Eli Finkel

Well, it turns out there's a lot of good research now on the extent to which people feel like compatibility in a relationship is something that is fixed.

You could call this a destiny mindset.

People who think, look, partners are either compatible or they're not and that's the end of the story versus more of a growth-oriented mindset who think –

Look, there's a lot of room where you can develop compatibility.

And in fact, going through difficulties in a relationship isn't a signal that, oh my goodness, we're incompatible people.

It's an opportunity to learn to understand each other better and strengthen the relationship through the resolution of the conflict.

And here again, it's not like we have complete control over the thoughts that we have about these things, but we can try to make ourselves adopt a more constructive, growth-oriented approach to thinking about conflict in the relationship rather than a more destiny-oriented approach that can often view conflict as a deep sign of incompatibility

And that's pretty destructive for the relationship.

That's right.

It's the same logic again, right?

So we have this all or nothing approach.

We expect these high level things.

And many of our marriages are in fact falling short of that.

So one possibility is that we try to invest more in the relationship.

And the second possibility, which we've called love hacks, is how to be more efficient.

But the third possibility, and I actually think we should be pretty serious about this.

There's nothing shameful about making these sorts of sacrifices.

We should ask less.

In what ways can we in our own marriage look to the relationship and see, man, like I have been looking to fulfill this sort of need in the relationship for a long time.

And I'm chronically a little disappointed about how we do as a couple and helping to fulfill this sort of need.