Articles on the
80/80 Marriage

It’s still mid-winter, and yet it’s already time for summer planning to begin. Kids summer camps are filling up. Your in-laws are asking, “When are you planning to visit?" And air fares are starting to rise.

How do you plan out your summer without driving each other crazy?

Let's start with how not to do it, with the way that summer planning turns into a hot mess come July.

Partner 1, the consummate over-contributor, realizes that, if she doesn’t...

Originally published in Inc. Magazine.

Does this sound familiar?

You've just finished a long day, full of emails, Zoom calls, deadlines, and to-dos. You're now making the shift from work mode to family mode. But, for some reason, you just can't seem to turn it off.

You keep thinking about that meeting, that call you need to make, or all the things you weren't able to get to. You're living in yesterday, tomorrow, and five years from now, finding it impossible to slow down and be here now.

If...

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,...

Last year, Nate took up a bizarre practice. After reading the book Breath by James Nestor, he became convinced of the benefits of nasal breathing (breathing through your nose instead of your mouth).

The scientific case for nasal breathing is robust. A vast body of evidence shows that simply breathing through your nose improves sleep quality, reduces stress, and enhances our ability to absorb oxygen.

There’s just one problem. How do you breathe through your nose at night?

Enter...

Is it just us or does everyone seem overwhelmed and ragged these days?

Consider the last few days of 2021. The 30th of December kicked off with the terrifying news of the Omicron variant spreading throughout the world at record pace.

Then came the texts that afternoon asking, “Are you guys OK? Is your house on fire?" We soon learned that an ember storm was barreling down on the southern part of our beloved city of Boulder, a winter wildfire driven by hurricane force winds...

Fairness is the air that we breathe in modern relationships.

We breathe it in as we watch our partner failing yet again to be helpful and load the dishwasher like a sane human being. We breathe it out as we complain either out loud or in the privacy of our own minds about their shortcomings.

Like the air that surrounds us, fairness is also mostly invisible.

We discovered this during our interviews with couples for The 80/80 Marriage. We asked each couple, “How does fairness show...

Ah, 2021.

One year ago, we thought this would be the year of -- well -- everything going back to normal.

That's not exactly what happened. And, if anything, we're learning that the 'new normal' can be summed up in a single word: uncertainty.

Whether our kids will be at school in person in a week -- uncertain.

Whether Covid will ever disappear and fade into a bad memory -- uncertain.

If you're like just about everyone we know, all of this uncertainty may have taken a toll on your...

One of the most profound marriage insights comes down to some simple math. There’s the two of you: you and your partner. And then there are your “thirds.”

Now, this idea alone isn’t groundbreaking. It’s not going to radically change your life.

But here’s something that might. Marriage therapist and author Stan Takin argues that these “thirds” pose one of the greatest threats to the health of a marriage. A third could be your friend or...

We're shifting our format for this week's 80/80 Newsletter.

We want to start with the exciting news of our recent segment on the TV news show The Los Angeles Times Today. 

The subject?

We talk about the gender gap in marriage and how clarifying roles can help mitigate inequality. To watch, click here.

The 10-Minute Role Clarity Playbook

And now for a practice that relates directly to the subject of roles. It's a practice we recommend all couples do at some point and,...

There are two ways to talk to your partner.  

The first kind of conversation transports you and your partner to new dimensions of connection and love. In these conversations, you reveal the full truth of your experience, your little victories, your hopes and dreams, and even the things that scare you. You open up to each other, and your connection grows.

Then there's the second, more ordinary, way that we talk to each other in relationships. In these conversations, you and your...