Shankar Vedantam

Alice's choice?

Either make peace with her partner's past, or split up.

She didn't have to like that Gertrude had loved someone else, but she had to accept it.

Accepting our partners isn't always easy, as Alice B. Toklas discovered.

For many of us, the impulse to alter things we dislike about our partners is irresistible.

But as the psychologist James Cordova discussed with us in a series of recent Hidden Brain episodes, acceptance is essential to unlocking deeper, more meaningful connections.

If you missed those episodes, you can find them in this podcast feed.

They're titled Love 2.0, How to Fix Your Marriage, Part 1, and Love 2.0, How to Fix Your Marriage, Part 2.

Today, James Cordova returns to Hidden Brain to respond to listeners' thoughts, stories, and questions about their relationships.

It's the latest installment of our popular segment, Your Questions Answered.

James Cordova, welcome back to Hidden Brain.

James, one of the things we discussed in our earlier conversations was the fact that some problems in our relationships are fixable and some are not.

So deciding which side of the bed to sleep on, that might be an easy problem.

Deciding whether to live in the city or the suburbs where partners want different things, you call these mezzanine-level problems.

Then there are the set of problems you call perpetual issues.

What makes perpetual issues different from other problems, James?

In other words, what you're saying is perpetual issues get at things that people really cannot change or accommodate.

You say that acceptance is the solution to perpetual issues.

Talk about this idea.

What do you mean by acceptance here, James?