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The fastest, easiest and most inadvertent technique for messing up one’s life remains that of getting into a serious relationship with the wrong person: with very little effort, and without any innate taste for catastrophe, one can end up – by middle age or earlier – contemplating wholesale financial ruin,…
To a greater extent than we perhaps realise, when it comes to what sort of relationships we are allowed to have, our societies present us with a menu with only a…
1. You are, to a far greater extent than you perhaps realise, already alone. The condition you fear will happen has already happened. To be formally alone would merely mean concretising…
‘Can people change?’ The question may sound somewhat abstract and disinterested, as if one were asking for a friend or for the universe, but it is likely to be a good…
This is a piece about geese, jackdaws, a man called Konrad Lorenz – and your love life. Konrad Lorenz, who was born in 1903 and died in 1989, was an Austrian…
Amidst the many challenging characters we may encounter in the course of relationships, psychological life throws up an especially tricky type: the person who wants to ‘own’ us (by which is…
It’s not necessarily a well-flagged problem: we tend to situate the risks to our happiness elsewhere – but for a proportion of us, the greatest obstacle to our flourishing lies in…
One of the most beautiful and evocative of all words is ‘home’. Folded within it are suggestions of safety, understanding, sympathy, warmth and belonging. It is to home that we turn…
Maybe you’ve crashed again – and you’re in the dark familiar place. As ever, one mess-up reminds you of all the fiascos you’ve generated in the past and, more broadly, of…
Break-ups are almost invariably difficult, but that isn’t to say there aren’t different degrees of complexity at stake in different constellations. Nor does it preclude the existence of a cataclysmically painful…
From a young age, we are taught that one of the greatest risks to our integrity and flourishing is our own selfishness. We must – wherever possible – learn to think…
One of the frequent and painful paradoxes of romantic life is that the more we get to know and love someone, the harder it can be to summon up any sincere…
We’re often in situations of wanting to help and be kind to others, but of not knowing quite what they might be in need of. We’d like to deepen our connection…
For many of us, whenever we feel substantially scared, sad, anxious or lonely, the last thing we would ever think of doing is to share our distress; a confession threatens to…
One explanation for the low-level sadness that often dogs our spirits is a lack of a seldom mentioned but essential ingredient in a good life: spontaneity. Without necessarily being entirely aware…
One of the most striking characteristics of small children is their militant aversion to boredom. With ruthless determination, they embark on one occupation after another, shifting whenever an even marginally more…
There is no more common response, after we have been living alongside a partner for a few years, than a feeling of intense (though normally very privately-held) boredom. However intriguing they…
At times, perhaps without quite knowing why, we slip into a resolutely ‘lazy’ mood. We’re simply not able to write anything new or can’t face setting up more meetings. We don’t…
We tend to assume that the best foundations for a good shared life for a couple lie in making an explicit commitment (probably in front of 200 guests and a large…