I have always prided myself on having a sixth sense for deception, an ability to spot the lie buried in the casual comment or the discrepancy in a story that exposed what someone is working to hide. I figured that’s what made me a great thriller writer.

In 16 books published over 25 years, I’d been constructing elaborate plots where people led double lives and hid horrible truths with both blatant lies and simple misdirection.

My protagonists were always law enforcement – inspectors and detectives, a medical examiner – sharp-eyed women trained to see through shiny veneers to notice the small inconsistencies that eventually cracked the case.

And yet, for two and a half years, I missed the most obvious plot twist of my life: my husband was having an affair with his massage therapist.

The irony isn’t lost on me. Somedays, the irony is suffocating.

It was a Friday afternoon in December 2022 when I found out. Our kids were home from college for the holidays, and our family was preparing to head to Mexico to join my sister and her family for a week of sun, sand and margaritas.

I discovered his affair not through any brilliant investigative work nor the careful attention to detail I so prided myself on. Instead, the discovery came from a charge on a credit card statement – a session with a couples counsellor we hadn’t seen in almost a decade – that caused an uncomfortable pit in my stomach.

I sometimes wonder whether the appearance of that pit meant that suspicion had been planted before then – whether there was a part of me, deep and buried, that sensed the rot beneath the carefully maintained façade.

When I reached out to my husband, his phone was turned off. For more than two hours, the pit grew as he remained unreachable and our adult children began to sense something was wrong. When his phone finally came back online, I confronted him with the charge and asked what was going on.

“I’m almost home. Let’s talk then,” he responded. So casual. So calm.

When he arrived, he asked if we could talk without the kids.

“What’s going on?” I demanded when we were alone. “I’m not in love with you anymore,” he said in the same tone you might mention the oil light has come on in the car.

“Who are you in love with?” I asked.

Love was energy; it didn’t just dissipate into the ether. It went somewhere else.

“There’s no one else,” he told me.

He acted normal for the next 24 hours. In weak imitation, the kids and I tried to act normal, too, to prepare for our trip and the small Christmas celebration we planned before leaving.

The following morning, Christmas Eve, we were set to depart for our vacation when I woke at 4am with the memory of something my husband said when our friends divorced: “A man never leaves his marriage unless there’s someone waiting for him.”

I roused him at 4:04am and asked again, “Who are you in love with?” When he didn’t answer, I started to guess. I got it in two. On the first guess, he protested loudly. On the second, he went silent.

“How long?” I asked. If I’d written the scene, I like to think I’d have been more creative, but creativity evaporated in the panic of that moment.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that he lied again. It took more than three weeks to get him to admit that the relationship had been going on for almost two and a half years. Three years later, there are details that never quite squared and lies that were never ironed out.

As a thriller writer, I’ve spent countless days imagining the worst things people can do to each other. I’ve sat in coffee shops and on airplanes and at my desk and invented murders, betrayals, psychological torture.

I’ve been inside the heads of liars and manipulators and people who destroy others without remorse. That experience made me believe I understood human darkness with a clarity others lack. But understanding it for the benefit of a story and living through it are entirely different things.

For days after I found out, I moved through my life like a stranger. Every object felt suspicious, every memory potentially false. Had he been thinking about her when we were in Nashville for my birthday the month before? Was he texting her from our bed when I was in the kitchen and setting up the coffee machine for the next day? How many times had he said “I love you” while mentally planning his next Friday massage appointment?

“Really? Your massage therapist?” I asked once, during one of those miserable circular conversations where nothing gets resolved and everything gets worse. “A 50-year-old man and his massage therapist. It’s so cliché.”

The comment clearly stung, as if I’d insulted his creativity rather than his fidelity.

“We were friends first. She listened to me,” he said.

“I listen to you,” I said like a petulant child.

“You’re in your office, working, or you’ve got your nose in a book for the podcast.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong.

Once our kids had left for college, I’d shifted my focus to my writing and working harder than ever as my career took off. I’d stopped working on the marriage. My shiny new toy was the book; his worked out the kinks in his neck, ones put there by 30 years with me.

That December, I was neck-deep in a manuscript about a detective investigating a pregnant surrogate who goes missing. It was a book I’d been so excited about six months earlier, one I’d been confident was my darkest, most psychologically complex book yet.

After I learned my husband’s secret, I couldn’t write a word.

Every time I sat down at my desk, I’d cry or stare at the blank page, wondering why I bothered. What did these pretend murders matter? What did my clever plot twists signify when I’d missed the biggest one in my own life?

Beyond the logistical fears about my own future was another terrifying realisation: I no longer wanted to write the detective book. Overnight, I’d lost interest in stories about detectives solving crimes, justice being served through shootouts and the court system, about the bad guys getting caught and punished. Suddenly, those seemed too neat, too fake, like fairy tales and not the Grimm’s variety.

