Longer reads on where marriage came from, how people have prepared for it, and what the research says now.
Guide · 12 min read
Not a random listicle: pre-engagement questions organized by the dimensions longitudinal research says actually predict how marriages go, with instructions for how to ask them (write alone first, one topic per sitting, understanding before persuading).
Guide · 10 min read
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling: what each looks like in an ordinary kitchen argument, the trainable antidote to each, why repair acceptance is the counterweight, and the honest asterisk on the famous prediction-accuracy numbers.
Evidence review · 9 min read
The meta-analysis, the 662-couple randomized trial, the 11-year German follow-ups, and the publication-bias caveat most articles skip. Plus what it costs, the free options, and what predicts actually getting value from it.
Guide · 10 min read
Money disagreements are among the strongest predictors of divorce of any conflict topic. The three conversations to have before the engagement (the facts, the history, the system), twenty questions, and the red flags that actually matter.
Evidence review · 9 min read
The old cohabitation effect, the sliding-versus-deciding mechanism that resolved it, the randomized trial that closed the risk gap, and the deciding conversation to have before the boxes arrive.
Modern voices · 8 min read
Esther Perel put real couples therapy in your headphones; Orna Guralnik put it on television. What the two most influential modern relationship voices teach about desire, the recurring fight, and the couple as a system, and where their clinical insight meets the longitudinal research.
History · Illustrated timeline · 8 min read
A visual story in seven scenes: public banns in 1215, required witnesses at Trent, the one-partner-at-a-time interview, the deliberate waiting period, Pre-Cana, and the diocese that built a validated scientific instrument. What each invention quietly understood, and what it could not see.
History · Illustrated timeline · 10 min read
A painted timeline in nine eras, from Hammurabi to Obergefell: marriage as property contract, the Roman handclasp, the church door, the register book, the love revolution, the level scale, the fork in the path, the city hall steps, and the couple who now hold up the roof alone. Why the modern version is both the most fragile and the most rewarding.