I have always been motivated by love — I call myself a southern New Yorker much to the dismay of my true Nu Yawker buddies. I blame it on my native Brooklyn parents and a large Irish brood that makes The Big Apple home. I am also a declared Jersey girl despite the protests of my Sea Isle…

I shed years of tears with that white dress — I am chatting with someone about relationships. I’ve spent a decade in the counseling and research of love. Unfortunately, there’s no secret ‘tell’ sign as we jump from dating to marriage. “You don’t know someone until you’ve married them,” I say. “I’ve heard that before,” they respond. Some may find…

The good news is there is more than one true love out there — At sixteen, I believed my best friend and I would one-day live side by side. Our gorgeous families separated only by dreamy white picket fences. A romantic suburban euphoria. By the time I was nineteen, I graduated to believing I had found the love of my life. And of course…

Be the ones who step in the poop? — I may have had too much time on my hands today. Or maybe it’s because I passed my neighbor’s apartment to see yet another abandoned shoe. Or maybe I’m just tired of poop, of stepping in it and trying to avoid it. In life and the dog park. Why can’t…

It doesn’t represent my investment as a business partner or a mother — The word alimony erroneously implies something. It suggests, ‘I’m being taken care of.’ I still feel the burn of my ex-husband’s words in his interrogatories. “Saying that Colleen was responsible for my success would be no different than saying the same about any one of the employees I had over…

And it’s a writer’s nightmare — I have walked two seventy-five-pound dogs for years. One hundred and fifty pounds of Labrador Retriever pulling me in different directions. And I’m fine. I take care of my sister’s one-hundred-and-twenty-pound Golden Retriever. No problem. I walk a fifteen-pound lab puppy and I break my arm. To be fair, I…

Worse, your ex allows it to happen — not okay — I’m aggravated. It’s relatively common for a new spouse not to like the former spouse and vice versa. I’m okay with that. It’s unfortunate but it’s an individual right. I don’t care if my ex-husband’s wife hates me. But here’s where I draw the line. It’s not okay to yell…

It made me deny this powerful narcissistic truth — My boys and I pull into the church parking lot. I put the car in park and ask them to say a prayer before we head into Sunday Mass. “Let’s pray for a miracle for Dad,” I say. “No,” they say. “It’s time to give up.” My husband has been…

I’m ready for online dating and my family and I disagree — What’s fair in love and online dating? I just wrote A Man Walking by Asked Me Out. It was predicated on a family discussion about online dating and protocol. My niece, nephew, and my boys had some interesting opinions. “I think a guy should pay for the first date,” I…