Some couples fade. Others implode. And a few simply evaporate. Not with a bang, but with a quiet fade—like a candle flickering out in a room that used to be full of light.

And often, it begins when they stop noticing each other.

Not the noticing of chore completion or whose turn it is with the carpool.

Not the noticing that comes with judgment or scorekeeping.

I’m talking about the other kind—the kind that says, I still see you. You still matter. Your inner world is worth tracking.

We navigate an age of dopamine loops and disappearing attention spans, where even our to-do lists have to be optimized for virality, there's something quietly radical about paying deep, sustained attention to one another.

Not scrolling, not diagnosing, not self-optimizing—just noticing. Profoundly. Tenderly. Without agenda. Bestowed attention.

As a couples therapist, I spend my days in the land of half-heard complaints and misunderstood glances. But when a couple stumbles into what I call profound noticing, something shifts.

Tension thaws. The room softens.

One partner says to the other, “You looked so tired when you walked in, I wondered if something hard happened at work.” And suddenly, we are no longer talking about chores or mismatched libidos—we are talking about mattering.

It’s a scene no one imagines for themselves.

You raised your children, watched them grow, and waited for the second act of family life—the warm embrace of your grandkids, stories around the table, and the joy of being “Nana” or “PopPop.”

But the phone doesn’t ring. Holidays are quiet. Photos of your grandkids—if you see them at all—are filtered through social media or hearsay.

Welcome to one of the most silent and painful trends in American family life: grandchild estrangement.

The Rise of Estranged Grandparents in the U.S.

While hard data is limited, surveys and expert accounts confirm that millions of grandparents in the United States are cut off from their grandchildren—often without clear explanation or hope of reconciliation.

Let’s begin with a scenario:

Your partner follows their ex on Instagram. They “like” posts with captions like “Just me, thriving and dangerous.” They watch that ex’s Stories—every single one.

You mention it. They shrug:

“It’s not cheating. We’re not even talking.”

And there it is: digital betrayal in 2025. Not quite infidelity. Not quite innocent. But enough to corrode trust, intimacy, and your belief in the relationship’s emotional safety.

What do we call this?

We call it micro-cheating, and it’s thriving—not because people are evil, but because we’re all hooked into an invisible system of psychological exploitation known as limbic capitalism, inside a culture that valorizes self-preoccupation over mutual regard.

This post is about how we got here, why it hurts, and what to do next if the love of your life just emotionally ghosted you for someone they met in a D&D Discord server.

As a family therapist, I’ve seen the same question echo through the minds of exhausted parents and overwhelmed kids: Why does my child struggle with everything at once?

When one diagnosis pops up—ADHD, for example—others often follow, like a conga line of learning challenges: dyslexia, dyscalculia, executive function disorder, anxiety. Is it just bad luck?

A landmark study out of the Netherlands offers a compelling (and slightly comforting) answer: it’s in the genes.

Love in the age of lag, emojis, and algorithmic warmth is getting more complex.

Let’s begin with a simple question that’s not so simple anymore: Can a heart emoji ever replace a hug?

Welcome to 2025, where some parents tuck in their kids over FaceTime, lovers schedule digital date nights from opposite time zones, and families mourn, celebrate, and check in through carefully curated text threads.

The technology is intimate. The connection is real. But is it enough?

Or, to put it bluntly: Can digital intimacy stand in for physical

affection—or is it a beautifully lit facsimile, a love story stuck in 720p?

Once upon a time, the term long-distance parent evoked a postcard and a phone call on Sundays.

Maybe a letter tucked inside a birthday card with $20. But in the post-pandemic digital era, long-distance co-parenting has undergone a tech-enabled glow-up.

Enter the age of digital intimacy—where FaceTime goodnights, shared digital calendars, and even parenting apps with built-in mood trackers are helping families stay connected across cities, time zones, and emotional bandwidth.

Welcome to the remote family, where love is expressed via push notification, and bedtime stories come with buffering.

Let’s begin with a beautiful thought:

“Compersion is when your partner experiences joy with someone else, and instead of feeling jealousy, you feel happiness for them.”

Lovely, right?

It sounds like spiritual enlightenment with better sex. It sounds like love unchained from ownership, love evolved beyond mammalian insecurity. It sounds like something written on driftwood in a polyamorous co-op bathroom in Vermont.

But here’s the truth: compersion is a useful lie.

It’s a noble fiction, like Santa Claus, or bipartisan cooperation. It’s an idea so beautiful, so aspirational, that even if it doesn’t quite work in reality, we feel compelled to believe in it anyway—like a unicorn grazing in Shangri-La.

And no, this isn’t an attack on polyamory. Quite the opposite.

This is an inquiry into whether compersion can exist without polyamory, and what it tells us about human attachment, jealousy, and the myth of boundless love.

So far in 2025, these specific search queries are on the rise:

• “Why I left polyamory”

• “Poly burnout symptoms”

• “Can polyamory cause emotional exhaustion?”

As more people explore ethical non-monogamy, another trend is quietly gaining momentum: polyamory burnout.

In forums like Reddit’s r/polyamory and confessionals across Medium and TikTok, people are beginning to share their polyamory exit stories—a new phase of visibility for a movement that once promised boundless love and emotional liberation.

This post explores polyamory burnout from the inside, through the story of an imaginary therapy client named Mirelle.

Her emotional exhaustion, identity fatigue, and eventual return to monogamy illustrate a broader phenomenon emerging in 2025.

We’ll look at current research, poly burnout symptoms, and why many are stepping back from polyamorous relationships without shame or regret.

I first became aware of Living Apart Together relationships when a was one of the owners and blog editor over at Couples Therapy Inc.

Frankly, I’m impressed with what they’ve done to the place since I moved on to do more couple and family work.

I wrote this article about 5 years ago for the CTI blog, and I continue to follow this trend more recently in my relatives new private practice.

Not long ago, the idea of a married couple choosing to live in separate homes might’ve triggered a wellness check—or at least a concerned conversation with your priest, rabbi, or HOA president.

But today, Living Apart Together (LAT) relationships are quietly reshaping the definition of modern love.

These aren’t failed marriages in disguise.

They’re a conscious choice—an evolving model for committed partnerships that value emotional intimacy and personal autonomy. If that sounds like a contradiction, welcome to the 21st century.

Let’s start here: Identity is changing. Rapidly.

And if you’re a parent, especially one who still refers to “The Facebook,” you may feel like you’re parenting through an ontological thunderstorm—with your kid updating their gender, neurotype, and aesthetic faster than you can refill your antidepressant prescription.

They aren’t “coming out” so much as broadcasting a constant, shifting signal, wrapped in irony and rejection of fixed meaning.

This isn’t just generational weirdness. It’s a philosophical earthquake. And if you're feeling confused, you're not alone. You're paying attention.

Your sister was your first enemy and your last text. Your brother knows where the emotional bodies are buried—and still shows up with snacks. Welcome to the age of sibling loyalty, where shared trauma turns into shared strength.

In a world where vertical family ties—parent to child, elder to youth—are fraying under pressure, horizontal bonds are stepping in. Siblings, once relegated to punchlines and rivalries, are becoming emotional anchors in adult life.

This post explores the quiet rise of the sibling pact: mutual loyalty, emotional caretaking, and secret memes forged in childhood chaos and carried into adult resilience.

As extended families scatter and parental support erodes, American siblinghood may be evolving into the final frontier of family solidarity.