Love, Ice Cream, & My Final Conversation with My Mom

Love, Ice Cream, & My Final Conversation with My Mom

Ten days before she died, we shared one last long conversation filled with laughter, tears, tenderness, and the words that mattered most.

Today, my mom would have turned 82. But she passed away earlier this year, on February 8. On Thursday, January 29, I stayed up late typing up a conversation I’d had with her that night because it felt so meaningful and important.

She’d been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in mid-November and was receiving hospice care at home. Brain swelling and seizures had affected her ability to move and communicate. I didn’t know that night would be our last extended conversation—the last time she would be able to speak in full sentences, albeit short and slow ones.

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60 Questions to Strengthen Your Relationship or Marriage

60 Questions to Strengthen Your Relationship or Marriage

How often do you create intentional time to ask and answer questions like this in your relationship or marriage? (It really only needs to take 5 to 10 minutes!) What's a favorite memory of us that I may not know means a lot to you? What's something I do that makes you feel loved? What helps you feel more emotionally safe with me?

I love using questions like this when…

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Can Compassion towards Yourself Make You a Better Relationship Partner?

 Can Compassion towards Yourself Make You a Better Relationship Partner?

Is it possible that practicing self-compassion in your relationship is related to both you AND your partner being more satisfied with your relationship?

On Valentine’s Day, I zoomed into the studios at Good Day Chicago to speak about a new research study on this topic…

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3 Career Strengths That are Detrimental in Your Marriage

3 Career Strengths That are Detrimental in Your Marriage

You excel in your career because you are logical, focused, and decisive in your leadership. But these strengths in business can create friction and resentment at home. Reflecting on these strengths through the lens of relationship distress, though, can give you a new framework to empathize with your partner and avoid these common pitfalls.

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3 Keys to Thriving Intimacy in Your Marriage

3 Keys to Thriving Intimacy in Your Marriage

Are you able to accept change? Intimacy, whether in the form of emotional closeness or sexual connection, changes throughout a long-term relationship. Shifts in your intimate connections are inevitable, because: Priorities change. Families change. Jobs change. Needs change. Hormones change. Bodies change….

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A Dad's Letter to his 18-Year-Old Son

A Dad's Letter to his 18-Year-Old Son

With 2022 high school graduations upon us, I wanted to share a letter that my friend Clint August wrote to his son recently, when his son turned 18 years old. Clint is my co-host on our Sex Talk with Clint & the Doc podcast, and a well-known San Diego on-air radio personality. I’m happy I get to call him a friend, and his dedication to his role as a father comes through with an abundance of love in this letter.

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