KLEMP INSIGHTS
NEWSLETTER

We're sorry to be the ones to bring you this news. But this is a hard truth you need to hear.

There is a vast, worldwide, conspiracy afoot against you and your partner ever going on another date night.

Your kids are in on it. They'll do just about anything to interrupt that dinner out you had planned for a Thursday night. They'll get in trouble at school. They’ll break their arm. They’ll get a stomach flu. They might even orchestrate a massive fight between siblings at the very moment of yo...

Today, we have a thought experiment for you.

Think of your time and energy like a financial portfolio. Every block of your day—work, couple time, family time, exercise, friends, logistics—counts as an “investment” aimed at a future return.

ROI of work: purpose and financial stability.

ROI of family time: joy, fun, shared memories.

ROI of exercise: health and longevity (aka “retirement without a walker”).

The purpose of this thought experiment isn't to reduce the vastness of life down ...

Here's one way to talk to your partner. You reveal the full truth of your experience, your little victories, your hopes and dreams, and even the things that scare you. 

Here's another way to talk to your partner. You become like news anchors reporting on the latest events.

“It sure is cold outside, isn’t it?” you say.

“I was back-to-back with meetings at work all day,” says your partner.

“The line at Costco was insane,” you report.

We have a name for these conversations: "talking abou...

Here’s a sneaky mind virus that took us almost 20 years of marriage to notice.

We call it the “just this once” trap.

This is how it works.

Life is already a circus. You’ve got work, kids, in-laws, and about a thousand other responsibilities all screaming for your attention. The last thing you should do? Add more.

But that’s when the trap springs.

A college buddy texts you that they're in town.

A coworker ropes you into their Jamaican destination wedding.

Your parents guilt you into vis...

We have a morbid running joke in our house: in a past lifetime, Nate almost certainly died of starvation.

Why?

Because the moment the fridge starts to look even slightly empty, he gets nervous: “What are we going to do? There’s no food!”

On one level, this is just a food supply issue—easily solved by a trip to the grocery store.

But on another level, it’s about emotional safety. You see, the sight of our bare fridge makes Nate feel uneasy, and that unease ripples into the emotional he...

Over the last three weeks, we summited a conversational Mount Everest.

With our daughter away at sleepaway camp for 27 days, we road-tripped through Europe—just the two of us—for three uninterrupted weeks (our first time doing that in about 15 years).

At the beginning, we both had the same worry: How are we possibly going to have enough to talk about, all day, every day, for three straight weeks? 

But it turned out that we had more to talk about than expected. Giving ourselves wide-open...

Spring 1997.

Dave Matthews Band was peaking in popularity. The Backstreet Boys were just arriving on the scene. And the two of us were finishing our senior year of high school.

In a bold collective act of defiance, the two of us, along with four hundred or so of our peers, participated in the time-honored tradition of “Senior Ditch Day." Instead of going to school, we loaded onto buses and watched an afternoon Colorado Rockies baseball game. 

It was our way of saying, “We’re tired of bein...

Lately, we’ve been thinking about two seemingly opposite ways to build connection in relationships.

On one side, there’s safety.

In a chaotic and crazy world, we need this. It’s the feeling of structure, support, and routine that reminds us everything is going to be alright. 

On the other, there’s adventure.

When we take risks, do something new, and explore the edges of our comfort zone, we also grow together. 

Both safety and adventure build connection. Both can also become a trap.

S...

Along with summer comes a parenting and relationship paradox.

Less structure means more space. Time for spontaneous fun. Picnics. Trips to the pool. 

But less structure may also mean that your priorities fade away. 

And for couples with kids, this often means that even though you have more time for fun, you have less time for each other. 

Here are two ways to approach this challenge:

1. The "let's just wing it" strategy. This isn't really a strategy at all. It's just allowing random chanc...

Summer family vacations are a time of connection, joy, and fun.

They're also often the emotional equivalent of running an ultra-marathon or completing a full Ironman Triathlon.

Why?

During an ordinary workday, we have built-in breaks from each other. We go to school, go to meetings, check our email, or run errands around town alone.

During a day on vacation, however, this sprint-and-recover world of breaks flips upside down. We wake up, together. We eat, together. We drive long distances ...