KLEMP INSIGHTS
NEWSLETTER

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...

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...

The theme of this summer is change.

If you have young kids, you're experiencing the change from the academic calendar to camps, vacations, and unstructured time.

If you've spent the last year holed up in your house, avoiding large crowds, airplanes, and social gatherings, you may be experiencing the change to a more packed social calendar.

With these changes comes an essential question: what are your priorities?

Of course, you don’t have to answer that question. You can just let random chanc...

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...

Earlier this week, we talked to Anna and Greg McKeown on The Essentialism Podcast. Greg is the author of one of our favorite books, Essentialism, and the newly released book Effortless.

We will let you know when the episode is released. But for now, we wanted to explore a question inspired by our conversation: how can marriage become more effortless?

This is one of the key moves in McKeown‘s new book, a tool that he calls “inversion." In his words, “Instead of asking, 'Why is this so hard?'...

“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 ...

Change is in the air.

Thanks to the miracle of rapid vaccine production, our daughter can now see her grandparents again. We can see our friends again.  And we're on the cusp of safely gathering together in groups for parties, weddings, and events.

Walking around our town last weekend, we noticed a new atmosphere of excitement and hope in our city. We could feel the sense of a “new normal" beginning to arrive.

This moment of transition means that our habits, routines, and structures of life i...

During the years we spent writing The 80/80 Marriage, we often wondered: what will our future critics point to as the book’s primary flaw?

We imagined there might be political critiques – some would see us as too progressive and others as too conservative in our defense of marriage.

We also imagined that critics might seize on the fact that we're not licensed marriage therapists. "Writing marriage books," they might say, "is a pastime reserved for those who dole out certified advice on marriag...

The New York Times Review

We're thrilled to report that The New York Times did a review this week of our book, The 80/80 Marriage. They linked radical generosity in life to what happens in the bedroom. Read the article and ask yourself: "How does the way I do life show up in sex?" Click here to read the full article.

Now for the real question: Is your relationship 80/80?

If you've read our book, followed us on Instagram, or kept up with these newsletters, you probably have a good sense of ...

COVID-19 has brought most married couples closer, but not in the way you might think.

We now live our lives closer together: traveling less, leaving the house less, and working nearer to each other during the day. We also do more of the daily activities of life together (parenting, cooking, cleaning, etc.).

We're close. But we are often not connected.

Here’s what this marriage paradox looks like for us. We get to the end of the day and realize that -- even though neither of us has left the ho...