Tag Archive for: Marriage

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How to Handle Pet Peeves in Marriage

My husband is a wild sleeper.

And I don’t mean he occasionally rolls over with a dramatic sigh. I mean he talks. He moves. He swings his legs. He basically sleeps with the same level of animation and commentary he has when he is awake.

It is, in a word, maddening.

There are few things that will test your character quite like being kicked by a sleeping man who has no idea he is currently in a REM-cycle wrestling match with the bedding.

At first, I did what many spouses do with pet peeves. I silently collected evidence. I built my case in the dark. I lay there thinking, “Surely he knows he is doing this.” Which, of course, he did not. Because he was asleep.

This is where pet peeves can become dangerous in relationships. Not because the irritation itself is always a big deal, but because small irritations have a way of collecting interest.

The sock on the floor becomes, “You don’t respect me.” The loud chewing becomes, “You are inconsiderate.” The wild sleeping becomes, “You are personally committed to ruining my life between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.”

That may not be fair, but it is human.

Relationship researchers John and Julie Gottman have long taught that the way we begin a hard conversation often shapes where it goes. Their concept of a “soft startup” encourages couples to bring up concerns without criticism, contempt or blame. In other words, “I’m having a hard time sleeping and I need us to figure this out together” will likely go better than, “You sleep like a deranged rotisserie chicken.”

Even if both statements feel true.

The goal is not to pretend something does not bother you. That is not maturity. That is emotional composting. Eventually, something will smell.

The goal is to bring up the pet peeve before it becomes a character indictment. A complaint says, “This behavior is bothering me.” Criticism says, “You are the problem.” Healthy couples learn the difference.

So, I talked to my husband about it. Not at 2:17 a.m. while furious and sleep deprived, which would have been tempting, but unwise. I brought it up when we were both awake and reasonably kind. Then we did something that helped tremendously: we researched it together.

Some research has linked screen use before bed with poorer sleep outcomes in adults. Other sleep research points to the importance of a cool, comfortable sleep environment. So, we cut back on TV and screen time before bed. We found lighter-weight blankets. We bought a fan.

And, friends, the man still sleeps with personality. But it helped.

That is the sweet spot with pet peeves. Learn how to handle pet peeves in marriage with empathy, communication and teamwork instead of resentment.
 Sometimes the goal is reducing the irritation, increasing understanding and refusing to turn an annoying habit into a relational war.

This is where Scott Stanley’s work on commitment is helpful. Stanley and colleagues have written about dedication in relationships as more than staying because you are stuck. It is choosing “us.” It is making decisions with the relationship in mind.

When a partner takes your pet peeve seriously, even if they cannot fix it perfectly, they are communicating, “Your experience matters to me.”

That matters.

But compromise also has limits.

Some pet peeves are changeable. Leaving cabinets open, scrolling in bed, interrupting, being chronically late or never replacing the toilet paper roll are behaviors that can often be addressed with effort, systems and humility.

Other pet peeves are tied to temperament, personality, sensory differences, health issues or deeply ingrained habits. Your spouse may always be louder than you prefer. Your partner may never load the dishwasher according to your sacred and obviously correct architectural vision. Someone may need medical help for snoring, restless sleep or other sleep disturbances. Someone else may need to accept that love does not come with a custom-built human who operates exactly to their specifications.

Esther Perel often talks about relationships as places where difference is not a flaw to eliminate, but a reality to understand. The person you love is not you. This is very inconvenient. It is also the foundation of intimacy.

So when bringing up a pet peeve, try this: name the behavior, not the character.

Share the impact, not a prosecution.

Ask for collaboration, not surrender. Be specific about what would help. And be honest about whether this is truly a problem or simply a preference.

There is a big difference between “I need sleep so I can function” and “I prefer the towels folded like they are being displayed at a boutique hotel.”

Both may matter. They do not matter equally.

The healthiest couples are not the ones with no irritations. They are the ones who can talk about irritations without humiliation. They can laugh when appropriate, repair when needed and adjust when possible.

My husband and I did not solve wild sleeping entirely. But we did solve some of it. More importantly, we treated the problem like something we were facing together, not something I was using against him.

