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A lot of support gets withheld out of fear of awkwardness and misspeaking.

Carolyn Hax

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Carolyn Hax
Age: 57
Born: 1966
Born: December 5
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Bridgeport
Connecticut
Carolyn Hanley Hax
Withheld
Awkwardness
Gets
Support
Fear

More quotes by Carolyn Hax

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It's okay to forgive yourself immediately and for good.
Carolyn Hax
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I think a person who arranges the event and orders the food also picks up the check - even the birthday person, even when people at the table insist on paying for the birthday person.
Carolyn Hax
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No matter what else comes, your courage will be your companion for life.
Carolyn Hax
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Make sure you have legal cover for what you're doing.
Carolyn Hax
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Moving is hard. Staying is easy. Logistically speaking, at least. And this is true whether you're doing or undoing something.
Carolyn Hax
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There's nothing like a good family when you're really up a tree.
Carolyn Hax
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Being highly invested and preoccupied by an emotionally consuming mission tends to steal resources from other aspects of your emotional life.
Carolyn Hax
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You don't want to be with someone who is already not getting from you what he needs emotionally.
Carolyn Hax
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Plan your own vacations when you want to, and plan a suitable combined vacation with this other family when you want to. If they freak out at your planning your own vacations as you see fit, then let them. Bowing to unreasonable demands because someone will make you pay emotionally if you don't is not a healthy option.
Carolyn Hax
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When in doubt, respond to what you witness, not what you hear secondhand.
Carolyn Hax
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Separating is not divorcing. Please keep that in mind. It is, instead, the second step in seeing if there's a better way to manage your family.
Carolyn Hax
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For me, the greatest source of frustration was trying to work with a willful child when there was something else I wanted - say, to get the child to go to bed so I could have my own time. Just the promise of the time, and feeling that promise slip away, was enough to introduce a whole other element of stress into the encounter.
Carolyn Hax
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We all make deals with ourselves when it comes to the difficult people in our lives.
Carolyn Hax
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If you're not sure what you want, then hold back from making plans or responding to invitations until you have a chance to think about it.
Carolyn Hax
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Relationships are complicated, but happiness in a relationship isn't: It's just wanting exactly what you have. Wanting something else is dispiriting.
Carolyn Hax
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The topic of sexual education makes me nuts, because kids are certainly not now and have rarely ever been clueless about what adults do and delude themselves about keeping from their kids. Especially now that so many of them are carrying the entire internet around in their pockets.
Carolyn Hax
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Sometimes the pain outweighs the good things.
Carolyn Hax
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The sudden death of a partner while expecting a child is so universally understood as awful that I don't think anyone with any other weight to carry is going to get to same kind of sympathy - except perhaps people who lose a child.
Carolyn Hax
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It takes awareness that it's not only not a bad thing to let others do things their own way, it is in fact an improvement. It makes life richer and more interesting.
Carolyn Hax
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Some people can work amid chaos or conversations, and some can't - and while there's no doubt an element of brain wiring to it, there's also the possibility of acquiring skills that improve your focus.
Carolyn Hax