Melissa Petro

When I first got sober, I started to accept that the “happy” occasions in life — holidays, birthdays and other special events — might not only feel happy. When I’m “supposed” to feel good, I feel nervous, anxious, and embarrassed. The center of attention, I feel vulnerable and on display.

For someone like me — someone with difficulty forming and maintaining relationships, who has struggled with commitment, and who’s got intimacy issues galore — surely, you can see the appeal. You don’t need to be Freud to figure out why, at a disturbingly young age, I looked forward to the day a man would commit.

Is there anything problematic about trading foot rubs for blow jobs? Or is it a healthy way to add a little spice to a long term relationship?

The other day my friend on Facebook had made a remark about how there are people who have multiple income streams and travel abroad constantly and drive cars and eat at restaurants every week and then talk about class privilege like they don't have it and in my mind I was like, Oh. Yeah. She’s right. In the past six months or so, my life has dramatically changed.

Sure, "friends forever" sounds nice. In theory. But sometimes it's better that two people just not be friends.

Use insect repellent, sleep under a mosquito net, and just don’t get pregnant — is this the best we can do for Latin American women?

If you missed my weekly column this summer all about getting engaged and planning a wedding, here’s the highlight reel: after doing

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

Stock photos seemed to get pregnancy and parenting all wrong. When a Facebook friend posted looking for a real life pregnant stock photo model, I offered.

My relationship with my father was never father-daughter picnics. Maybe when I was very little — or maybe this is less a memory and more of a wish — I have an image of myself as a very little girl sitting on my father’s lap, and we are both laughing. Perhaps my father enjoyed fatherhood when his children were very little, but that joy seemed to curdle into constant frustration as my brother and I grew up.