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Escalating self-disclosure is a slow build. Sometimes when we’re ready to share, we think it’s the right time for them to open up as well. But people do this at their own pace, in their own time.
This list-making can turn dreams into requirements. Any potential partner will come with a past, challenges, and possibly trauma, just as you do. You simply won’t find someone who ticks every box on your checklist.
creating something together is better than wanting the same thing. How you handle your differences is more important than finding your similarities.
We are meant to fall in love, be in love, and stay in love. But we can’t do any of that if we expect every day to be Valentine’s Day. Trouble is inevitable. It comes when, as a couple, we inevitably discover the various ways in which we aren’t aligned.
After we’ve overcome a challenge together, we grow. We learn to tolerate, adjust, and adapt. The growth that we do together builds into trust.
We trust people more when they make us feel safe, when they make healthy decisions, and when we feel like they conduct their life based on values that we agree with.
make an effort to thank your partner for the effort and energy they consistently bring to your partnership. Be specific.
Your partner should be someone you want to learn with and learn from and learn through, and vice versa. We learn with someone when we try something new together and reflect on it afterward. We learn from someone when they have expertise they share with us or use to guide us. Learning through someone is the hardest. In living with another person’s mind, heart, and energy, we grow through observing their behavior toward us.
explore the possibility that your partner might actually have some wisdom to share, by asking them the right questions. Questions that aren’t rhetorical or condescending but rather are sincere efforts to understand the idea.
Abuse only teaches you to fear your partner, to suppress your instincts, to ignore your own pain, and to feed someone else’s ego. Emotional, mental, and physical abuse should be deal-breakers for everyone,
dharma—purpose artha—work and finance kama—pleasure and connection, your relationships with others moksha—liberation from the material world, when you connect with the spirit
“We are confronted with the ups and downs of life, but purpose is an active ingredient that helps us stay stable.” We bring that stability to one another. It’s a foundation on which we can build our life with our partner.
In every relationship there are actually three relationships: your relationship with each other, your relationship with your purpose, and your partner’s relationship with their purpose.
When you are both actively pursuing your purpose, your relationship benefits in several ways. Dharma helps you live a passionate, inspired, motivated life, a life you want to share with someone. You also have the pleasure of living alongside someone who is fulfilled. There is great joy in seeing the person you love doing what they love. Furthermore, you’re more aware of, and sympathetic to, the struggles they might have along the way.
The Pyramid of Purpose Learn—Devote time to learning in the area of your purpose Experiment—Take what you learned and try it out for yourself in order to discover what works for you and what doesn’t Thrive—Perform your purpose, building consistency and steadiness in what you’re doing Struggle—Face the challenges that inevitably come and use them for growth Win—Celebrate successes, big and small
We think starting means doing, but it actually begins with learning. Don’t skip or avoid the learning phase.
YOUR PURPOSE IS WHERE YOUR PASSIONS INTERSECT WITH YOUR SKILLS.
Our partner doesn’t have to share our passions. Even if they do, that doesn’t guarantee success in a relationship. Remind yourself why you are with them and remember that being alike isn’t necessary for a happy relationship.
We can’t avoid struggle, but the deeper we understand it, the more we can use it to grow.
Don’t put the burden of financial bills on your developing passion. It doesn’t need to carry that weight. Use mornings and evenings to build your passion. Remember something that starts as a pastime can become part-time.
If you choose to prioritize one person’s dharma, you must discuss all the pros and cons and agree that this is best for the household. Set terms that the partner who is making a sacrifice feels comfortable with, such as how long this will go on and how you will check in with each other to make sure that frustration and resentment don’t set in.
It’s all a question of energy or time. If the busier partner can carve time out of their schedule, work together to create meaningful experiences for the whole family. If they don’t have time, they can still give energy by being present, loving, and kind when you’re together.
Our relationship isn’t just a romance, it’s a becoming. Being wwith you, I have grown so much, and I love seeing all of the ways that you continue to grow as well. And that is one of the things I love the most about being wwith you—seeing you blossom over this lifetime. In that simple definition of love I used to have, people fell in love only once, and then just stayed that way. But as we both continue to evolve and explore, I find myself falling in love wwith you over and over again, each time a little differently. Each time more deeply.
In Vanaprastha we learn how to resolve conflict so we can protect our love or know when to let go of love.
bhakti, a deepening of love.
no matter how compatible a couple is, to live in conflict-free bliss isn’t love, it’s avoidance.
top three areas of conflict are money, sex, and how to raise children.
we should fight with our partner not out of ego, but because we want to protect and build a beautiful future.
One of the biggest factors in a long-lasting relationship is knowing how to fight.
when partners can express anger to each other in healthy ways, they build certain qualities and abilities. The qualities—such as compassion, empathy, and patience—help you understand the challenge. The abilities—like communication, listening, and understanding—help you solve equal or greater challenges in the future.
I must add that there is a difference between conflict and abuse. Abuse is stressful, but it is not the positive kind of stress that makes us stronger. Physical abuse, threats, force, control, and manipulation are not love. Nothing productive or positive comes from diminishing another person. If your partner is physically hurting you in any way, that is not acceptable.
pointless argument arises in the energy of ignorance. It’s a thoughtless outburst.
Power arguments emerge in the energy of passion. We just want to win for the sake of winning.
In productive arguments, which take place in the energy of goodness, we see the conflict as a hurdle we want to overcome together, and we’re open to recognizing each other’s side of the story.
Our anger is often misplaced: We start arguing about the laundry, when really we’re upset about how our partner spends their time. We argue about how the children should do their homework, when actually what upsets us is that our partner doesn’t give us enough attention. We argue about how no one’s helping around the house, when really what we’re upset about is not feeling understood or heard. The conflict won’t go away until we identify and address its true source.
Venting. Some people, like me, want to express their anger and keep hashing it out until a solution is reached.
Hiding. Some people shut down in an argument. The emotions are just too strong, and you need space. You need to process.
Exploding. Some of us can’t control our anger and so erupt with emotion.
studies show that when we sit next to someone, we literally share their perspective of the world around us, which may help us to feel more empathy for them.
“Ten percent of conflict is due to difference of opinion. Ninety percent is due to wrong tone of voice.”
Don’t use extreme words like always and never,
In a productive argument, the apology expresses more than regret. Through it, you restate the issue and commit to change. There are three steps to a real apology: acceptance, articulation, and action.
major ruptures that need to be addressed one way or another: abuse, infidelity, inertia, disinterest.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline identifies six categories of abuse: physical, emotional and verbal, sexual, financial, digital, and stalking.
If the only way for you to sustain the relationship is to pretend to be someone you’re not, it’s time to think about ending it.
Think about who comes to mind when you have good news to share. If your partner isn’t in the top three, then this probably means either you don’t feel that they’re important enough to share it with, or you feel they won’t care enough.
Intimacy is created through shared adventures: entertainment, experiences and experiments, and education,
Some of the best experiences are experiments—when you and your partner set out to try something new together. You don’t just learn something new—you learn about yourself and your partner.
The more attention we pay to our partners, the more we appreciate their thoughtfulness and the more likely we are to respond in kind. When they feel appreciated, they are thankful for our thoughtfulness and likely to keep being thoughtful and to reciprocate the appreciation. And so we experience a feedback loop of gratitude where we each have more and more chances to feel love by performing simple tasks for our partners.
from intolerable to tolerable to understanding to acceptance. Sometimes we even find our way to appreciation, where we end up admiring our partner for something we once found intolerable.
