choose the answer that best applies to you and your partner. overall, he summarizes four ways of interacting which can quickly erode positive feelings and mutual respect. the following are four strategies for breaking negative cycles in relationships. these four techniques are not merely recommendations but practical enough to be used everyday.

validation is simply putting yourself in your partner’s shoes and imagining his or her emotional state.ways to add validation to your discussion: if you detect that your relationship …

and it can lead to relationship-ruining behavior like financial infidelity, wherein one spouse hides money from the other. people in such situations may take some solace in knowing that debts brought into a marriage stay with the person who incurred them and are not extended to a spouse. when one or more of these situations is present, the money earner (or the one who makes or has the most money) often wants to dictate the couple’s spending priorities. now one …

marital problems are common and can happen for a variety of reasons. they may also start to think they have more “right” to the money and can spend it however they want. if either spouse feels that the work load is unbalanced, it can lead to marital problems. it takes a true partnership to stay on top of everything, plus care for your home and each other. while you might want your spouse to look and act the same forever, …

there is no such thing as a perfect person, a perfect family, or a perfect marriage. a marriage is going to have its ups and downs. there are going to be days and times that are going to come when there are problems in the marriage. in other words, what do you do about problems that never get resolved? problems are created in many ways. one way is when one of the partners experience an unpleasant emotion during a situation. …

there are many temptations to organize our life around the experience of earlier trauma. differences of opinion are inevitable, and the sign of a relationship where partners share power and are comfortable in voicing their opinion. learning about what other couples fight about can help you realize just how normal some of your own arguments are, and also help you talk through issues ahead of time to avoid more damaging fights. there is quite a bit of similarity across studies …