Melissa Petro

"Certainly, my life as an alcoholic was not what most would imagine. I was a writer, living in the West Village of New York City, enrolled in a prestigious graduate program and working on a book. At least, this was my cover story."

Engagements being the universally stressful occasions that they are, what this has meant is that I’m constantly pushing my fiancé to make wedding-related decisions, and he is constantly having to ask me (nicely and less-nicely) to give it a rest. It all came to a head this past weekend.

We’ve all been in a situation where we've thought NO ONE CAN EVER KNOW THAT THIS HAPPENED TO ME.

After gaining as much as forty pounds and pushing a cantaloupe out my vagina, I wondered: will my body ever be the same?

The other day on Facebook, one of my friends remarked that I was a “later-in-life” bride.

Sometimes the fights I pick with my fiancé are really fights with myself.

You may have heard the old joke that 98% of people masturbate, and the other two percent are lying.

A couple months before our official engagement, Arran and I had an uncomfortable conversation about getting married. Specifically, my dear boyfriend of two years chose a quiet brunch on one unassuming Sunday to bring up the fact that he was reluctant to propose.

There was nothing easy about recovery, but it helped that living the trainwreck lifestyle had stripped me of everything. Within sixteen months, I was unemployed with no job prospects, barely scraping through my last semester at school. I was drinking every day. Sex with classmates had led to casual encounters which bottomed out at trading sex for cash, something I spent a whole lot of time justifying.

The biggest fashion mistake of my lifetime may not be what I wore, but what I didn’t.