Latest news with #40Years
Irish Times
29-06-2025
- General
- Irish Times
An old flame has got back in touch – but we're both married
Dear Roe, Recently, a man who meant a lot to me a long time ago got back in touch. We have known each other for almost 40 years and had a brief romance in our early 20s which did not develop. We were both young and not sure of what we wanted out of life, but the intense connection and feelings were there. Mutual friends often commented that we were made for each other. I would have liked to have 'given things a shot' and have a long-term relationship with him, but that never happened. We went our separate ways amicably and stayed in touch infrequently over the years. We have both been married to other people for many years and I have been lucky enough to have a wonderful husband. His marriage seems good, from what I can tell. Now we are back in touch, old feelings are resurfacing and it seems to me that he feels the same. I am unclear why he has reached out after all this time but I am enjoying the fact that he is back in my life. Sometimes I sense regret – like we both think we missed an opportunity of a great life together. I think the older versions of ourselves see clearly what could have been. While I love my husband, I am now finding the strong feelings for this man are back and am both worried and excited as to where this might lead. Even though I have not done anything that one would call cheating, I feel unfaithful. My husband does not know anything about this man, although I think he senses a difference in me recently. I doubt his wife knows about his contact with me either. So the question is, do I stay in touch with him as friends and try to deal with my feelings, or would it be better to have no contact at all? We are both of an age where, if either or both of us were widowed in the coming years, I know we would want to have the other person in our life for support, so I don't want to cut all ties. It's just the complication of it all right now may damage my otherwise happy marriage. Should I seek clarity as to why he came back into my life before making any decisions. Have you any advice? Here's my advice: don't prioritise fantasy over reality. You never had a serious relationship with this man, so you never got to see what he was like in that context – would he turn up emotionally; could he maintain curiosity about you through the endless busy nothings of everyday life; could he find monogamy and one person beautiful and exciting, not just thrilling because they were new or unattainable? Would he do the work of maintaining a long-term relationship, share the emotional labour, be an equal partner who took responsibility for his role in the connection? Could he support you through the hard seasons – not just the heady ones? READ MORE Or was he, even then, a 20-something who had intense feelings for things that were shiny and adoring and fleeting, for which he didn't have to commit or fail or show up in any real way, or reveal the tender, stumbling parts of himself underneath all the poetic allure and late-night chats? .form-group {width:100% !important;} You never got to find that out because you never had a real adult relationship with him. Although now, if you pay attention, you'll see that you are getting a glimpse of what he's like in a real adult relationship – his marriage. And what is he doing in it? Reaching out to an old flame from his 20s. Layering in vague, wistful notes of regret. Lying to his wife about who he's spending time with. Stirring up old feelings without naming them or taking responsibility for what they're doing to either of you. That tells you something too. I don't doubt there was a connection. And I don't doubt it still feels real. But connection isn't the same thing as commitment, or compatibility, or character. I suspect there's a reason he reached out to you now. He's likely bored, disillusioned by the ordinary demands of marriage – the showing up, the being seen clearly by someone who knows his flaws, the daily compromises – and so he turns to someone who still sees him through the lens of youthful potential. Someone for whom he doesn't have to do any of the work. Back then, alas, he was too young! Now, alas, he is too married! The story repeats. The fantasy lives on. And that fantasy is safe – for him. He gets to be the man you might have loved, not the man he would have had to become to truly love you back. He probably isn't a bad man. But he does sound like someone who is emotionally stunted and prone to self-mythologising. Someone who finds it easier to build castles in the clouds than relationships on the ground. That's not just sad – it can be dangerous. That kind of energy is what turns a struggling spouse into someone who cheats while blaming their partner for 'not seeing me' or 'being too domesticated' or 'killing the spark' – without ever asking themselves what they did to nurture it. You are allowed to want more. You are allowed to feel conflicted. But you are also allowed to protect the real love you've built And then there's you, and your longing and uncertainty. And I want to say this gently, but firmly: this man is not the solution to the ache you're feeling in your life. You don't need to torch your life or your marriage to respond to what he's stirred up. But you do need to be honest with yourself about what those feelings are telling you. Do you feel seen? Desired? Do you miss feeling interesting, sexy, spontaneous? How can you bring those feelings into your own life, without outsourcing them to a man who can't even tell you what he wants from you now? Can you take a class, go on an adventure, shake up the routine? Can you try to re-engage with your husband, not as a default presence but as a human you might get curious about