That is the real work of love.

Because every relationship has pet peeves. The question is whether we let them become evidence against each other, or invitations to better understand each other.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org

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The Gift of Loving Someone Different

On a recent podcast, Dr. Orna Guralnik, the psychoanalyst many viewers know simply as “Dr. Orna” from Showtime’s Couples Therapy, was asked what she has learned about love after years of sitting with couples. Earlier in her career, she said, she believed compatibility was one of the greatest predictors of success. Find the person who fits you well enough, and the relationship has a better chance.

But now, after listening to hundreds of couples wrestle with money, sex, family, ambition, loyalty, fear and disappointment, she sees something deeper:

The capacity to love someone who is different from you may be one of the greatest forms of love.

That idea feels almost countercultural in a dating world obsessed with “finding your match.” Apps ask us to filter for height, politics, religion, hobbies, education, diet, drinking habits and whether someone wants dogs, children or pickleball. Compatibility matters, of course. Shared values can steady a marriage. A sweeping 2023 meta-analysis in Nature Human Behaviour found that romantic partners are more often similar than different across many traits, especially education, religion, politics and substance use.

But similarity is not the same thing as love.

Similarity may help us choose each other. It does not guarantee we will know how to cherish each other.

A 2020 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed 43 longitudinal couple datasets from more than 11,000 couples. The strongest predictors of relationship quality were not basic demographic similarities or personality matching. They were relationship-specific experiences: perceived partner commitment, appreciation, sexual satisfaction, perceived partner satisfaction and conflict. In other words, what matters most is not simply whether we found someone compatible, but what kind of relationship we are building once we are together.

This is where Dr. Orna’s wisdom lands. Every marriage eventually introduces us to the “otherness” of the person we love. Your spouse may handle stress differently. Spend money differently. Need closeness at a different time of day than you do. Grieve differently. Parent differently. Rest differently. Change differently.

At first, those differences can feel like betrayal. “I thought we were on the same page,” we say, when often what we mean is, “I thought you would keep being the version of yourself that was easiest for me to love.”

But marriage is not a lifelong compatibility test. It is a lifelong invitation to mature.

Healthy love does not mean pretending differences are insignificant. Some differences are serious and require counseling, boundaries, repair or even safety planning. But many everyday differences are not signs that we married the wrong person. They are opportunities to practice curiosity instead of control.

Research on partner acceptance supports this. Studies show that feeling accepted by your partner is associated with greater relationship satisfaction. Likewise, perceived partner responsiveness (feeling understood, validated and cared for) is repeatedly linked to intimacy and relationship well-being.

That is a different vision of marriage than “we never fight” or “we like all the same things.” Dr. Orna has said a strong couple creates an atmosphere of mutual respect, adoration and acceptance. She even notes that couples who never argue can be concerning, because it may mean differences are being hidden, swallowed or erased.

Real intimacy is not the absence of difference. It is the courage to remain tender when difference appears.

Maybe the goal is not to marry your mirror image. Maybe the goal is to become the kind of person who can say: I see that you are not me. I will not make you become me in order to love you. I will learn you. I will tell the truth about myself. I will let us grow.

Compatibility may help a couple begin.

But acceptance, appreciation, commitment and the willingness to love across differences may be what helps them last.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org

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How Confidence in Your Relationship Shapes Your Well-Being

There is something deeply calming about believing your relationship is steady.

Not perfect. Not conflict-free. Not untouched by stress. Steady.

A recent study published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy found that when couples improved their “relationship confidence” through a relationship education program, they also saw gains in their individual well-being, including mental health, sleep, and substance-use outcomes. What stood out most in this study was that relationship confidence appeared to matter even more for personal well-being than communication or partner support alone. In other words, it was not just whether couples talked better. It was whether they believed we can handle life together.

That makes sense, because human beings do not separate relationship stress from the rest of life very well. When home feels uncertain, that uncertainty tends to bleed into everything else such as sleep, concentration, mood, and even the way we carry stress in the body. Research by Brian Doss and colleagues, published in Current Opinion in Psychology, has shown that romantic relationship quality and mental health are closely intertwined, and often in a direction that runs from the health of the relationship to the health of the individual. A secure relationship does not fix everything, but it can create a kind of emotional stability that supports the person inside it.

