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...

We’ve all been there.

It’s the end of a long, hard, day. You’re exhausted. So is your partner. And, all of a sudden, everything they do becomes excruciatingly annoying: the way they chew their food, the way they cut you off in the kitchen on your way to the fridge, or that thing they said at dinner.

Avoiding conflict in these conditions is like avoiding getting soaked during a massive rain storm. Sometimes, it feels inevitable.

But what if you...

One of the unique quirks of the human brain is its propensity to mirror the states of others. When we see an eight week old baby smile, we can’t help but smile. It just sort of happens.

But the opposite is also true. When we experience our partner's irritation and anger, we get pissed. We feel an instant surge of irritation and anger. It just sort of happens. 

Psychologists have a name for this phenomenon. They call it “complementary behavior." It’s a fancy way of...

You can take all sorts of surveys and assessments to better understand the strength of your relationship. But we want to propose that a single question—what we call "The Brag Test"—can tell you everything you need to know about the strength of your marriage.

We know what you're thinking. "What is the Brag Test and what can it tell me about my marriage?"

It’s basically this.  

When you're talking about your partner in front of other people—friends, work...

This week, we wanted to highlight a few of our favorite recent articles on marriage and relationships.

Up first, The Joys (and Challenges) of Sex After 70. The New York Times took a deep dive into the sex lives of older couples. When interviewing them, they stumbled upon an unexpected and hopeful insight: for some couples, sex in the final decades can be the best they've ever had.

Up next, Can MDMA Save a Marriage? As scientists expand their research on psychedelic compounds like...

In the dance that is marriage, we encounter a daily, moment-to-moment, choice. We can lean in towards each other up and dance like pros. Or we can lean away, awkwardly embraced, clutching each others shoulders like thirteen year olds at a middle school dance.

In every moment, in other words, we can either lean in or lean away.

Of course, the consequences of leaning away go beyond mimicking the fumbling awkwardness of a teenage romance. In long-term intimate relationships, they can...

Spring is finally here.

If you're like us, you might be cleaning out your closet, sweeping the garage, or tossing out old files from your office.

There's something cathartic about spring clean up. And yet we think this ritual shouldn’t be limited to your home, garden, or storage room.

As you transition out of the snow, cold, and long nights of winter, what would it look like to also spring clean your relationship?

Here are our three favorite tools.

Tools

1....

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...

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...