Real betrayal, I learned, doesn’t get solved in 300 pages. Real deception doesn’t wrap up with a satisfying twist where everything makes sense and the protagonist emerges stronger and wiser. Real betrayal sits there, ugly and unresolved, in the middle of your life while people take sides and you fill the garage with items you once cherished and no longer want to see.

I started thinking about the kinds of stories that had never interested me – messy ones where the protagonist doesn’t figure everything out and there are no clear villains, just people making terrible choices for complicated reasons. Stories set in the ugly places I’d never wanted to go until now.

When I found my way back to the page, I rewrote the surrogate story, cutting the point of view from the detective, and placing the biological mom at its centre with her best friend from high school as the surrogate who vanishes four days before the baby is due.

In this new version, the story focuses on these women who were friends in high school and the complications of their long, intense friendship.

Though there is a big moral question at the centre of the book, as well as a fun, juicy plot, it was the interactions between the characters themselves that allowed me to explore the messy reality of life that I was living through while writing.

My divorce was finalised at the end of 2023, a few months after I got a new agent, six months before my agent sold that book, Pinky Swear, at auction for release earlier this year. It was the hardest book I’ve ever written and the best.

The one I’m writing now is trickier, more complicated. It’s about a woman who discovers her husband’s long affair with a massage therapist.

My husband was married to a thriller writer for almost 30 years. This can’t come as a surprise to him. Still, this is not a memoir. There’s a murder, for starters. But there are echoes from my own experience in the details, like the secrets that begin small and seem harmless … until they’re not.

While the main character is not me, the protagonist is walking in my own, uncomfortable shoes, trying to construct a narrative to make sense of chaos, and working to find a path forward when the narrative crumbles.

Every time I drive downtown, I scan the cars, the street, the store or restaurant for my ex-husband and his girlfriend. I still haven’t seen them together, though I know that they are. I wonder what I’ll feel when I do – a fresh wallop of despair? Closure? I have run the scenario a hundred times, and I still don’t know.

What I do know is that the writing I’m doing now feels like what I should be doing. Not because detective fiction isn’t important or valuable, but because I’d been using it as a way to imagine I could manage the outcome and somehow avoid the terrible things that happen to people who I imagined weren’t as studious or as prepared.

For months, I’d been plotting elaborate lies and deceit in that first draft of Pinky Swear while missing the simple, stupid truth: that the person sleeping next to me was a stranger. That I was so good at inventing characters for mysteries, I’d forgotten to be curious about the one I’d married.

I see now what those books were really about: control. The illusion that if you’re smart enough, observant enough, careful enough, you can see the betrayal coming. You can solve the crime. You can write your way to safety.

But you can’t. Life isn’t a thriller, and there’s no genius detective who’s going to figure it all out – no satisfying final chapter where all the pieces fit. At least, not in my life. Instead, there are just little clues I recognised far too late about the person I thought I knew becoming someone I never knew at all.

The book I’m working on now – the one about the woman who discovers her husband’s two-and-a-half-year affair with his massage therapist – will be called Happy Ending.

It won’t be neat or easy, but it might be happy. I hope it will be.

Danielle Girard is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of several novels, including the Annabelle Schwartzman series and Pinky Swear. She is also the creator and host of the Killer Women Podcast, where she interviews the women who write today’s best crime fiction. A graduate of Cornell University, Danielle received her MFA in creative writing at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. When she’s not traveling, Danielle lives in the mountains of Montana.

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When was the last time you asked your partner something more meaningful than “How was your day?” or “What’s for dinner?”.

It’s easy to think you know everything about the person you’re with. But people evolve over time, and relationships thrive on curiosity.

Asking the right questions can help you better understand your partner and deepen the emotional intimacy between you.

“The ‘right’ questions deepen emotional connection and shared meaning,” licensed marriage and family therapist Tara Gogolinski told HuffPost.

“They focus on each other’s inner worlds, not trivia facts or sameness. Couples who understand each other’s emotions, needs, and desires are more resilient, more satisfied, and better able to navigate conflict.”

Dr. Annie Hsueh, a licensed clinical psychologist and couples therapist, said asking thoughtful questions also helps partners develop a “love map” of one another’s inner world – a concept popularised by relationship researcher Dr. John Gottman in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

Couples who maintain detailed love maps are better able to navigate stress, conflict and life transitions, such as having a child or coping with illness.

“Getting to know your partner intimately isn’t a one-off process; it takes consistency,” Hsueh said.

Regular check-ins – whether daily or weekly – while asking the right questions can help couples stay curious about one another and deepen their understanding over time.

