Do you have a friend or relative who constantly offers ‘helpful’ criticism and invades your emotional or physical space? Pamela Allardice shows you how to set boundaries. 1. Focus on you By interfering and interrupting, a boundary-pusher is keeping all the attention trained on them. When it seems your needs are less important than the […]

More than any other emotion, jealousy can seriously undermine your sanity, as you obsess over a person’s every gesture, seeing them all as ‘proof’ that they are doing you wrong. While having a partner who is actually unfaithful is one of the most painful experiences you can have, it is also true that jealousy without […]

If you’re losing your mind trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, our guide to male moods will save your sanity! Does your partner’s mind sometimes seem as hard to read as ancient hieroglyphs? Before you let your imagination wander into scenarios involving his younger secretary, we asked David Cutler, manager of […]

In what is sure to incite some fiery debate between the sexes, a recent study has found that men are funnier than women… just. The University of California San Diego found that men held the title by the slimmest of margins, with research — published in the Psychonomic Bulletin and Review — showing men won […]

Year after year I wonder what I’ll put in our front flower bed, and year after year, after tossing up between stocks and delphiniums, or California poppies, or a froth of nemesia or dianthus, I plant the same again — petunias. They’re not always the same petunia. These days I go for the ‘spreading petunias’, […]

You shared each other’s lives, possibly a house and maybe children. But can you really share friendship with an ex? We’ve all got a couple of exes knocking around. How to deal with them can be a dilemma. Impossible as it sounds, some choose friendship. But can a platonic relationship ever replace an intimate, sexual […]

Women often talk about their desire to have a little girl and some go to extreme lengths to make it happen. Jolanda Waskito was the opposite; she wanted a boy. When she set out to understand why she felt this way, the answer was surprising. I was 34 when my husband and I decided it […]

When kids learn things for the first time, you never quite know how they are going to react. Take this little boy who is introduced to the game Angry Birds by his father. His reaction to the game is priceless! Has your child done something cute lately? Share it in the comments box below.

He’s your husband and soul mate, but he secretly prefers men. Jordan Baker talks to women who married men they later found out were gay. When Lisa looked into Mike’s eyes and vowed to stand by him through good and bad, in sickness and health, for as long as they both lived, she meant every […]

Spring is magic. Blossoms, scents, vases crowded with roses, grass green, skies blue … the real challenge of spring is how to most enjoy it. So here are the six top spring essentials. 1. A new gardening hat This isn’t a ‘go to the races hat’ or a celebrity fashion statement, but a good garden […]