So what does it mean to be confident in your relationship?

It does not mean never having doubts. It does not mean always feeling close. And it does not mean pretending problems do not exist. Relationship confidence is more like trust in the bond itself and the belief that your partner is with you, the relationship has a future, and the two of you can face challenges without everything falling apart.

People who are confident in their relationship usually recognize a few signs. Conflict may still be hard, but it does not immediately feel catastrophic. The future feels discussable. Reassurance is helpful, but not constantly required. There is a sense of stability underneath the ordinary ups and downs.

When confidence is low, the opposite tends to happen. Small disagreements feel loaded. One or both partners become hyperaware of distance, tone, or ambiguity. Conversations about commitment or the future feel avoided, unclear, or tense. The relationship may still exist, but it does not feel emotionally secure.

Attachment research helps explain why. Meta-analytic findings published in Personality and Individual Differences shows that insecure attachment (particularly anxiety and avoidance)  is consistently linked with lower relationship quality. Anxious partners often fear rejection and scan for signs that something is wrong. Avoidant partners often withdraw from closeness and dependence. Both patterns make it harder to feel confident in the relationship, even when love is present.

And confidence matters beyond the relationship itself. In Current Opinion in Psychology, Brooke Feeney and Nancy Collins argued that close relationships help people thrive by serving as both a source of strength in adversity and a base from which to grow. In other words, a strong relationship does not just comfort us when life gets hard. It helps us function better in life overall.

So how can confidence be built if it is missing?

Usually, not through grand declarations, but through evidence.

Confidence grows when partners become reliable in small, repeated ways. Keeping promises. Repairing after conflict. Telling the truth. Following through. Handling stress as a team. Over time, those moments create a track record that says, we have faced hard things before, and we can do it again.

It also grows through clarity. Ambiguity erodes confidence. When commitment is vague, future plans are unspoken, or one partner stays emotionally half-in and half-out, insecurity fills the gap. People feel safer when they know where they stand.

And finally, confidence grows through shared resilience. The research also noted that one way to reinforce relationship confidence is to remember past challenges the couple has already survived. That memory becomes its own kind of strength.

In a healthy relationship, confidence is not just a nice extra. It is part of what helps both people breathe easier.

We often speak of love as a feeling. But sometimes love is also a shelter. And when people trust that their shelter will hold, they are often better able to rest, recover, and live with a little more peace.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org

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Defining Clarity Before Marriage

A few weeks ago, I found myself standing in a room full of college students talking about relationships. Some were engaged. Some were dating someone seriously. A few were still figuring out what they wanted.

At one point, someone raised their hand and asked a question that made the whole room quiet.

“How do you know when to talk about marriage in a relationship?”

It’s a question many young adults wrestle with today. And in truth, it’s not really about timing. It’s about clarity.

Instead of answering the question directly, I asked them a different one.

Why do you want to get married in the first place?

What kind of spouse do you want to be? What kind of marriage do you want to build?

Those questions matter much more than the calendar. Because the healthiest relationships tend to grow out of shared values and intentional choices, not simply the passage of time.

Much of this idea comes from the work of University of Denver psychologist Scott Stanley, who has spent decades studying commitment in romantic relationships. Stanley describes two ways couples move through major relationship milestones: they either slide into them or they decide.

Sliding happens when couples drift from one stage to the next without much conversation. They start dating, spend more time together, move in together, and gradually build a shared life without clearly talking about long-term commitment.

Deciding looks different. It involves deliberate conversations and thoughtful choices about the future.

Stanley and his colleagues describe this pattern in research published in the journal Family Relations. They found that when couples slide into major transitions, especially living together, it can create what researchers call “inertia.” Shared leases, routines, and finances can make it harder to step back and evaluate whether the relationship is truly the right long-term fit.

The point is that intentionality before commitment matters.

Relationships tend to be stronger when commitment grows from thoughtful decisions rather than momentum. 

That message resonated with the students in the room. Many of them weren’t confused about love. They were confused about how to move forward with purpose.

Their uncertainty reflects a broader shift happening across the country.

