Unequivocally, individual human beings who live together will always have different standards of what a 'clean house' looks like.

If you don't simply communicate with your spouse what household tasks you would like them to do, you are setting yourself up to be angry.

People all want and need different emotional responses - some people like to be talked down when they're angry; some people want to be left alone.

Nothing makes a girl feel as unsexy as divorce.

A lot of people end up getting married more out of expectation than out of passion for each other, but if your options have ever been, 'We either get married or break up,' be careful. Marriage should be a new addition you add to the house that is your relationship, not the structure you impose on the house once it's already built.

Sometimes we put so much effort into things we're doing, like dating or wedding planning, that we don't stop to think about whether or not we even want the results of that effort.

Marriage, even a happy and successful one, can be extremely stressful, but that stress is worth it if you're marrying the best person for you.

Ghosts of Marriages Past can haunt many aspects of a new relationship - your expectations of what a man should do, how you behave in conflict, your ideas of how commitment should look - they can even make your new man look untrustworthy when he's really behaving normally.

Often, when cheating happens, we rush to place blame solely on one person - either the person who did the cheating, or more insidiously, if it happened to us, we blame ourselves for not being 'good enough' to keep them around. But putting it all on one person doesn't paint the entire picture.

If you've had a marriage that ended because of a betrayal in trust on your spouse's behalf, the idea of trusting another person with your heart can seem completely ridiculous.

Sometimes we are much better at judging people based on how they treat everyone other than ourselves. We make a million excuses for why they treat us how they do.

Post-divorce, the world can feel harsh and full of jagged edges.

The period that directly follows the dissolution of a long term relationship is extremely volatile, with emotions running the gamut from misery to elation to relief to terror.

In my experience as a therapist and as a friend, it seems that the majority of the breakup resources available are for women and not men. Women, who tend to be more vocal about their emotional struggles, are the squeaky wheel that gets the grease from friends, from online communities, from books, and from therapeutic approaches.

Women are encouraged to go on an emotional journey of self-care after a divorce, while men are expected to need help learning how to cook and parent on their own.

Men - not all men but a good majority of the ones I have known and worked with - tend to think of difficult situations in their lives as problems that need to be solved.

After my divorce, I took some time off from having a romantic life to begin the tough work of figuring out where I'd gone wrong and what on Earth I could do to understand how to be a whole person in a relationship.

Being completely independent doesn't make you a strong woman - it's being strong enough to trust yourself in other people's hands that takes guts.

Marriage, or any committed partnership, has become sacred to me, powerful and fragile all at the same time.

Experiences don't make us damaged goods; it's what we do with those experiences that matters.

I am somewhat grateful to the disintegration of my marriage for teaching me a lot about myself and about relationships, and though I wish it hadn't been such a taxing lesson, I wouldn't change a thing.

Marriage isn't just about two people who fit together well. It's about two people who figure out how to fit together well.

Awkward conversations are painful, but they're way easier than divorce, resentment, and heartbreak.

Never marry because it seems like what you should do.

A lot of new stepparents fall into the trap of letting children disobey household expectations in order to gain favor with them.

Don't sacrifice alone time with your spouse just because the kids seem needy. A united front requires adult time alone, so put it in the calendar and make it a priority. A house cannot stand on a shaky foundation.

Do remember to pick your battles when you start parenting your stepchildren.

Don't expect yourself to immediately love your stepchildren. In fact, you may hate them for a bit.

I haven't always been the best advocate for my own body. I was a too-tall, pudgy child who felt completely out of control of the genetic lottery ticket she'd been given, so in retaliation, I shut down. I ignored my body and hated it for not being tiny and cute like my friends' bodies.

There is no level of professional rejection that can compare to almost dying.

I have multiple tattoos.

I think it's lovely when people are more involved in local politics.

That's part of what a relationship is: you don't experience things in the same way.

I think it's always good to get into your partner's mindset.

Everybody's got baggage, and not just the classic, 'Oh I have so much baggage,' but everyone comes with so much context, and you're not just dating a person: you're dating all their context, too. Part of relationships is negotiating each other's context.

I always tell people, 'Take a class or volunteer.' It really helps you get out of your own little pocket of people you always see and gets you exposed to a new group of people.

I remember being a teenager and feeling like I could talk to anyone anywhere about anything.

I definitely think, when you're a teenager, it's more forgiving to talk to strangers and go up to people at a mall or whatever.

Not deciding is a decision. People don't realize that not making a decision is a decision in itself.

I'm not an actress. I'm a writer.

I grew up in a town where there were no Muslims whatsoever, and there was not a lot of exposure.

I'm a mental-health advocate big time, so I think it's great when depression is a thing that's discussed out in the open, because it's still way too stigmatized.

There's nothing like listening to the drone of QVC's always-bubbly pitchwomen, as they try to move loose-fitting tunics with 'just the right amount of sparkle,' to soothe you into a healing slumber.

You didn't have to know anything about show business to appreciate the characters' humor, because at its heart, 'Party Down' was about following dreams, dealing with rejection, and surviving all the lame jobs we've all had to work just to get by in the meantime.

If a show is a critical success but a ratings flop, I assume that people are just championing the show because it looks cool to root for an underdog.

If a show is wickedly, hugely popular, like 'Mad Men,' I assume that the masses, in their infinite inferiority to me, don't know what good TV is and that everyone is just brainwashed.

When someone insists that you watch a show that's already been on for a few seasons, they're basically saying, 'Hey, you're not doing anything for the next five weeks, are you? Because have I got a plan for you every single night! It's 'Weeds!''

Sometimes, I hate-watch television.

It's absolutely amazing to me that anyone allowed their children to watch 'The Ren & Stimpy Show' in the '90s; it's dark, gross, nihilistic, and absolutely bizarre.