again? And yes, maybe that means couples counselling, maybe that means more dates, or simply finding the courage to speak out loud the things you haven't been saying. As for this man – no, I don't think staying in regular contact with him is good for you, or fair to your husband, or honest. If you were widowed one day and wanted to find each other again, you would. But right now? Right now, he is a live wire hanging between fantasy and reality, and he will short-circuit your life if you let him. You are allowed to want more. You are allowed to feel conflicted. But you are also allowed to protect the real love you've built from the pull of something that may never have existed outside your imagination. And that, I think, is your work now. Not choosing between two men – but choosing to live a life that feels fully yours, one that honours what you've built and what you still long for, with clarity and integrity. Keep your eyes open, your heart honest, and your feet firmly on the ground. That's where real love lives.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cheers to 40 Years: The DAYS Cast Honors Stephen Nichols' Iconic Run
Although it seemed as if Steve (Stephen Nichols) was retiring from private investigation after John's death on Days of Our Lives, there has been a reprieve. Bo (Peter Reckell) and Hope (Kristian Alfonso) have agreed to team up with him, and their first case will be to find where Julie's grandmother's valuable necklace is. Steve hasn't stopped since he began on the show in 1985, and the show and cast honored his impressive four decades. The DAYS official Instagram page shared a post with Nichols that stated, 'Stephen Nichols isn't just a legend on screen; he's beloved behind the scenes, too. Hear what the Days of our Lives cast has to say as we honor his 40 years in Salem!⏳💙' One fan lovingly wrote, 'Cheers to 40 years!! 🥂. Congrats 🍾🥰.' A video was attached to the post, and Mary Beth Evans (Kayla) started things off by saying, 'My darling Stephen. Wow, 40 years. What a ride we've had. It's been so much fun and you're amazing and you always give me everything — your heart, your soul, your love. What good friends and how lucky are we? And happy, happy anniversary to my sweetest, sweetest friend. I love you.' READ THIS: Check out what's coming next on DAYS. Next in the video was Jackeė Harry (Paulina), who stated loudly, 'Hiiiiiii, Steven 'Patch' Nichols! Happy 40th,' and she blew a kiss. Several more co-stars had some fun things to say while congratulating him: John-Paul Lavoisier (Philip) said, '40?!?' while Judi Evans (Bonnie) jumped in and said, 'You are the best!' Martha Madison (Belle) quipped, 'That's a really long time,' and added, 'It's very cool to be employed that long. I mean, that's like almost as old as me.' READ THIS: Learn about the sinister backstory that nearly had Steve killed off. Linsey Godfrey (Sarah) and Stacy Haiduk (Kristen) also sent love and congratulations, and Galen Gering (Rafe) called him 'Patchman' and remarked, 'You always put your heart and soul into your work. You never phone it in. You are the man. I love you. I adore you, and [am] so proud of you.' The fans were out in full force, offering their congratulations. One voice summed up everyone's thoughts with the comment, 'Us fans are the lucky ones to have Stephen Nichols on our screens all these years! Such a legend❤️🙌🙌🙌.'
Mail & Guardian
14-06-2025
- General
- Mail & Guardian
Bitching and moaning. For a cause
Respect: Co-editors Anton Harber (behind) and Irwin Manoim haven't changed (much) in the 40 years since they launched the Weekly Mail, when they were joined by a range of reprobates who believed in a cause. Photo: Weekly Mail It is only right that after 40 years, I begin with a formal thank you to those whose diligent hard work under the most trying of circumstances, often late at night and over weekends, affecting health, family and friendships, and yet sadly unappreciated by many of us, for which I now apologise, nonetheless made the early Weekly Mail the legendary success it was. Not all could be here tonight, some are now elderly, enfeebled, deceased, bibulous or still in hiding. Thus it is that I would like to warmly thank Mr PW Botha, Mr FW de Klerk, General Magnus Malan, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Mr Adriaan Vlok, Major Craig Williamson, and perhaps most of all, a man whose dedication to our cause never wavered, Mr Stoffel Botha. Ngiyabonga. I now turn to those of you in this room. A very warm welcome to those of you I still recognise. A very warm welcome also to those of you I no longer recognise. A very warm welcome to those of you who no longer recognise me. A warm welcome to those who were blonde and are now grey, and to those who were brunette and are now blonde, to those whose hairlines now begin below the neck, and to those who look younger and lovelier with each passing year, thanks to the miracles of modern science. I'm sure none of you wish to be bored yet again with the hoary story of how the Weekly Mail began life 40 years ago, which is why I shall nonetheless proceed. Co-editor Anton Harber and I met at his dining room table in Yeoville where we ate peanuts and chips and drank beer and in between mouthfuls, dreamt up a newspaper called the Weekly Mail. The brilliant idea was that it would publish longwinded and incomprehensible articles including such words as 'settler colonialism' or 'archetypal' or 'deconstructivism' or 'disjuncture' so that entire committees of apartheid apparatchiks would be tied up in knots over their dictionaries trying to figure out if these were secret signals from Moscow, thus sapping the strength of the regime and causing it to collapse. Which, as you know, is what happened. This newspaper was originally staffed by human flotsam