Temptation
The app she never deleted
Julie has never met anyone from the dating app on her phone. She has been with Dave for three years. She just keeps opening it, and she is not sure why.
4 min read
TwoHearts: Honest, warm, slightly nosy advice on dating, couples, and getting over it.
Couples
The bird outside the window
A tiny moment most couples miss, and why one researcher says it matters more than the big fights.
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Temptation
Her work husband
A year of in-jokes between Catherine and her colleague Tony, told through their messages. Nothing happened. That was what made it so hard to name.
4 min read
Intimacy
He did not know what to do with his hands
Since Anne's mastectomy, Clive has been so afraid of hurting her that he has stopped reaching for her at all. He can see it is hurting her more.
4 min read
Intimacy
The woman she used to be
She stopped wanting to be touched, and he started sleeping on the edge of the bed. Twenty-four years married, and neither of them had said a word.
4 min read
Intimacy
The thing she told him at 2am
After ten years together, Zoe told Ian something she had never said to anyone. What made them closer was not the telling. It was the minute after.
4 min read
Quiz
How much of you is left?
Nine questions on how you stay yourself inside a close relationship. Based on a 1998 scale that measures four ways people lose their footing.
5 min read
Dating
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Dating
The same night twice
Hayley remembers the night she met Danny as love at first sight. Danny remembers it too, just not the same way, and what he noticed first is something she has forgotten.
6 min read
Dating
The wobbly bridge
They met on a night that happened to be frightening, and spent two years assuming that feeling meant something. A 1974 experiment on a canyon suggests otherwise.
3 min read
Dating
They liked you more than you think
She spent the walk home cataloguing everything she got wrong. He spent it deciding when he could reasonably text. There is a measurable gap here.
4 min read
Couples
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Couples
He thinks she's funnier than she is
Her friends have noticed he describes a slightly different woman to the one they know. A long-running study suggests that is not a problem.
4 min read
Couples
The thing you stopped saying thank you for
He has made the coffee every morning for six years. She has not mentioned it in about five of them. A 2010 study followed couples who did the opposite.
3 min read
Couples
The same restaurant every Friday
Nothing was wrong. They just felt like flatmates who liked each other. A ten-week experiment found the fix was not talking more, it was doing something new and slightly awkward.
4 min read
Healing
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Healing
The thing he didn't say
Six years later he is not haunted by the argument or the leaving. He is haunted by a sentence he never got round to.
4 min read
Healing
The help you didn't notice
Everyone kept asking how she was coping, and it made her feel worse every time. A study of law students sitting the bar exam explains why.
3 min read
Healing
The friend who stopped calling
Eight months after the breakup she has fewer people than she used to, and she is fairly sure everyone has quietly gone off her. There is a reason that feeling is not evidence.
4 min read