We want to suffer a little bit

In the dating days, it’s comforting to know you’re on the same page without having to say all that out loud to your new beau. 

The idea that relationships can be built on the need to say very little comes from the Romantics. It creates problems later on when your partner doe...

Fiction is where we learn about love, about having a crush on someone; about the magical moment that one’s eyes meet another’s across a room and how that leads to happily ever after. 

But, love isn’t an indescribable feeling – it’s a skill – and one that we have to wo...

The Ancient Greeks had a good understanding of input vs. output in a long-term relationship. Their view was that people in relationships should alter between teacher and student, student and teacher, in an ongoing pursuit of becoming the best versions of ourselves. 

Thinking we’re easy to live with is an easy mistake to make. 

We’re all broken in some way. We lack self-awareness about the many ways in which we are uniquely mad. Alain de Botton believes we should be swapping instruction manuals on the first date.

Alain de Botton suggests imagining your partner as a two-year-old. The logic is that we’ve learned to treat children with a degree of patience and understanding that we forget to use with our partners. 

Grown-ups are just big versions of babies, and sometimes we act l...

Alain de Botton is all for having expensive ceremonies. 

It makes it harder for you to quit your marriage and it’s embarrassing to quit if you spent all that money. It sets the bar high for your relationship and that’s a healthy thing.