Only you can know when you are ready, but a year is not long to process grief, and you seem to have doubts about this man
My longterm boyfriend died of cancer last year. We’d been together for 16 years, since I was 21 and he was 23. I had given birth to our only child three weeks before his diagnosis. My son was just shy of 10 months old when his dad died, and he’s now turned two.
I loved my late partner deeply and had planned to stay with him for ever. We were embarking on an 18-year project together, raising our son. NowI think, how can I ever be happy again?
Will Huxley thought Garrett looked like a Heathcliff type. They bonded over their shared love of Kate Bush. Then one day Garrett handed over an ornate gift box
In 2006 I’d just graduated film school at the Victorian College of the Arts and was working at the ABC in Melbourne. It was a pretty tumultuous time of my life. I had just broken up with my best friend and high school sweetheart – whom I adored – and was in the process of coming out.
I was drinking too much and in breaks from the chaos I’d find myself drawn to the local video store. That’s where I first saw Garrett behind the counter. I had an instant crush on him and spent a lot of time perusing the art house section, so he would see how creative and cultured I was.
My Instagram page started as something to amuse my friends, but it took off – and led to me meeting Sophie, who is now my wife
The idea came to me in summer 2019, when I finished studying at Swansea University. One day I went walking with friends around the beautiful Penllergare Valley woods. As they played Poohsticks, I sat on a bench and took in the view.
I noticed that someone had left flowers on the bench. I wondered who had put them there, who they were for, and why they’d chosen this location. By the time we reached the next bench along the route, I was deep in thought about all the people who had sat there before me.
Are you a single woman? We’re interested in hearing about your relationship to sex
When the trailer for Wicker came out in July, it caused a frenzy. The film, which is coming out this month, stars Olivia Colman as a woman who commissions a basket-woven husband, played by Alexander Skarsgard.
Responses to the trailer were unbridled. The idea of a single woman taking control of her sex life - no matter how fantastically - struck a nerve.
Responding to an editorial on the extent of sexual abuse of pupils by their peers, a reader calls for more nuance and compassion. Plus a letter from Donna Hill
As a paediatrician specialising in the care of children who have been sexually abused, I am well aware of sexual harm that occurs in school settings by peers (Editorial 5 October). This is just one aspect of the wider issue of children and young people who sexually harm other children and young people.
Of all the children my organisation cares for, 30% are harmed by other children – data we shared with the children’s commissioner in their report in 2023 on the impact of pornography on harmful sexual behaviour on children.
On Rivet, volunteers get to choose who they think are the most suitable suitors. For an interfering busybody like me, this is a match made in heaven
Sometimes it’s extremely hard to mind your own business. However, we all know that ideally we should, and most of us give it a bloody good go. So when the universe rewards us with an opportunity to do the opposite, it must be grabbed with both hands and cherished like the precious gift it is.
New dating app Rivet lets a random group of volunteers pick users’ matches, AKA gives interfering busybodies who think they know best free rein over strangers’ love lives. I mean, where do I sign up? This is the chance frustrated matchmakers like me have been waiting for, once their supply of single friends has been exhausted (in both senses).
When Sarah Maloney’s primary school crush danced back into her life, she braced for a ‘teenage whirlwind romance’. Then one night, she realised they were both all in
In 2017 I was 16, went to an all-girls Catholic school in Melbourne and had zero tolerance for teenage boys and their nonsense. Instead I spent a lot of gossip time lamenting Jake, who broke my tiny heart in primary school and then moved hours away.
A debutante ball was coming up. It was an expensive tradition that was fundamentally at odds with my values but I couldn’t say no to a pretty dress and dancing – I was a teenage girl, after all. Some friends asked cousins or co-workers from our part-time jobs to be partners. I got knocked back by everyone. When I complained to my mother, she let me know Jake had moved back to town, and did she want me to ask his mum if he would be willing?
Holly, 42, a horticulturist, meets Graeme, 47, a forest manager
What were you hoping for? Really, just a fun night with minimal awkwardness was my fairly low expectation before the meeting.
First impressions?
A very positive, engaging lady with a beautiful smile.
What did you talk about?
Growing food, the joys of seeds, birdwatching, the failings of young people when it comes to proper raving, epigenetics and breaking generational cycles.
Society tells us there is one way to live a life, and joy is a byproduct on the path there. But you don’t need a reason to enjoy the act of being alive
I have been dwelling on what it means to live well. Not because I have mastered it, but because I have become very comically bad at it. I have spent years rushing through my life, panicked and convinced I was running out of time. I worried constantly about work – getting it, keeping it, doing it, caring about it too much, hating it and losing it. I obsessed over being more productive. I fretted about money, mostly about not having any left after travelling too much. I poured so much energy into dating that it’s kind of impressive I haven’t had a relationship for the last six years.
But most of all I became fixated on my fertility and how it dwindled in my early 30s, leaving me to make choices most women don’t have to until later. I tried to save my eggs and couldn’t. My lack of a partner in a conservative Catholic Lebanese family became a cudgel.
Conor Curran’sfirst date with Chris lasted nine hours but their relationship remained casual. Then, when Conor was at his most vulnerable, Chris was there for him
At 29 I had lost my career in hospitality because of Covid and decided to throw my hat in the ring as a contestant on MasterChef Australia. By the time I was eliminated in 2021, restaurants still weren’t open and I didn’t know what to do with my life. My lease was coming to an end in Melbourne and I wasn’t doing well with the lockdowns and people recognising me from TV. So I decided to retreat to my father’s place in Adelaide for a while.
By early 2022 I was dating a guy but, after a few months, he ghosted me suddenly.
My wife is obsessed with everything that’s happening in the US. She literally spends all day sitting on the couch, watching videos and reading opinion pieces. She’s originally from America and has been living abroad for 25 years and she has family in the US, so I get that she needs to feel connected to what’s happening. But it’s constant. Whether we’re eating, watching a TV show or movie, when we’re talking about something completely unrelated – everything, every topic, either starts or ends with outrage.
I’ve told her she needs to take at least one day off all social media, but she won’t do that even for an hour. It stresses her out more and more every day, but she just keeps going back to it – and it has been really affecting me, more lately than ever. On weekends I stay up late playing games (my way of winding down after a week of work) and she’ll go to bed early. And during those times sometimes I just sit and cry. Everything that’s happening is so stressful, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I just wish I could rip away her phone and let her breathe! I don’t know what to say or do. Is there anything that could help?
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