? Here it is: Breakups can be really intimate experiences. This is a Thing, and you need to be aware of that if you’re planning on breaking up with someone. Sometimes, we’ll get to the point where we think we’re as sure as we can be that we want to end a relationship. We’ll make a clear decision to end a relationship, we’ll feel good about that decision, and we’ll believe we’re committed to sticking with that decision.

Planning “The Conversation” — If you’re as sure as you can be that you want to break up with someone, it’s time to plan The Conversation. How will you tell your person it’s over? What will you say, and when will you say it? Investing some time and energy into planning The Conversation will help set you up for success — i.e., for having a breakup experience that is as effective and not-awful as possible.

Five ways to help you make the end of a relationship a little easier — They say that breaking up is hard to do, and there’s good reason for this. Did anyone ever teach us how to break up with someone — especially someone we care about deeply, and truly don’t want to hurt? Probably not. Have you had any chances to practice the fine…

Let’s say you’re in a relationship that’s supposed to be monogamous. And you did something that definitely counted as cheating in the context of that relationship. And your partner knows about it. Maybe you told them, maybe they discovered what you’d been up to, maybe it was a little bit…

In a way that’s truly right for YOU — So many folks I work with who are cheating on their partners, or are engaging in some other form of infidelity are EXHAUSTED. They’re tired of living a double life. They’re tired of lying. They’re tired of covering their tracks. They’re tired of having to maintain — or at least keep up appearances in — two or more relationships. They really WANT their lives to be simpler.

Infidelity is not an individual moral failing — We, as a society, tend to glorify, and even fetishize romantic relationships. We love to see people fall in love. We believe in “true love” and “soul mates.” We love to see people get into committed relationships. We love the idea of romantic love being this thing that happens between two people and only two people. And then there are weddings. …

How to make sense of the adultery love triangle — You’ve fallen head-over-heels for someone. And they’ve fallen madly in love with you, too! And you feel so goddamn lucky that the fates brought the two of you together, and you want nothing more than to spend your life with this person, and you feel so glad that your Person wants to spend their life with you, too. There’s just one little problem. Your Person is married. To someone other than you.

How to make choices when having an affair — Infidelity situations often involve decisions, and sometimes pretty big ones. Sometimes infidelity situations occasion decisions that seem so big we don’t know what to do with them. And sometimes, when we’re facing a big decision — or a whole set of them — we freak out a little bit. Or…

Staying in your committed (and ostensibly monogamous) relationship and committing to cheating has some definite upsides. You get to keep your nice, comfortable, stable primary relationship the way it is… and you get to satisfy all the desires that aren’t being met in that relationship, without having to deal with any of the drawbacks of being in an open relationship (starting, perhaps, with your spouse or…