Last week I met up with a friend who I had not seen in over ten years. We filled each other in on our lives since that time which included talking about our current relationships. She told me in no uncertain terms that her husband is not the same man she married. While this is a common thing for people to say about their spouses (something along the lines of "I don't know who they are anymore"), in her case, she really meant it. After getting married, her husband completely changed his religious beliefs in a far more conservative direction and it's impacted every aspect of their marriage and life together. It was a big and sudden change. She's faced with a huge question: now what? 

The truth is that when you agree to marry someone, you're agreeing to marry someone you don't know. You don't know who that person is going to be in a year, 5 years, 30 years - and you're taking that plunge anyways. There was no way my friend could ...

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On July 14, 2018, I became engaged. My fiancé hung pictures of us from the ceiling of a beautiful gazebo that he lit with candles. He got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. I said yes without a second thought. When the second thought came it was, “Whoa, we’re going to have to plan a wedding!” While I had day-dreamed on and off for years about what I would like my wedding to look like, it hit me that now was the time to actually plan it. To look at venues, find catering, pick out a dress, and flowers and eventually walk down the aisle and say, “I do.”

You may have heard of the expression “see the forest, not the trees.” What it means is that it’s more important to see the big picture than the small details. I am already realizing that this is crucial when planning a wedding and also one of the most challenging pieces of it. As facebook and pinterest inundate me daily with links to click on for how I can choose a wedding ...

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"You have to love yourself before you can love someone else." We've all heard this, right? It is a common belief in our society that if you are not finding the love you're looking for, you need to look at what you're doing wrong. If you're struggling with your past, that has to be fixed first. If you're struggling with your self-esteem, you need to raise that up before entering a relationship. The message is this: if you are broken, don't look to someone else to fix you. You have to figure it out on your own. 

What a challenge that can be. You see, we don't come out of the womb knowing anything, let alone what love looks like or how to give it to ourselves. That is all taught and learned. If you grew up in a caring, loving household, you have a leg up. If you grew up in a household with absent or abusive parents, you're at a disadvantage. If you're lucky, you find this love in other places, perhaps through friends or other family mem ...

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