Book Titles

…marriage… forces couples to face themselves, to learn more about themselves and how they behave with an intimate partner than they ever expected (or perhaps wanted) to know.

Marriage… is the greatest two-way decision of most people’s lives, and couples are enormously invested in making it work.

…the vast majority of couples who drift apart do so slowly, over time, in a snowballing pattern of blame and self-justification.

…misunderstanding, conflicts, personality differences, and even angry quarrels are not the assassins of love; self-justification is.

Every marriage is a story, and like all stories, it is subject to its participants’ distorted perceptions and memories that preserve the narrative as each side sees it.

When we explain our own behavior, self-justification allows us to flatter ourselves: We give ourselves credit for our good actions but let the situation excuse the bad ones.

Successful partners extend to each other the same self-forgiving ways of thinking we extend to ourselves: They forgive each other’s missteps as being due to the situation but give each other credit for the thoughtful and loving things they do.

While happy partners are giving each other the benefit of the doubt, unhappy partners are doing just the opposite.

…being criticized for who you are rather than for what you did evokes a deep sense of shame and helplessness; it makes a person want to hide, disappear.

…contempt – criticism laced with sarcasm, name calling, and mockery – is one of the strongest signs that a relationship is in free fall.