Marriage still matters to many young adults, but the timeline has changed dramatically. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median age for first marriage is now about 32 for men and 29 for women, nearly eight years older than it was in 1990.

At the same time, fewer Americans are marrying at all. Researchers at the Pew Research Center report that marriage rates among adults under 30 have fallen steadily over the past several decades.

Economic realities are part of the story. Student loan debt, housing costs, and longer educational paths have delayed many traditional milestones of adulthood. Researchers studying life transitions have found that fewer young adults today reach markers such as stable employment, homeownership, and marriage by their late twenties compared with previous generations.

But economics isn’t the whole picture.

Expectations for marriage have also evolved.

In earlier generations, marriage often provided financial stability and a clear social structure. Today, young adults tend to look for something deeper. They want emotional compatibility, shared values, and a partner who feels like a true teammate in life.

Sociologists Andrew Cherlin and others have described this shift as the rise of the “soulmate model” of marriage, where the relationship is expected to provide both companionship and personal fulfillment.

That’s a much higher bar and requires more preparation than previous generations needed.

The students I spoke with weren’t struggling because they lacked opportunities to date. What many of them lacked was clarity about themselves. They were still figuring out what mattered most to them, family, faith, career, lifestyle, or future goals.

Developmental psychologists often describe the late teens and twenties as a stage called emerging adulthood, a period when people are exploring identity and long-term direction. Jeffrey Arnett, whose research on emerging adulthood appears in the journal American Psychologist, describes this stage as a time when young people are learning who they are before settling into permanent commitments.

So it’s not surprising that big relationship decisions feel complicated.

And yet what struck me most that evening was how much these young adults still wanted strong relationships.

They weren’t cynical about marriage. They simply wanted to approach it thoughtfully.

Research suggests that preparation can make a meaningful difference.

Studies on premarital education led by Scott Stanley and other relationship scholars have found that couples who learn communication skills, conflict management strategies, and commitment principles before marriage often report stronger and more stable relationships later on.

But preparation for marriage doesn’t begin with engagement rings or wedding planning.

It begins much earlier—with self-reflection.

Young adults benefit from understanding their own values before trying to merge their lives with someone else’s. They benefit from learning how to talk openly about the future. And perhaps most importantly, they benefit from seeing healthy relationships modeled in the adults around them.

Those lessons shape expectations long before a proposal ever enters the picture.

One of the most freeing ideas we discussed that evening was this: dating doesn’t have to be an urgent search for someone to marry.

Instead, it can be something simpler. Dating can be a process of discovering alignment.

Finding someone who treats you with respect. Someone whose values make sense to you. Someone whose vision for life looks similar to your own.

When that kind of alignment appears, conversations about commitment tend to happen naturally, not because the clock is ticking, but because both people can see the same future beginning to take shape.

And when that happens, the decision to move forward together becomes much clearer.

Not because you slid into it. But because you chose it.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org

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Loving Your Spouse Through the Unknown

Right now, our house feels a bit like a circus act where someone is trying to keep 14 plates spinning at once.

My husband is in a job transition. It is not that he lacks connections or promising leads; it is that we do not have a clear known. Is the next step a new full-time job, launching his own business, or piecing together contract work? At the same time, my schedule has been bananas with early mornings, late nights, and travel sprinkled in, while we have put our house on the market and the kids have been trading the same bug for weeks.

In the middle of it, I have found myself asking a simple but complicated question: How do I love him well right now? How do I show up for his stress when mine is screaming for attention too?

If you are walking through a hard season with your spouse or partner, whether it is a job loss or transition, health issues, caring for aging parents, burnout, or financial uncertainty, you are not alone.

Researchers have found that one of the most important things in stressful seasons is “partner responsiveness,” the sense that your partner understands you, cares about you, and is genuinely there for you. People who feel that way about their partner tend to report less distress and more relationship satisfaction, even when life is hard.

Another big idea is that stress is best handled as a shared burden, not an individual one. Experts call this “dyadic coping” and use it to describe how couples manage stress together instead of separately. When partners talk openly about what they are facing, support each other, and make decisions as a team, they are more likely to stay connected and resilient.

