Relationship Tips
Here’s something we don’t want to hear. We all offend from the victim position. What do I mean by this? Here’s an example. Let’s call them Mark and Lena. It’s a Tuesday night. He walks into the kitchen, sees last night’s dishes still in the sink, and lets out a long sigh. She hears it. […]
You might have heard this before, but most of what we communicate is non-verbal—our body language, facial expressions, tone of voice. Some research suggests as much as 70% of what we communicate to each other lands through these channels, not through the words at all. This is why, in any close relationship, it can feel […]
There’s a silent epidemic running through our families. It’s harming everyone in its path. The men carrying it. The women loving them. The children watching them. And here’s what it is. What angry dads pass onto their sons. Maybe it sounded like this in your house growing up. “Because I said so.” “Don’t make me […]
One of the thinkers who has deeply shaped how we understand gender, relationships, and emotional life is Carol Gilligan. Her work challenges a really important assumption in our culture — the idea that masculinity and femininity are naturally opposite, separate worlds. Gilligan argues that this division — what she calls the binary — isn’t actually […]
Quiet quitting a relationship looks like this: You’re still there. You show up to dinner. You sleep in the same bed. You go through the motions. But somewhere along the way, you stopped investing. Stopped reaching. Stopped caring if the distance between you grows. You’re not leaving — but you’re not really staying either. It’s […]
Think back to your favorite moments of 2025. Was it a vacation with the family? A quiet Sunday morning with the kids? A milestone celebration with friends? Notice the moments that mattered the most—the ones you’ll remember in ten years—they all involved the people you love. And yet. When January rolled around this year, you […]
I’m writing this from a hospital waiting room in Hong Kong. Three weeks ago, I was supposed to be lounging on a beach in Vietnam. Instead, I’m sitting here navigating a foreign healthcare system, watching my son fight through an unexpected medical crisis. Here’s what nobody tells you about crisis: it doesn’t care about your […]
Every semester, I would ask my graduate students: “How do you best receive feedback?” Then one student said something different. “I don’t receive feedback well.” He said it so matter-of-factly, like it was just a personality trait he’d accepted. I looked at him and said, “No. It’s not that you don’t receive feedback well. It’s […]
Do you hold your breath when things are going too well? Last week, I was talking to a friend who just landed her dream job. But instead of celebration, she said, “Yeah, but I don’t know if it’ll work out. What if I’m not qualified?” After watching her steal her own joy for ten minutes, […]
Last weekend, I found myself in what felt like the Olympics of puzzle-solving. My son Tristan had qualified for the Rubik’s Cube World Championship, and I got to witness the world’s fastest “cubers” compete in Seattle, Washington, USA. It was incredible to see. There were young people from 6 years old to about 30, from […]
In my 27 years of practice, there’s one dynamic I see more than almost any other—and it’s quietly suffocating even the strongest relationships. It starts innocently enough. One partner begins handling a few extra responsibilities. What begins as temporary support slowly becomes permanent management. Before they know it, one person is reminding their partner about […]
Every day in my practice, I hear some version of the same story. A client sits across from me and shares how, as a child, they were told they were “too sensitive,” “too much,” “not enough,” or simply not acceptable the way they were. These early experiences didn’t just hurt in the moment. They rewired […]
