Once given, a gift is yours to use, store or dispose of as you see fit.

Relationships are complicated, but happiness in a relationship isn't: It's just wanting exactly what you have. Wanting something else is dispiriting.

Plan your own vacations when you want to, and plan a suitable combined vacation with this other family when you want to. If they freak out at your planning your own vacations as you see fit, then let them. Bowing to unreasonable demands because someone will make you pay emotionally if you don't is not a healthy option.

You don't want to be with someone who is already not getting from you what he needs emotionally.

I do crosswords when I have time to kill somewhere, and am 100 percent successful on filling in the spots I get stuck on - after I close up, do something else, and then go back to it.

Moving is hard. Staying is easy. Logistically speaking, at least. And this is true whether you're doing or undoing something.

When in doubt, respond to what you witness, not what you hear secondhand.