To maintain shared happiness and minimize distress as a couple, you have to know how to successfully collaborate with each other.
To do this, there are certain strategies and skills that will enable you to communicate well when there are decisions to make or differences to settle.
The essence of good collaboration is to adhere to a basic rule: you have not reached a real and proper decision until both of you really like it. In other words, all decisions must be good for both partners. Continue reading
Thirty years of helping couples repair their marriages has clarified what keeps a marriage strong and happy — and what causes upsets, distancing, and a shaky relationship. 
Let us say relationship is like a “dance.” An optimal loving partnership would be a romantic dance where shared happiness and fulfillment are maximized.
All couples encounter differences and fall out of synch at times. They may disagree about things, misinterpret one another, or get their buttons pushed. Your ability to effectively communicate at such times makes all the difference between resolving issues or getting stuck in upset.
In my intensive marriage retreats, I frequently work with couples on the brink of divorce. One or both partners seem to have given up. They arrive ambivalent about staying together. Most people would wonder, “What could possibly help them now?”
Most relationships start with happiness and hope. The last few decades of scientific research on love reveals what you need to do in order to sustain those positive feelings. It also explains why for so many couples positive feelings erode over time.
Small upsets that don’t get handled will inevitably lead to much bigger upsets down the road. So if you are not that great at handling upsets well, you could use “Relationship CPR.” 
What’s the difference between couples who share long term happiness and those who don’t? In a word, they know how to repair. All partners go in and out of synch and can occasionally be at odds. How this gets handled makes all the difference.
An overlooked factor that creates stress and upset between partners has to do with the differing rate at which partners process information and communicate. 
A common battle with couples comes about when one partner operates more from feeling and the other from thinking. This creates more upset over time as they try to communicate using very different brain channels. From a neuroscience point of view, they differ by which side of the brain runs their communication process.
One of the most problematic differences between partners can be their nervous system biases in energy and arousal levels. 
It can be challenging when one partner wants to feel connected just when the other feels a need for space. 
Rule one for love to thrive is to stop fighting over your differences—and learn to collaborate! 
How do couples who share ongoing happiness differ from those who don’t? One key difference is that they know how to quickly repair. Partners who keep love alive resolve small rifts or ruptures before they escalate into big ones. 
The honeymoon is a time of magic and wonder, of a deep loving connection. Relationship usually start with such great promise that one wonders how anything could ever possibly go wrong. 
The idea of a soulmate has both conscious or unconscious elements. Even if we do not intellectually believe in soulmates, we are still affected. 
When couples first fall in love, it is the honeymoon — a time of magic and wonder. 
Couples who are becoming soulmates are willing to learn how to keep their hearts open, even when the going gets rough.