No one sets out to raise a narcissist. You don’t cradle your newborn and whisper, “One day you’ll make every dinner conversation about you.”

Yet somehow, it happens.

Narcissism doesn’t bloom in adulthood—it’s cultivated in childhood, usually not through malice but through emotional distortion. It isn’t born of too much love but of love gone lopsided: too indulgent, too conditional, or too absent.

As a couples therapist in Massachusetts, I’ve seen this play out countless times—partners locked in power struggles that began decades before they met. What looks like arrogance is often a fragile self trying to survive.

Autism runs in families. Not in the sense that your Aunt Mildred’s love of alphabetizing the spice rack automatically means her baby will be scripting Finding Nemo monologues at three.

But in the sense that autism is highly heritable. Twin studies have been saying this for decades (Tick et al., 2016).

Now, a massive new study out of Japan adds more detail.

The Japan Environment and Children’s Study (JECS)—a sample so large it makes most developmental research look like a parish bake sale—has found that parents with stronger autistic traits are more likely to have infants who show developmental difficulties.

That’s true for mothers and fathers, though not always in the same way (Hirokawa et al., 2025).

Once upon a time, infidelity required sneaking into a motel.

In 2025, it may only require logging into World of Warcraft.

Couples now show up in therapy not because of lipstick on a collar, but because one spouse whispered “goodnight love” to a digital elf at two in the morning.

On TikTok, the hashtag #AvatarCheating has millions of views, with users debating whether VR hookups, gaming “marriages,” or late-night AI love-chats should count as betrayal.

Over on Reddit’s r/relationship_advice, one thread asks: “My boyfriend married someone in Final Fantasy XIV. Should I be mad?”

The comments sorta split: half say “yes, absolutely,” the other half dismiss it as “delulu.”

Every woman knows her. You’re at a party, scanning the room, when Zoe appears—leaning just a little too close to your date.

You don’t know if you want to throw your drink or ask her where she got her concealer. A new study by Merrie, Krems, and Byrd-Craven (2025) says your instincts aren’t wrong.

Rivalry runs on two key ingredients: intent (flirting with your guy) and capacity (being hot enough to pull it off).

Evolutionary psychologists call this groundbreaking. Women call it Tuesday.

What Makes a Woman a Romantic Rival?

Let’s be honest: hobosexual isn’t an identity—it’s a survival strategy with a rom-com veneer.

It’s dating because the lease is due, devotion that spikes with utility bills, pillow talk that sounds like Zillow.

Some people land in it out of crisis; others practice it like an art.

Either way, it corrodes trust. And after 50—when bodies, budgets, and social safety nets get less elastic—the stakes go up.

A hobosexual makes a home out of you—emotionally, logistically, financially. The attraction isn’t fake, it’s simply… instrumentally timed. You’re not a partner so much as a well-located port in an economic storm.

We like to think of the five-day workweek as if it were handed down from Mount Sinai, carved into stone.

In reality, it was carved out by strikes, lawsuits, and a few industrialists who realized exhausted workers were, in the end, bad for business.

The “standard” week is less natural law than historical accident — and a particularly joyless one at that.

So when someone proposes the four-day week, Americans clutch their pearls.

Won’t the economy collapse? Won’t society disintegrate?

No. What collapses is the illusion that we needed 40 hours in the first place.

Forget lingerie. The real aphrodisiac is compromise.

A new study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships shows that when couples share power — yes, even in the boring stuff like deciding who does the laundry or which show to binge — their sex lives get hotter.

Balance the chores, balance the passion. Equality outside the bedroom translates to enthusiasm inside it.

And in 2025, that feels radical.

We live in a world where people Venmo their spouse for rent but won’t talk about desire.

Where TikTok feeds are filled with couples arguing over thermostats while Reddit threads read like divorce prequels.

Against that backdrop, research says the couples who share influence don’t just fight less — they love better.

Taylor Swift doesn’t just reinvent her albums. She reinvents her accent.

A new study published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America traced the shifts in Swift’s speaking voice across her career, showing how her vowels bent and stretched as she moved from Pennsylvania to Nashville to New York City (Mohamed & Winn, 2025).

In other words, Taylor Swift’s discography has eras—and so does her dialect.

And yes, scientists really did get funding to measure how she pronounces “ride.”

Gaslighting has become the kale of relationship advice—everywhere, overhyped, occasionally misused, and sometimes leaves a bitter aftertaste.

These days, if your partner forgets oat milk, you can call it gaslighting.

If they say, “I never said that,” you might decide it’s gaslighting.

If they forget the plot of Succession—clearly gaslighting.

But here’s the trouble: when everything is gaslighting, nothing is.

And that matters, because gaslighting isn’t just everyday bickering.

It’s a systematic pattern of emotional manipulation and psychological abuse. Misusing the term trivializes what survivors endure.

There’s a new star in the family travel universe, and no, it’s not your color-coded itinerary or the Pinterest board titled “Dream Vacation 2026.”

It’s Grandma. Or Grandpa. Or both.

The Wall Street Journal recently spotlighted the rise of skip-gen vacations — also called skip-generation travel — where grandparents whisk grandchildren away while parents stay home.

Yes, you heard that right: family travel without the parents.

“Nice guys finish last.”

It’s a phrase that lives rent-free on Reddit threads and TikTok captions, usually next to screenshots of men lamenting why women always choose jerks.

A new study in the Journal of Research in Personality backs up the complaint—at least partly.

Researchers surveyed 3,800 adults across Australia, Denmark, and Sweden. They found that agreeable men—those who are kind, patient, and cooperative—were slightly less likely to be in relationships.

By contrast, extroverted men did better, and anxious men struggled most.

For women, agreeableness made no difference, shyness wasn’t a penalty, and being a little neurotic actually helped (Fors Connolly et al., 2025).

Here’s the twist: once a couple forms, the very qualities that slowed men down in dating predict greater relationship satisfaction.

It’s not just your imagination—obituaries are getting sharper, funnier, and far more candid.

Families who once followed the safe script of “beloved parent, devoted spouse” are now publishing tributes that read more like exposés.

It feels less like mourning and more like cultural rebellion. In a world where résumés and Instagram captions are polished to perfection, the radical honest obituary cuts through with startling clarity.

What Are Radical Honest Obituaries?

Most obituaries smooth over flaws. They emphasize kindness, family, and tradition, while quietly ignoring cruelty, neglect, or addiction. Radical honest obituaries break that rule. They highlight what actually happened—sometimes tenderly, more often than not, savagely.

And because they violate the social contract of death—be kind, or be silent—they go viral. These obits aren’t just memorials; they’re also moral reckonings.