His hockey equipment is lying on the carpet with the bag open so that his sweaty items don’t grow mold. His empty soda cans and old gum wrappers are still on his nightstand where he left them. All of the items from his brand new custom ordered 2015 orange RAV4 are stacked on his bed: a box of chocolates, his schoolwork, a Columbine keychain, his NA tags that mark his sobriety, and all of the garbage I could not bear to throw away....

Before Jolie married Thornton, the actor had been in a relationship with Dern after meeting her during a taping of Ellen DeGeneres’ sitcom ‘Ellen’ in 1997, where the comedian famously came out as gay. While filming the episode, where Dern played DeGeneres’ love interest, Susan, and fresh from her split with ‘Jurassic Park’ co-star Jeff Goldblum, Dern met and fell in love with Thornton. After meeting, the two started dating before getting engaged....

You must think of yourself, your ex, and the brand-new person you’re considering dating before getting back out in the dating world. How long should you wait to date again after a breakup? There’s really no hard and fast rule as long to how long you should wait to start dating again after a breakup. Time is not a factor — it’s about mindset and how you are feeling internally!...

He’d said it casually, dismissively that it’d be taken as a joke. But by then I’d come to know better. He wasn’t joking. It was a threat. That night, my boyfriend of two years raped me. Those words have since been burned into my memory and our entire relationship was distilled into a single, frightening whisper. That was seven years ago. It’s taken that long to come even remotely close to anything resembling stability and healing....

Unfortunately, when we think we must do something huge, we freeze in fear and uncertainty and instead do nothing. This often happens in relation to the most important matters facing us all, such as helping the homeless, working to end hunger, caring for at-risk children, supporting cancer research, and being an ally to BIPOC or the LGBTQIA+ community. When we think massive contribution is the only acceptable way to help we feel not only powerless but also made minuscule while standing in front of a seemingly impossible task....

Later, on a weather app, another ad: “Trendy Dresses for Older Women.” Google, as always, was minding my business right along with me. And, frankly, getting a little personal about my age! It’s not just the internet pointing out your age. Reminders of who the world thinks we ought to be are everywhere, and that includes the people around us. From the physician telling you after you’ve fallen that hiking is something to reconsider, to the endless griping about the gerontocracy in our government, people tell us we’re old and there’s stuff we just shouldn’t be doing anymore....

A neat freak and slob exist at polar ends of a spectrum. Most of us occupy an area somewhere in between these opposites. There will always be someone neater than you — or a bigger slob. The question is, how do people who exhibit such different personalities and personal habits coexist? By most standards, I was a tidy person, but then, when my kids came along, it was a losing battle....

They capture your attention away from the still small voice of intuition. This makes meditation or quiet time a crucial and deliberate activity in developing intuition. The practice is to step away from the noise. Stop, open your heart and listen. According to the Journal of Positive Psychology, intuition is especially beneficial when a person is stressed, under time pressure, or dealing with something complex because intuitive processes often lead to insight with higher diagnostic value than the rational-analytic processes of reasoning....

Kevin Strickland, 62, has always maintained his innocence, claiming he had been home watching television and had nothing to do with the murders, which happened when he was 18 years old. Strickland learned of his release while watching a soap opera on the television in prison when the news scrolled across the screen. “I’m not necessarily angry. It’s a lot. I think I’ve created emotions that you all don’t know about just yet,” Strickland told reporters as he left the Western Missouri correctional center in Cameron....

But it’s important to know that you can fix a broken relationship and save your marriage. You can even fall back in love with your spouse — if you’re willing to put in the work. In the beginning of your relationship, you were probably mesmerized by the newness of it all and believed that feeling was so powerful it just might last forever. You didn’t see many of your partner’s flaws, so you never thought you would have to worry about one day finding yourself trying to fix them....

In a society that’s constantly on the move and full of distractions, getting a good night’s sleep is essential. Sometimes, even when people do manage to get some shut-eye, it’s one riddled with tossing and turning, so those eight hours don’t even feel like eight hours at all. Lack of sleep can affect us in many ways. Not only can it take a toll on our moods, making us feel cranky and depressed, but it can also affect other parts of the body, as well as our mental health....

But that’s also their danger. Not all habits are good. Nor are all apparently bad habits actually bad for you. Lurking in many seemingly good (but counterproductive) habits is the seed for potential growth — if you can find the will to harness those habits. Realistically, breaking a habit takes some time, honesty with yourself and curiosity about better results. Open your imagination to access your creativity and progress is sure to follow....

We talked, we flirted, we had our first date two days later. I fell hard. I loved that he was sweet, but not saccharine. I loved that he was Jewish, but not too Jewish. I loved that he was a fan of Hot Tamales, the candy I ate by the truckload back then. And (OK, call me shallow) I loved that he was an Ivy League graduate. Our odds were good: I was 20, he was 23, and we added up to the perfect couple....

We focus on the importance of mothers in determining the well-being of children. However, the father wound — resulting from the physical or emotional absence of the father — has been largely ignored. The father wound may be the most pervasive, most important, and least recognized problem facing men and their families today. Here’s how one man described his wound: The father wound doesn’t just impact men’s lives. Here’s how one woman described her experience: RELATED: What Having A Cheating Father Taught Me About Men On May 7, 2016, six months before the Presidential election, I wrote the article “The Real Reason Donald Trump Will Be Our Next President”....

Knowing how long to stay and when to go is a statement of self-respect and personal limits. You do have to know yourself well and be uncompromising in your personal accountability. No one enters into a relationship predicting or hoping it will end. However, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll go through a lot of dates, relationships, and heartaches en route to finding true love. RELATED: 5 Undeniable Signs It’s Time To Break Up With Someone For marriage-minded people, knowing when to end a relationship that isn’t in your best interest is essential....

Taking good nudes can be a beautiful way to connect with someone you love (including yourself). But with the sheer amount of “leaked” celebrity photos on the Internet, I find it infuriating that we’re raising the next generation to believe terribly composed iPhone photos are sexy just because you’re naked. Nope. Not even a little. For goodness sake, nudes used to be an art form. But lately, it seems we seem to have forgotten how truly sexy the human body can be in all its subtlety....

When you care about someone so much, you want to make sure the person you care about knows how much you love, appreciate, like, and care for them. I know personally just being told I’m beautiful makes me self-conscious and shy. But, if my significant other tells me that my beautiful smile just lights up the room every time I walk in, I melt. Or if someone tells me that my passion or something about my personality is beautiful, it means more because it actually shows that they are paying attention instead of just what is on the surface....

It may take longer for him to fall in love and find the one he wants to marry, but a man knows who he can sleep with and who he is going to make the extra effort for. If the degree in which you feel “in love” with him is greater than his interest in making the effort, he will take advantage of that (and you). RELATED: What Happens After You Have Sex With A Guy Too Soon...

I’ve asked myself this question multiple times over the past few years. I typically bond quickly with others. Then, those “friends” stop putting effort into our friendships and allow years to pass before we speak again. I never understood why this happened. I can remember one friend, in particular, who stopped talking to me. We spoke every day until suddenly he stopped reaching out. Years passed. Then, I saw this friend at my 25th birthday gathering....

RELATED: 13 Rules To Follow If You Think You’re In Love With A Sociopath However, modern scientific research shows that Margaret Mead was not quite right either when she declared in 1935 that there are no biological differences in intellect at all. Instead, it appears that there are, on average, some slight differences between male and female intellects. It should be noted, though, that these are merely statistical averages, and they have only to do with types of intelligence rather than intelligence levels....