Fed up of the same old cycle? Try these things instead. — Say you have a car that isn’t working. What do you do? Continue trying to drive it, hoping it miraculously fixes itself? Or do you take it in for a fine-tuning, replace parts that need replacing, and try to upgrade it from what it was before? Chances are, you’d choose…

Here’s the thing about New Year’s Resolutions: people do them all wrong. They get too caught up in the pressure of January 1st. If they slip up, they lose all motivation and give up. But I like to think of them as an ongoing goal. “Mess ups” are just part…

Because relationships aren’t just about physical attraction. — Physical attraction is primal. To have someone be physically attracted to you feels great, sure. But it doesn’t say much about who you are, beyond your face symmetry and physique. When it comes to love and relationships, our deepest desire is for someone to be emotionally attracted to us. Ego…

“You’re an odd couple,” our therapist said to my boyfriend and me, “most people only come when their relationship is failing miserably. The fact you’re here to improve your relationship before it’s broken is an anomaly.” While that comment boosted my ego a bit, my therapist’s observation from decades of…

Many people think couples therapy is for people who have a failing relationship. But those people are shooting themselves in the foot. No matter how great of a match you are with someone, there will always be issues. …

And how to change that. — Have you ever felt like you’re broken? That the people around you have everything figured out, but you didn’t get the memo for whatever reason? Same. That’s probably what exacerbated my depression and anxiety. But I don’t want to focus on mental illness in this article. …

Love is nuanced. What works for one person won’t work for another. — Love is nuanced. What works for one person won’t work for another. And it’s because of this that I don’t like people who give dating advice like it’s one-size-fits-all. That’s how popular dating advice has functioned up until recently. It had everyone following the same rules and being molded into…

A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend and I did an exercise with our therapist. — A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend and I did an exercise with our therapist. “You plan on being together long-term, right?” He asked. We nodded. “Good, then this exercise is going to help ensure you’re on the same page as one another, something most couples never do.” One by…

When my boyfriend and I first showed up for couples therapy, our therapist called us “weird.” He explained that most couples didn’t come to him when things were great; they came when their relationship was on the brink of ending; that the distance between them became so big, they had…