KLEMP INSIGHTS
NEWSLETTER

Imagine that it’s been one of those days.

You’re tired, cranky. You feel stressed and irritated. And, on top of it all, you feel like you’re the one doing everything -- at work, with the kids, and at home.

Then, your partner casually strolls through the door and says, “I thought you were planning to have dinner ready by 6 PM?"

In an instant, a tidal wave of thoughts and emotions washes over you. You feel the piercing sensations of anger rising through your belly and chest. Your mind swirls wi...

Last week, we had a conversation with a recently married younger couple. They told us about the challenge of transitioning from those early days of dating, where everything is fun and fresh, to the early days of marriage, where you end up spending way more time on navigating conflict and life logistics.

In that moment, something clicked. We uncovered an insight that was always there but that we had never seen with such clarity.

We call it The Fun-to-Logistics Ratio.

Here’s how it works. In th...

In last week's newsletter, we explored envy outside of marriage, toward friends or other couples. This week, we want to go one level deeper into the sensitive subject of envy towards your partner.

We experienced this just last week. With our daughter out of school and in camps for the summer, we decided to modify our work schedules.

Nate slowed down a bit so he could take on more of the camp drop offs and pick ups and random life logistics. Kaley, meanwhile, ramped up her travel for work, spen...

A woman in distress recently sent us a DM on our 80/80 Instagram account. She told us that her husband is withdrawing. He’s less interested in spending time together. He’s contributing less. And their marriage is suffering.

Why?

That’s where things get interesting. He’s withdrawing because she has made a commitment to self improvement. She’s reading new books, listening to new podcasts, and building new habits to improve her life.

You would think her partner would welcome all of this positive...

During an event we did with ParentMap last week (click here for the full video), we received a great question, "How do you keep mindfulness alive in the heat of the moment?" someone asked. “It seems much easier when things are calm but it’s needed more when situations are stressful.“

This question reminded us of one of our favorite quotes from the Austrian psychologist Victor Frankl, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our respo...

“You don’t understand what I’m going through,” Nate said.

“Well, you don’t understand what it’s like for me,” Kaley told Nate.

After two years of marriage, we found ourselves caught in this trap. It's a predicament that so many couples find themselves in, a conflict that boils down to this: you don’t understand me.

For us, an unexpected accident triggered these feelings of misunderstanding. Thirteen years ago, Nate had a serious bike accident that resulted in all sorts of mysterious physical ...

The other day, we had an argument that got pretty heated. It was over how to prioritize our time on a Sunday afternoon. Kaley wanted to meet up with a friend. Nate wanted to do an activity together as a family.

The conversation started out well. But then, it went off the rails. At some point, we both felt frustrated and angry. We both felt like the other person wasn't really hearing us.

In that moment, we realized we had a choice between two very different paths. The first path would be to dou...

Power.

It’s the marital equivalent of the Wi-Fi network in your house. It’s an invisible force and yet it’s always there, operating in the background. And, just like your Wi-Fi, when power goes out of whack, you feel an instant surge of irritation, anger, and sometimes even rage.

When we started writing The 80/80 Marriage, one of our primary goals was to better understand the dynamics of power in marriage. We had both experienced first-hand the sting of resentment that comes from imbalances in...

Here are two common traps in marriage.

The first is getting so lost in errands, to-dos, and the thousand or so other demands of domestic life that you forget about caring for yourself. At the end of the day, you feel scattered, tense, and exhausted. You’ve been carrying the weight of your family system but you haven’t been caring for yourself.

The second is this problem in reverse. It's overdoing self care. Instead of following through on important logistics or doing the things that need to ge...

It’s Thanksgiving (the good news)!

Covid-19 rates are peaking (the bad news).

And that means that all the drama we normally experience at Thanksgiving -- the strange political discussions or the arguments over whether the stuffing should be gluten-free -- now includes all sorts of new emotionally explosive questions.

Questions like:

• "Do we still try to eat a turkey dinner together but just do it outside in the freezing cold, huddled around a patio heater?"
• "Isn't there some way to eat wit
...