While I told my friends I wanted to meet someone, it felt safer to hide behind my persona. Who needed love when I had something larger—the gratitude of those I'd helped find it? But I wasn't immune to desire: After leading a seminar on the dangers of online dating, I fell into a headlong cyber-romance with a man who was happy to commit via computer (in three weeks' time, we exchanged 300 emails), but quickly broke my heart when we met in person.

I emerged from my Kleenex box for a debate with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Michael Jackson's onetime spiritual adviser, on "Honesty in Relationships: How Much Is Too Much?" It soon became evident that the rabbi was casting me as an advocate of falsehoods. "No, no," I protested. "If couples can't be truthful, they can't have anything real."

"So, Sherry," Rabbi Boteach queried sweetly, "You counsel others on how to find love. Are you in love?"

I stared into the auditorium at rows of trusting faces, then back at my adversary. "Yes. I'm very happy."

Lying to a rabbi in front of witnesses: Integrity, MIA.

My choices were to dive back into the Kleenexes or begin taking stock. Truth was, I didn't suck at helping people—and I did my best never to betray their trust or to promise more than I could deliver. What I sucked at was helping myself.

It takes more guts to ask for help than to offer it. But I refuse to continue being a coward. That's why I took the twin leaps of entering therapy and enrolling at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work. And I'm finally in a respectful and nurturing relationship with the person I've most neglected—me.