Melissa Petro

Teaching sex ed the right way doesn’t have to be weird or hard.

A week or so ago I started shopping for a wedding dress, and guess what? Shopping for a wedding dress sucks!

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

Would Sheryl Sandberg be able to get away with leaning in while donning Zuckerberg's signature v-neck T-shirt and jeans? History says no.

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

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.

Without a doubt, going to AA meetings saved my life. But after six years of devoted participation, my attendance dwindled until, about a year ago, I stopped going entirely. Contrary to what I was taught when I was in the program, my sobriety’s just fine. You can stay sober without AA — at least, I can. Here’s how I do it.

So, I got an email from my brother yesterday telling me that he’s not coming to the wedding. “I want to be there,” he writes, “I really do, but the idea of being consigned to [our mother and her boyfriend’s] care for the duration of the trip is driving me mad. You know, the whole lack of autonomy and being on someone else's time and all that.”

For any couples thinking about moving in together, I thought I’d share my Dos and Don’ts, and how my husband and I are making my small and unattractive (but inexpensive!) apartment work for our family.

It's time to talk substantively and honestly about how sex work isn't any one thing.