"Joy in the Morning" offers hope that marriage can be a soft place to land As I prepare for my upcoming marriage, I’ve found that everyone has recommendations and advice to give. I’m not complaining⁠—after all, I’ve never done this before. But the sheer amount of advice can sometimes be overwhelming, making me wonder if I am cut out for marriage with all my imperfections. Through all the excellent, although overwhelming advice, one voice has managed to cut through the noise and has proven to b

Picture this: a girl getting dolled up in front of her bedroom mirror, primping for hours until she is sure she looks perfect. A boy shows up at her front door and nervously knocks, flowers hidden behind his back. He sweeps her away on his arm to a candlelit dinner where they lean in, talking non-stop (interrupted only by a few nervous giggles and blushes). Later when he drives her home (after modestly holding her hand on the way to the car), he walks her to the door, and under the front porch l

Let’s face it—as a society we are obsessed with celebrity marriages and relationships. We give them clever nicknames and often consider them #relationshipgoals. However, a lot of our favorite celebrity couples weren’t always so enthusiastic about the idea about getting married. Here are some celebrities who had a change of heart after marrying their significant others, and had surprisingly insightful things to say. Actress and producer Jessica Chastain says she never cared to get married until

Throughout my life, I have experienced different trials, but the last few years have proven to be ones of intense suffering. Some have been small: I have anxiety about things such as paying bills or meeting up for coffee with an old friend. Some of it has been physical: the last few years of my life had been marked by chronic pain brought on by a car accident. And some have darkened every aspect of my life: depression and a depleted self-worth after having been assaulted. My suffering made me d

Ms. Austen can teach us something about the laws of attraction. Jane Austen, author of six completed books and numerous short stories is considered a literary expert on love and relationships. She possessed an insight into the human heart that few have since matched, and two hundred years after her death, we still turn to her for wisdom about love. But what advice can we glean from Ms. Austen's books on the specific topic of meeting men? The dating landscape has certainly changed since Mr. Dar

Their tricks may be old-fashioned, but they still work! It’s 2017, and for those of us who are single and searching, it can be tempting to wish for a bygone era. Inundated by matchmaking apps and the harsh side effects of the hookup culture, where do we look for real wisdom when it comes to romance? Most days, it’s hard to imagine there are any similarities between our modern dating dilemmas and what our grandparents went through when they were our age. But you might be surprised. I sat down a

When my grandmother died, I was forced to rethink how I could keep our traditions alive. In December my grandmother died after a long battle with Alzheimer's. I'm a fourth-generation Italian, and my grandmother was the epicenter of our world. At her funeral, I pondered how our family would fare without its matriarch; I began to fear that without her, we might lose the togetherness that is so central to an Italian family's lifeblood. I was overcome by an urgency to hold onto the lessons she and

I learned a lot about finding love when I was ghosted. Freshman year of college, my friend set me up with one of her best friends from high school; let’s call him Mike. She prepped me by telling me that Mike and I had the same goofy sense of humor, we were both serious about our faith, and our height was compatible (although frankly, that’s something we should all probably get over). She was on point with this one—we immediately hit it off, and I thought for sure this relationship would go some

Being apart sucks, but sometimes it can bring you closer than ever. I love plans and order and for everything to fall into place at the “right” time. But I’ve learned, much to my surprise and delight, that you can’t always choose the timing for when you meet the right person. I met my boyfriend at the end of my first year of college. I was heading to Washington D.C. for a summer internship; he was heading to Chile to work and study Spanish. Putting our fear of long distance romantic misery asi