Smart, educated couples who are masters at their craft at work can often be surprised by how complex their relationships at home are. Fights flaring over the simplest of things.

Now more than ever, you need a foundation of steady, healthy, face-to-face communication. Be pro-active. Don’t leave anything to chance even if that means you have to legit schedule it into your respective calendars.

Because if our partner is in distress, the thing we want most is to relieve that distress. So you can end up trying to “fix things,” you can apologize too quickly, or you can unintentionally invalidate them.

But if they’re so good, why isn’t everyone’s marriage renewed by a few minutes on Pinterest? Here’s why: I tell people that for a couples counseling, insight is required but not sufficient.

Disagreements and fighting come with the territory. But no one has to stay stuck in a repeating loop of self-sabotage. The decision to slow down and listen carefully to what’s going on inside is the antidote to the “same crap, different day” cycle.

But, once a connection is made, we all know there’s much more to sustained chemistry than cat person vs. dog person. We are each the product of countless factors — most of which are beyond our control — that evade dating algorithms.

For example, what if you were asked to list your emotional triggers?

Spoiler alert: You’re not the first person to have an affair, and you won’t be the first person to find ways to re-establish trust. It won’t be easy, but it can be worth it.

George is saying he’s listening to her. But he’s not doing the one thing he should do first: listen to what’s going on inside him.

Have you heard that old adage: measure twice, cut once?

This whole Covid-19 pandemic felt at first like someone was promising a 5K. . . But now it’s starting to feel like I got to the finish line only for someone to tell me,”Nope, keep going! Only 23.5 miles left to go!”

The term “ambiguous loss” came up.  When we’ve experienced something that’s easily identifiable, we can point to it and say,”I just lost my father,” or,”I lost my job.”  But we’re not experiencing that.  Instead, we’re seeing death tolls, seeing eerily empty streets and being told some version of you may/will/have lost your job.  

It can be really painful to say “I miss you.” So much so that it’s easier just to be angry. But instead of riding the anger train, staying vulnerable despite the risk is the only way to communicate what you want without getting stuck in a fight.

Or they may just look at you blankly, like you’re the crazy one. It’s hurtful because what you’re trying to do is really solve a problem that’s affecting you and they’re not being helpful in the way that a spouse or partner should be helpful. . .

For your spouse to think that you somehow don’t care about them feels heartbreaking to them. So they're pursuing resolution of your argument in service of getting you close together.

Couples even in the middle of fighting over squeezing out the sponge will laugh about the ridiculousness of it all, but will resume blasting each other when they get back in touch with the hurt the other person caused them.

The ironic thing is when anger is in the room, it demands attention instead of the speaker’s message.

If you’re too afraid to hurt your spouse or partner’s feelings, and you push down your feelings, you start to live with a mask on more and more. They are essentially in relationship to a false you. How long are you going to let the charade go on?

You’re missing out on half of the equation when you try to “figure it out” alone.  You’re not speaking the language of sex and constructing your intimate life together.  Instead, you’re “doing it alone.”

If you’re angry and wanting to “Drop some truth” to your spouse so that both of you go to bed with more “truth” in your heads, ask yourself how well that’s worked in the past.

. . . here’s some good news:  They may look like they’re out to hurt you, but they might be fighting for your relationship.