According to Gogolinski, healthy couples don’t need to know everything about each other. But there are key questions that, if partners know the answers to them, are strong indicators of a healthy relationship.

“These questions get at the heart of three important concepts: being in tune with each other’s feelings and noticing when something is off (emotional attunement); feeling safe, supported and confident in the relationship (secure connection) and listening, responding, and showing your partner that what they say truly matters (responsive communication),” she said.

Some core questions include:

• What helps you feel most loved or valued?
• What fears or insecurities tend to trigger you?
• How do you prefer to receive comfort when you’re overwhelmed?

To navigate recurring conflicts, Gogolinski recommended knowing your partner’s stress patterns:

• What situations or topics cause you the most stress?
• How do you typically cope: withdrawal, problem-solving, humour?
• What cues indicate you’re feeling overwhelmed or shutting down?
  
• How can I best support you during stress?

Understanding each other’s emotional world also extends to long-term dreams, values, and personal history:

• What are your long-term goals?
  
• What excites you the most?
  
• Who influenced you most growing up?
• What experiences shaped who you are today?

Gogolinski said, “Asking these questions helps you understand your partner on a deeper level and allows you to support them meaningfully.”

One simple way couples can stay emotionally connected is by asking questions that go beyond surface-level updates, Hsueh said.

“When you ask not just what has been on your partner’s mind, but also what has been on their heart, it allows them to reflect more deeply on the things that matter most,” she said. “Stay curious and let the conversation flow. It can deepen your bond.”

Hsueh suggests starting with a daily debrief at the end of the day, which can open the door to more meaningful conversations.

• What was the toughest part of your day today?
  
• How are you feeling about it now?
  
• How can I best support you?
  
• What was the best part of your day today?
  
• What’s something unique that happened today?
  

Beyond day-to-day updates, Hsueh recommended regularly checking in about different aspects of your partner’s inner world – including their stress, dreams, emotions, personal history and relationships.

• What’s been weighing on you lately?
  
• Is there something difficult you’re dealing with that you wish I understood better?
  
• What concerns have been on your mind recently?
  

• Where do you see yourself in five years?
  
• What excites you the most right now?
  
• Is there something new you’d like to try or learn?
  
• How can I support you in achieving your goals?

• What moments have brought you joy lately?
• When do you feel happiest?
• What’s something that has been upsetting recently?

• Who influenced you most growing up?
• What childhood memories stand out to you the most?
• What experiences shaped who you are today?

• How are you feeling about your friendships lately?
• How are things with your family?
• When do you feel most supported by the people around you?

“These types of questions allow you to get to know your partner on a deeper level,” Hsueh said. “They can also help you understand how best to support them, and even make exploring different parts of your lives together more fun.”

If asking these types of questions are new to both you and your partner, both Gogolinski and Hsueh recommend the following to make it feel more seamless and natural:

• Soft startups: Begin with curiosity, not accusation.
• Scheduled rituals of connection: Regular check-ins and shared routines keep communication consistent. Pick a time of day or a specific day of the week, and stick with it.
• Turn-taking: Let one partner speak while the other listens fully.
• Normalise differences: Accept that you don’t have to share all preferences to have a strong bond.
• Create emotional safety: Private, distraction-free conversations build trust.

As important as it is to ask the right questions at the right time, both Hsueh and Gogolinski emphasise the importance of honing your listening skills.

“Work on being a good listener,” Hsueh said. “Respond to your partner with curiosity and openness. Listening and staying engaged can help your partner feel safe sharing their thoughts and feelings. The more you create safety around vulnerability, the more you’ll be able to open up to one another – and the closer you’ll become.”

Gogolinski agrees that the intention behind listening matters just as much as the questions themselves.

“It’s important to listen with the intention of understanding, rather than simply preparing your response,” Gogolinski said.

“Validate what you hear your partner saying – for example, ‘Thank you for sharing that,’ or ‘I can see why you’d feel that way.’ Staying curious helps keep the conversation open and prevents defensiveness, assumptions or mind-reading.”

“Try to listen for the emotion being expressed, not just the surface-level content,” she continued. “When we reflect our partner’s emotions back to them, it helps them feel truly understood.”

Expert comment provided by licensed sexologist, relationship therapist, and author at Passionerad, Sofie Roos.

You’ve probably heard of polyamory, or non-monogamous relationships, which can sometimes involve more than two partners.

When done healthily, these involve open communication, clear boundaries, and frank discussions.

And while “tolyamory,” which was coined by relationship writer Dan Savage, is a relatively new term, sexologist and relationship therapist Sofie Roos says this kind of permissive behaviour has been happening for ages.

“I would say that this phenomenon is pretty common,” she told HuffPost UK.

