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Can dirty dishes or an overcooked brisket burn a relationship? Yes, unless you douse the fire quickly. Case in point. “Why didn’t you rinse off my dish in the sink when you did yours this morning?” Margaret snaps at her husband. “And while you’re at it, please clean up your crumbs.” Nag. Nag. Nag. No response. He leaves the room. What was she thinking? Now that her husband has passed away, she wishes she could take it all back…the petty comments and arguments over the years about such innocuous stuff as dishes and crumbs. These trivial fights often undermined their...

When you’re past 50, and certainly 60 plus, some of us start feeling old…really old. At least we’re still here, which beats the alternative when you consider how many friends and relatives of our vintage we’ve lost to death. I knew I was heading north in the numbers chronologically, when I saw recently the movie, The Intern, and found 72-year-old Robert De Niro actually cute and sexy rather than old. OK, OK, he may not be Tom Cruise, Chris Marten, Ed Sheeran of the younger set, but he has a dazzling smile, nice head of gray hair, great wardrobe in the movie,...

Throughout our lives, we each have encountered new beginnings when we went off to college, made new friends, started jobs–sometimes with difficult colleagues and editors, moved into homes or apartments in new neighborhoods, and certainly after we married and had someone else in our lives for forever—or so we thought. We had big plans. Our lives would move along a smooth trajectory. But WHAMMO! The door slammed hard in our faces. One of us lost a spouse to death after a five-year-battle with cancer; the other became single after a divorce filled with all the contention that could fuel a...

There was no Internet service based on algorithms in 1985 to see if we clicked as business partners or even friends. And now 30 years later, we’re happy to share with anyone who will listen: “We’re still partners! We’re still partners!” every time someone asks, and they often do, phrasing it usually this way: “Are you two still writing together?” Many seem to imply by their query that two females can’t work together closely and get along…for long. Would they ask that of men? Hmmm, but that’s another blog post. The answer to the question on the table now is a resounding...

For some, romance may be much easier to tend and mend than a friendship, if you consider that it’s a different kind of commitment—sharing your heart, bed, and finances. When you love someone, if it’s for keeps, you say what you need to (hopefully, but not always with kindness), even duke it out metaphorically, or go to a counselor when you can’t resolve issues on your own. Long-standing, and even shorter-term, friendships that go awry for whatever reason can be tougher to fix. In most cases, you never promised until death-do-you-part. However, if you’ve invested time and heart, you don’t...