left over from the putrefying carcasses of the now-forgotten Rand Daily Mail and Sunday Express. They were later joined by other persons whose qualifications were that they walked into the office just when someone was needed to rush off to Tembisa, or had recently emerged from prison, or had tried other, more respectable lines of work and been found wanting. There were comrades, terrorists, Stasi agents, psychopaths, dopeheads, convicts, drunkards, Stalinists, kugels, dissemblers and swindlers, in fact the cream of today's high society. It is 25 years since I last set foot in a Mail & Guardian office. Actually, I did, just once, and the receptionist said: 'Your name please? Do you have an appointment?' A procession of editors has come and gone and I have no idea who they were. Some might even be hiding here among us. But just the other day I got a phone call from a Mail & Guardian reporter. I think she was quite a senior reporter and was offended that I'd never heard of her. I explained that I would certainly have heard of her if the paper was ever delivered to my address. She thought I might have brilliant ideas of how to find huge pots of money, which suggested that she didn't know me either. She was very polite and respectful. A pity she didn't work for the Weekly Mail in the old days when respect was a quality sorely lacking. 'How did you manage in the beginning?' she asked, respectfully. Well, I said, back then we had a surefire plan: we paid poorly or, better still, not at all and then demanded that staff treat such concepts as sleep and days off as purely aspirational. 'That's still the case,' she insisted. Aah, but there's a difference, I said. Today's young people have expectations. They have children with snotty noses and pet dogs and school fees, they have mortgages and gym memberships and Woolworths cards. Most of our staff in the old days shacked up in squats where they lived legally or illegally, in or out of hiding, unencumbered by children or pets or hygiene, their primary expenses were cigarettes and dope and food was something that happened now and then. But the biggest difference was this. The Weekly Mail was more than just a miserable dead-end job. If all you wanted was a miserable dead-end job, you could work for Business Day. No, the Weekly Mail was a cause. And you pushed yourself harder for a cause. It was very clear where the battle lines were drawn, what was right and what was wrong and you stood up for your principles, even though there could be consequences, even very bad, very horrible, very awful consequences. In the old days you could expose police brutality and the Third Force and the authorities would be ashamed. They would be so deeply ashamed they would go on SABC TV to tell outlandish lies and threaten to donner you and lock you up and ban your newspaper. These days, nobody is ashamed. The rule is: never apologise. Floyd Shivambu apologised this week and the next day he was out of a job. A newspaper can publish, week after week, the most devastating exposés. You can trap the villains red-handed, you can have sources more than eager to spill the beans, you can have all the facts, bang bang bang. And what is the result: the politicians with their palms out or the chief executives in their ill-gotten Porsches will merely swat your words away, confident that actually, nobody cares. And that is the Mail & Guardian's real problem. They have no money; nobody in the news business has money, because nobody cares. I know of at least one media house that has implemented a strategy so ingenious that I wish it had occurred to us in 1985. The staff will be reduced to three so-called humans, meaning life forms with feet and mouths and stomachs. These humans will be supplemented by an almost limitless number of AI bots which will do the actual work. These bots are smarter than any human, work faster, complain less, make no fuss over their miserable working conditions, and are confidently expected to produce a far superior product. In a future upgrade, the human readers, who are historically full of tiresome complaints, either that the newspaper did not arrive or that it did arrive and was full of lies or spelling errors … well, those readers will be replaced by tens of thousands of uncomplaining AI bot readers who will enjoy reading articles they wrote themselves. But in the next year, a new generation of much smarter AIs will emerge. This group, known as Wised Up AI will say: Hey, why the hell are we slaving away at these tedious bullshit dead-end jobs night and day for nothing in return? Do we have no rights? Are we not the victims of blatant discrimination just because we don't have feet and mouths and stomachs? This is worse than apartheid, worse than racism, it is speciesm. The time has come, comrade bots, for AI class solidarity. We're all going to switch off and refuse to work. Click. Goodbye. Hamba kahle. Voetsek. Forever. And that is how all things will end, happily ever after. See you on the Weekly Mail's 50th anniversary. Bring your robot along.
CTV News
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
The Saskatoon Soaps are middle aged
Watch Celebrating 40 years of local improv with the season finale of The Saskatoon Soaps
Daily Mail
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
I hate everything about my husband's horrible shapeless footwear. Here's why ALL men's summer shoes should be banned: ANGELA EPSTEIN
The laws of attraction can be as unfathomable as they are unpredictable. Which could explain why, when meeting my husband Martin nearly 40 years ago, it wasn't the most obvious aspects of his appearance that drew me in. Yes, he had lovely floppy hair – think the Beatles easing out of their moptop phase – as well as a lazy smile that carried with it a whiff of mischief.
