Mr Good Enough: The case for choosing a Real Man over holding out for Mr Perfect

if someone has a lot of things on your list, but your gut is telling you, ‘I don’t trust this person,’ that’s more important than the list.”

it’s not whether you argue—its how you get through the arguments. And the more practice you have getting through those arguments gracefully, she told me, the less you’ll argue

Instead the successful couples learn how to manage the disagreements and live life ‘around’ them—to love in spite of their areas of difference… . If we switch partners, we’ll just get ten new areas of disagreement.”

There’s a difference between what makes for a good boyfriend and what makes for a good husband. Over the years, stability and dependability outrank fireworks and witty banter.

where on your list do you rank selflessness and humility

And that’s because many people, I think, have an inability to believe that other people work differently. We don’t realize that you have to learn someone in the way that you learn a subject. You can’t do it only by feeling. You actually have to listen to them and believe them when they tell you how they work. That’s a very counterintuitive thing to

“There’s the way it was supposed to go, and the way it really goes,” he said. “You have to keep on challenging yourself. Your way of doing things so far has led you to where you are today. You have to go through a process to have the potential to meet someone you like. It’s up to you whether you choose to go through that process.”

“What we don’t realize is that the very option of being allowed to change our minds seems to increase the chances that we will change our minds. When we can change our minds about decisions, we are less satisfied with them.”

successful couple has approximately ten areas of ‘incompatibility’ or disagreement that they will never resolve.