Abigail Thomas has a beautiful piece this week about the difficulties she encounters caring for her husband, who suffered traumatic brain injury after being hit by a car.  She cannot care for him herself.  He has severe mental… Continue reading

     Today, Jamie Callan recounts her courtship with the man who would become her second husband.  It started out as a college teacher/student (albeit older, returning to school after a divorce, student) relationship.  I must admit being a bit… Continue reading

    Today, Alison Luterman, describes the wedding of two gay men, which, given its non-traditional nature, drew upon a variety of traditions: But I didn’t have a lot of time to gawk at the family members because I was… Continue reading

   This week’s NYT Modern Love column, by Theodora Stites, allows forty-somethings like me (dangerously close to fifty-something) to gain a bit of an insight into the social world of twenty-somethings.   It’s all about the technology: the cell phones and… Continue reading

     I have gotten away, in recent months, from blogging the NYT Sunday "Modern Love" column.  But this week’s piece, "Seeing the World Through my Wife’s Eyes,"  by Ryan Knighton is just too good to ignore.     Knighton… Continue reading

   I haven’t blogged an NYT "Modern Love" column in a few weeks: a combination of topics that have just not sparked a post and the rigors of weekend blogging.  But this week’s piece by Anne Marie Feld is quite… Continue reading

    I know, it’s Monday, and only now am I getting to blogging on the NYT‘s "Modern Love" column that ran yesterday.  And I missed it completely last week.  Maybe there just isn’t enough in these columns to justify… Continue reading

    Richard Reiss writes a powerful and moving piece about how he has to deal with his teenage son’s aggressive and self-destructive behavior.  At the age of 3 he began to show a temper. At 6 he developed an… Continue reading

    Mindy Hung tells us about her experiences with an on-line date.   It is something completely alien to me.      I met my wife-to-be, face-to-face, when I was a freshman in college; we became a thing in my… Continue reading

     For regular readers of The Useless Tree, let me apologize for missing my usual Sunday blogging of the NYT’s "Modern Love" column last week.  Work just swamps me sometimes and I am behind in some grading (which is… Continue reading