We have often discussed core values and how they are critical to any successful relationships: partnerships, friendships, mates. If you understand what your basic and fundamental ones are, your deal breakers, and spend time exploring them, this will become your …

What Important Core Values Underlie Your Relationship Wants And Needs? Read more »

PHIL: Maude and I have been together for 16 years; my half-dozen previous relationships lasted no more than three. I described this to Maude on our second date, and she thought to herself that was because I hadn’t met her. …

Do You Want a Peaceful Relationship? Yes, You Can Have One! Read more »

PHIL: We have plenty in common, but also plenty of differences. How we connect socially. What we read. What our diets are. Our differences don’t cause us problems, but for many people, they are a perennial battlefield. Maggie Scarf proposed …

How To See Your Differences As Assets Rather Than Causing Arguments Read more »

We were in a Zoom meeting yesterday with a writing group talking about how we are feeling at this point in the pandemic and what we have been dealing with personally. It was a very open, warm sharing and everyone …

The Increasing Importance of Relationships a Year Into The Pandemic Read more »

Our culture is oriented around the individual. People (including us!) write about how to find yourself. Herbert Hoover famously used the phrase “rugged individualism.” Countless articles advise how to improve ourselves, whether at the gym, the makeup counter, or our …

Why is it Important not to Focus on Yourself in Relationships? Read more »

PHIL: We continually ask ourselves how we live so peacefully. We know that we do; the challenge is to turn that knowledge into reasons and words. One of the most fundamental aspects is the sense that we are each completely …

Why is it Important not to Focus on Relationship Differences? Read more »