A warmly lit dresser styled with home decor items like a lamp, clock, radio, and dried flowers, showing simple ways to make a house feel like home.

FamilyIf You’ve Been Putting Off Making Your House Feel More Like a Home, Here Are 29 Items to Motivate You

A woman proudly wears her engagement ring, symbolizing the commitment she waited for before giving her all to her partner.

DatingThings Smart Women Refuse to Do for a Partner Until There’s a Ring on Their Finger

Grandmother and granddaughter reading a sweet text message together on a smartphone.

FamilyEncouraging Text Messages to Send Your Grandkids That Will Totally Make Their Day

Grandma cuddles her grandkids in bed while reading a story together, showing the warmth and comfort of visiting grandma.

All Love Notes Dating

A giant unsorted pile of clothes shows just how overwhelming a decluttering fail can get.

Family

A couple engaged in a tense, heated argument, illustrating warning signs of relationship conflict.

Marriage

From the Kitchen

welcome to the nest

Real Talk About Love, Marriage and Life After the Kids Leave Home

I'm Linda. When the last of our three kids moved out, Tom and I had to figure out how to be just us again. It turned out to be one of the most surprising seasons of our marriage, the good parts and the hard parts both. This is where I write about all of it, honestly. What keeps a long marriage warm, the small things that quietly pull couples apart, what men and women wish the other understood, and how to date your spouse again when the house finally gets quiet.

Meet Linda Read the Love Notes

love, marriage and everything after

Newest Notes on Love

Honest lessons from over thirty years with Tom, and from the couples who made it to fifty.

All relationship posts

Dating

Things Women Should Never Do for a Man

Last week a young woman from two doors down knocked on our side door to borrow the extension ladder. Her name is…

12 min read

Marriage

Second Marriages Later in Life Often Turn Out Happier

My friend Ruth got married in October. She is sixty-four. Her first husband passed six years ago, and for a long while…

15 min read

Woman pulling away with a frustrated expression as a man reaches for her, illustrating a lack of respect in a relationship.

Dating

He Doesn’t Respect You — Here’s How to Tell

Joyce walks with me on Thursday mornings. She lost her husband a few years back, and last spring she started seeing a…

9 min read

Family

Smart Ways to Handle Inherited Family Stuff Without Guilt

The weekend after the leaves were done, Tom went down to the basement for the folding chairs and came back up holding…

12 min read

An older man gazes affectionately at a younger woman, hinting at the dynamic of leaving a wife for someone younger.

Marriage

Men Who Choose a Younger Woman Over Their Wives Are Often Not Prepared for These Consequences

Last spring Tom came in from the garage and set his keys on the counter without saying anything. That is not like…

11 min read

Dating

Women Over 35 Reveal the Age Gap They’ll Actually Date, and Some Answers Will Surprise You

My friend Donna sat at my kitchen table on a Tuesday morning and stirred her coffee for a long time without drinking…

12 min read

Love that lastswhat long marriages do differently

The empty nestbeing just us again

Understanding himwhat men rarely say out loud

Date night ideassweet plans that cost little

Dating

What men and women notice, what they quietly hope for and the signs that someone is truly interested, from a woman who has watched a lot of love stories unfold.

Family

Life with grown children, the empty nest and the family boundaries that protect a marriage.

Apologies Your Adult Children Still Need to Hear from You

10 min read

Family

Things My Husband and I Never Tell Our Adult Children, on Purpose

8 min read

Marriage

Lessons from a long marriage: the small habits that keep love warm, the warning signs worth noticing and how couples find each other again after the busy years.