Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship (Goop Press)

Here’s the first: There is no place for objective reality in personal relationships.

Be clear that what you’re sharing is how you see the person when you portray them as impossible, their all-time worst. Own your exaggeration; it might take the bite out of the description.

Yes, incest is a form of abuse. Confiding in your child about your disappointing marriage is also a form of abuse. And making a child into the family hero—the light all others depend upon—is a form of trauma.

offending from the victim position. When we offend from the victim position, we feel like a victim while acting like an offender.

Start with this. Swear off unkindness; swear off disrespect. Before you open your mouth, ask yourself: “Does what I am about to say fall below the line of basic respect? Is there a chance my the listener will experience it that way?”

Repair is the final third of the cycle of harmony, disharmony, and repair. I call the stage of repair knowing love. Here you are utterly aware of your partner’s failings and shortfalls—the temper that’s too big, the affection that’s too small, the sloppiness, or stinginess, or impulse to control—and yet you choose to love them anyway.

first-order change, a rearrangement of the furniture, but second-order change, a revolution in fundamental structure.

Soft power. When you need to speak up, be artful. Take care of your partner as best you can by explicitly cherishing them and your relationship. Start by letting them know you need repair, is this a good time? If your partner agrees to talk, thank them, start off with an appreciation—something you are thankful for that your partner has said or done

Like many of the clients I encounter, Dan has an Adaptive Child that makes him a great success in the world, but it also threatens to devastate his personal life. That’s because the culture at large feeds off of Adaptive Children and is often threatened by mature adults. Our society mirrors the qualities of the Adaptive Child—black and white, rigid