Want to start a massive fight with your partner?
Here's one great place to begin. Give them feedback that is the exact opposite of what they hope to receive.
For instance, let's say they just had a hard day at work and want to vent about their boss who fancies himself as a kind of cubicle-ruling autocrat.
How can you turn this moment into a raging conflict?
Easy, interrupt your partner mid-rant with a laundry list of clever ideas and solutions to their problem.
You might say, "Well, have you...
We live in an age of hyper connection.
We can text our partner at all hours of the day and night. We can track their every move using Google Location Sharing. We can even FaceTime them when we’re thousands of miles away.
So why is it so hard for modern couples to stay connected?
Researchers at UCLA have an answer. They followed around thirty modern couples, observing them like anthropologists as they ate, got the kids ready for school, and navigated the logistics of...
Has this ever happened to you?
You just spent all morning making breakfast, unloading the dishwasher, and packing lunches for the kids. Your partner, meanwhile, just strolled in from a morning workout, seemingly oblivious to all your hard work.
Or you just spent ten hours working your face off so that you and your partner can afford the vacations, the house, and the cost of day care. Your partner, meanwhile, just arrived home from a long walk with a friend and a spacious...
Relationships are complicated.
Circumstances are unique.
Every couple has their own idiosyncratic way of handling money.
These ideas have led us to steer clear of talking about today's topic in past newsletters.
But after years of witnessing couples struggle with money and after the emergence of new research, we felt compelled to talk about this third rail of relationships: the decision to share or split financial accounts.
Our perspective?
Sharing accounts is perhaps the most...
Why do you feel stuck? Here’s the answer served up by our modern world: your partner.
Just think about the way conversations with friends go down. When was the last time you were out with a group of women talking about their husbands over drinks and heard the line, “I think my real issue with Steve is that I need to do a little bit more introspective work on myself. I need to figure out how I am creating this dynamic?”
Is that what you heard? Or did you...
Have you ever argued with your partner about something so trivial, so utterly stupid, that, looking back, it seems like you might have gone temporarily insane?
Examples include but are not limited to fighting about:
These aren’t symptoms of relationship dysfunction....
Here’s the first thing the world tells us about relationship success: find a unicorn.
Find your Mr. or Mrs. Right. Find that rom-com-worthy, diamond-in-the-rough guy or gal.
What happens then? Magic.
Once you find this unicorn partner, they will make everything okay. They will shower you with love and affection.
Unicorns, after all, aren’t like the rest of those other losers out there. They’re always turned on and in the mood. They cook and do all the dishes for fun....
Have you ever had a single line of text change your life?
We have. Here’s a line that changed ours from two of our mentors Gay and Katie Hendricks:
“In all times and every way, we are getting exactly what we are committed to getting.”
Take a moment to sit with this idea.
Take a moment to let it in.
Consider the idea that, somehow, you are committed to getting all the problems and challenges you experience throughout the day.
Most of us recoil at the...
What's the best way to rebuild trust in your relationship?
Here's the easy answer: try not to lose it in the first place.
You can do this in all sorts of ways. There's staying in the mindset of radical generosity, revealing your full experience, and getting clear on your values as a couple. All of these 80/80 strategies will help you get more connected and, as a result, strengthen the fabric of trust.
But what do you do when there is a significant loss of trust in...
Relationship conflicts come in all sorts of flavors.
There’s the power struggle, the fight over decision rights, or the argument about money.
There’s the classic fairness fight, the dispute over the exact 50/50 balance of housework, child care, and the thousand or so other random logistics of modern life.
But there’s also a subtler, more surreptitious, form of conflict. We call it the I-miss-you fight.
We experienced it just last week. Kaley was away all week for an...
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