Before I met my husband, I had been in a few relationships. None were like the one with my husband. For the purpose of this article, and so I don't confuse you, let's call them "typical" and "atypical" relationships ..read more

I'm not exactly sure when my food obsession began, but looking back at pictures I see I was overweight by the time I was 3 years old. I remember when I was about ten, and my mom left me home alone for the first time. Scared yet excited about this new freedom, I sat on the carpeted floor in our kitchen (carpeted kitchens were a thing in the 80s) crying and eating ice cream out of the container ..read more

Have you ever been trapped inside of a house with nowhere to go with a raging alcoholic? No, me either, but I don’t want to be. I can imagine it feels much like a poor child would being trapped inside with a raging parent. Not much food. School is gone. What is happening ..read more

The conversation is as vivid as if it happened yesterday. A few high school friends and I were discussing what we wanted to do in life. I surprised myself and everyone else by saying, “I want to be a brain surgeon.” It wasn’t a lifelong goal. It was a spur of the moment boast but it stuck in my head. Those careless words directed much of my life for the next decade ..read more

There's no secret that living with an addicted loved one is HARD! There are a thousand complications and nuances that make these relationships different from those we experience with the healthy and free people we love ..read more

What is mom guilt? Mom guilt is when you feel like the world's meanest, fattest, angriest, ugliest, most unsuccessful mother. You have day-mares about your kids ending up in jail and sleeping around when they are teenagers. You wear sweatpants all day and want to give up. (Just me ..read more

I didn’t expect the size of my readers to grow to the number it has today. To date, my website has reached over 500,000 people. My courses on boundaries, resources for wives of addiction, and blog posts on topics like divorce, abuse, and marriage have helped many a woman searching for answers at midnight when her husband has not come home (again ..read more