You share complaints that don’t contain the word “but.”
Unqualified complaints were more common in relationships that weren’t going well.
Via 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute:
Perhaps the most important difference came down to just one word—“but.” When talking about their partner’s greatest faults, those in successful relationships tended to qualify any criticism. Her husband was lazy, but that gave the two of them reason to laugh. His wife was a terrible cook, but as a result they ate out a lot. He was introverted, but he expressed his love in other ways. She was sometimes thoughtless, but that was due to a rather difficult childhood. That one simple word was able to help reduce the negative effect of their partner’s alleged faults and keep the relationship on an even keel.
This piece originally appeared on Barking Up the Wrong Tree.
Join over 215,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.
Related posts:
How To Stop Being Lazy And Get More Done – 5 Expert Tips
How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert
New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful
- For People With Disabilities, Losing Abortion Access Can Be a Matter of Life or Death
- Inside the Clandestine Efforts to Smuggle Starlink Internet Into Iran
- How to Help the Victims and Community After the Monterey Park Shooting
- The Biggest Snubs and Surprises of the 2023 Oscar Nominations
- Talking Less Will Get You More
- Kamala Harris Subtly Emerges as Powerful White House Asset
- How Avatar: The Way of Water Became the 6th Movie in History to Make $2 Billion
- Is There Really No Safe Amount of Drinking?
- How Our Cells Strategize To Keep Us Alive