Sometimes, we are not only left in love; we are left for someone else – a rival who comes to assume a large, indeed monstrous position in our imaginations. The torture comes down to one essential question which pursues us into the early hours: What do they have that we…
Generally, our culture takes a very positive view of memories and the act of remembering: we esteem the study of history, we are expected to take photos to capture precious moments;…
The intensity and suffering exacted by a heartbreak depends not only on the core fact that we’ve been left; it also decisively depends on how we’ve been left. Our hurt can…
It sounds paradoxical: that we can be heartbroken even though a lover is still with us. And yet, it’s not so strange, because the source of heartbreak is not precisely the…
We are likely to be focused, in the immediate circumstances of a break-up, on what happened in the last few weeks or months to explain the end of a relationship. But…
Our lover has hurt us deeply. Our suffering is at least comparable to being robbed or physically assaulted. This hurts a lot more than someone stealing our phone or bicycle. However,…
Life is full of moments where we are meant to feel certain things. The demand starts in early childhood: it’s our birthday – and we are meant to feel happy. Dad…
There is a certain sort of relationship that is alternately passionate, fiery and painfully unfulfilling – and that tends to puzzle both outsiders and its participants; a relationship between one person…
We live in an age increasingly prepared to see hurtful aspects lurking within many apparently so-called minor situations, and ready to lend greater public acknowledgement to what had previously been merely…
It’s natural to imagine that the highest virtue in love would be kindness and, a close second, politeness. But there is an odd danger lurking here: a relationship where we are…
It would be most of our first choices to have relationships in the real world; but for many of us, it is a great deal more plausible to pursue them with,…
In so many areas of life, it’s easy to feel desperate that we have failed to live up to our own expectations. We are evidently not beautiful enough, rich enough, intelligent…
Compassion for others is an attractive notion, but in reality we often find it extremely difficult to be kindly and understanding towards people who make a lot of noise at unwanted…
It sounds paradoxical and absurd to think that some of us might need to find something to worry about in order to recover our equilibrium. Worry is, after all, something we…
If we were totally sane, we would respond to the present only on its own terms; we would worry or be angered or give way to anxiety only as much as…
One of the greatest questionnaires in the history of 20th-century psychology had a modest start in the pages of a local Colorado newspaper The Rocky Mountain News in July 1985. The work…
Many of us are wandering the world bearing a lot of emotional damage. We may be depressed, anxious or very difficult around sex and relationships. We might in certain moods ask ourselves where…
There are so many ways to be unhappy in love, but one kind which modern psychology has given particular attention to are relationships, very high in number, in which one of…
Like many things that help our relationships, couples therapy has a habit of sounding appallingly unromantic, involving patience, gruelling work and a host of embarrassing conversations about matters it would be…