It’s a combination of the words “polyamorous” and “tolerate”. It refers to a relationship where some indiscretion – be it flirting, flings, or inappropriate messages to other people – is understood to be going on in the relationship, but is never discussed openly.

One partner usually turns a “blind eye,” Savage said.

Roos told us people can be hesitant to bring up behaviour outside of the implied or stated boundaries of their relationship, “to protect the safety, peace, the family, to avoid conflicts or because it feels scary to open a door you might not be able to close again”.

And while the sexologist doesn’t think tolyamory is absolutely always terrible, she does think it usually comes with an imbalance of power.

“If two adults actively choose… this quiet agreement… I think it’s up to them,” she said.

“However, the problem is that this most often isn’t a mutual decision… [often], one tolerates, and the other one takes liberties. The one who’s the victim doesn’t feel they can say what it really costs them emotionally as they’re afraid of the consequences, which leads to a toxic situation.”

“The most obvious sign is that there are situations where boundaries have been crossed, moments which you both know you should talk about,” but nobody brings them up, shared Roos.

You might also sense an invisible “line” of candour about suspected, or known, indiscretions. These don’t have to involve outright cheating: it can also include unspoken feelings about an ex, a slightly-too-close relationship with a coworker, or “a general feeling around how your partner gives other people romantic appreciation”.

Perhaps, “you aren’t asking the questions you wanna ask, maybe because you don’t want to hear the answer, or… you tell yourself it’s better to keep the peace than to be honest”.

Your relationship could look, and even feel, great on the outside or the inside. But the two of you have “shut off” some lines of communication.

“To me, the problem seriously starts when this turns into you not being able to trust your partner, and when you start putting your own feelings aside to spare peace between you, which… tends to lead to a toxic relationship where you also start to step over the line with others instead of setting boundaries,” said Roos.

If you identify with some of this and aren’t sure whether it should be a dealbreaker, Roos says you should consider your sense of ownership in the decision.

“In my opinion, it should be a dealbreaker when the tolerance no longer is made out of free will, but is something you do out of feeling powerless, broken down or afraid of losing the relationship,” she shared.

That includes regularly feeling uncomfortable with your dynamic, constantly comparing yourself to others, losing your self-esteem, or feeling that your needs always have to come last.

“Another red flag is if the person uses confusion to their advantage in a way where they want to be free to do whatever they want, but without taking
responsibility, checking in on you, or giving you the same freedom,” she said.

If that’s the case, you’re likely facing an “imbalance” where it feels as though “one partner sets the boundaries for the relationship without you being a part of it”.

Ultimately, when silence is used to avoid responsibility, when you feel unable to tackle difficult topics head-on, and when you’re staying more out of fear than love, try to “think over the situation”, Roos warns, as the price for your relationship “is too high to pay”.

If you’ve spoken to a single teen in recent years, chances are you’ve been confronted with slang like “six-seven”, “glazing,” “mid,” and “unc”.

But according to new research conducted by Preply, which surveyed over 1,500 Brits, some of these are already deemed cringeworthy.

Here’s what UK respondents said bothered them the most, and why:

Per Preply, the words most likely to make people wince include:

1. Six-seven (24.4%)
Meaning: Nonsensical, “so and so”

2. Skibbidi (21.6%)
Meaning: “Cool” or “Bad”

3. Preggo (20.8%)
Meaning: Pregnant

4. Sorry, not sorry (18.1%)
Meaning: Humorously means “I don’t feel bad about it”

5. Holibobs (17.6%)
Meaning: Holiday

6. Slay (16.1%)
Meaning: To do something exceptionally well

7. Rizz (15.7%)
Meaning: To charm or seduce (from “charisma”)

8. Bae (15.7%)
Meaning: Significant other (similar to babe)

9. Wifey (15.3%)
Meaning: Wife or “girlfriend”

10. YOLO (14.9%)
Meaning: Abbreviation for “You only live once”.

Melissa Baerse Berk, an Associate Linguistics Professor from the University of Chicago, who is working with Preply, said: “Cringe isn’t really about the word itself, it’s about context and identity. Terms like ‘Skibbidi’ or ‘Rizz’ are closely associated with online subcultures and younger generations.

“When those words cross into everyday offline conversations, they can feel forced or inauthentic.”

As someone who heard “chat” out loud for the first time recently, I couldn’t agree more.

But, Prof Berk added, that doesn’t mean your favourite slang necessarily has to be out of reach.

“Using words found cringeworthy in an ironic sense suggests people aren’t just reacting to trends, they’re participating in them with a layer of self-awareness,” she explained.

“Irony acts as a social safety net, it allows people to engage with trends without fully committing to them.”