Melissa Petro

A week or so ago I started shopping for a wedding dress, and guess what? Shopping for a wedding dress sucks!

It's pretty well understood in 12 step programs that "who you see here and what you say here, stays here."

"We built a luxury dream home but can only afford to have two children."

Is there anything problematic about trading foot rubs for blow jobs? Or is it a healthy way to add a little spice to a long term relationship?

The other day on Facebook, one of my friends remarked that I was a “later-in-life” bride.

Mark prayed to Saint Francis, a patron saint of drunks and (according to Mark) lost causes. Mark wasn’t religious, but he wore a St. Francis amulet around his neck, a gift from his father. Nights when he didn’t come home, I prayed to St. Francis, too.

So, I got an email from my brother yesterday telling me that he’s not coming to the wedding. “I want to be there,” he writes, “I really do, but the idea of being consigned to [our mother and her boyfriend’s] care for the duration of the trip is driving me mad. You know, the whole lack of autonomy and being on someone else's time and all that.”

For any couples thinking about moving in together, I thought I’d share my Dos and Don’ts, and how my husband and I are making my small and unattractive (but inexpensive!) apartment work for our family.

Teaching sex ed the right way doesn’t have to be weird or hard.

After gaining as much as forty pounds and pushing a cantaloupe out my vagina, I wondered: will my body ever be the same?