So what does all of that look like on an ordinary Tuesday night when the kids are coughing, the emails will not stop, and your partner is wondering if they will ever feel settled again?

Here are a few practices I am trying, very imperfectly, in our own house.

Lead with empathy, not solutions.

Most of us are quick to jump into fixing mode: “Have you tried…?” “What if you just…?” I am trying instead to start with simple, grounded empathy: “This limbo is exhausting. Of course you are worn out.” That kind of validation says, I see you, and I get why this is hard. Feeling understood often does more good than the perfect pep talk.

Ask what kind of support they want.

One day your spouse may want to brainstorm résumés and business ideas. The next day, they may need quiet and a mindless show. Instead of guessing, try: “Do you want ideas right now, or do you just want me to listen?” Support works best when it matches what the person actually wants at the moment.

Be a soft place to land and a mirror of their strength.

During a job transition, it is easy for someone’s sense of worth to get tangled up with productivity and paychecks. Yes, your spouse needs comfort and a reminder that you are okay today. But they also need you to reflect on the parts of them that are bigger than this season: “You are wise and capable. That does not disappear just because things feel uncertain.” That is the “safe haven” and “source of strength” idea in real life.

Create tiny rituals of connection.

In seasons like ours, uninterrupted date nights can feel fictional. But small, consistent check-ins matter more than grand gestures. It might look like a ten-minute “how is your heart?” chat after bedtime, a quick midday text, or putting your phone down when they start talking. Couples who respond to each other’s little “bids” for attention most of the time are the ones who tend to stay happily together.

And when (not if) you get it wrong, repair. There will be nights when you snap, offer the wrong kind of support, or completely miss how overwhelmed your spouse is. The goal is not perfection; it is the willingness to circle back: “I am sorry I jumped into problem-solving. Can we try that again?” Those “repair attempts” are powerful because they send the message, Our relationship matters more than this moment.

I wish I could tell you I have mastered all of this. I have not. Some nights I get it right; some nights I crawl into bed and think, Well, that was not my best work as a wife, mom, or human.

But I am learning this: supporting your spouse in a difficult season is less about one heroic conversation and more about a hundred small choices to stay emotionally present, to say, “I see you,” “I am with you,” and “We will figure this out together,” even when the path forward is still foggy.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org.

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Second Chances, Slower Starts: How We Got to Fewer Divorces

Love isn’t dead, but it is getting wiser.

Pew Research Center’s newly released brief on divorce lands with a hopeful headline for families: compared with the 1980s, Americans are less likely to divorce than they used to be. That’s not wishful thinking or an over simplification, it shows up in a long arc of numbers. Researchers at Bowling Green State University track the “refined” divorce rate (divorces per 1,000 married women). That rate peaked in 1980 at 22.6 and has fallen substantially since down to 14.4. In other words, among people who do marry, marriages today are, on average, more stable than they were in the Reagan era.

Pew’s snapshot brings the story into the present tense: divorce still touches many lives, with over 1.8 million Americans divorcing in 2023. But the broader trend is that divorce is less common than decades ago. 

So what’s behind the decline? A few big trends seem to be at play.

First, Americans are marrying later, and that matters.

The typical first-time bride is now around 28–29 years-old, and the typical groom is about 30–31, up dramatically from newlyweds being in their late teens/early twenties in the 1980s. Waiting a little longer tends to reduce divorce risk; people bring more maturity, more education, and a clearer sense of “fit.” Peer-reviewed studies find that marrying young is linked to higher odds of splitting. Translation: couples are slowing down, choosing more intentionally, and that’s paying off.

Second, the marriage pool has changed. Today’s marriages are more selective and more likely to involve partners with higher education, and education is tied to lower divorce risk. That compositional shift nudges the overall divorce rate down. (Think of it like this: if more of the people who marry have the traits associated with stability, the averages move.)

Now, a key caveat that actually strengthens the good news: the marriage rate itself is lower than it was in the late 20th century. Fewer marriages overall means fewer opportunities for divorce, which helps pull down “crude” divorce measures (per 1,000 people). But even when you focus only on those who are married—the refined rate mentioned above—divorce has still fallen since the 1980 peak. Both things can be true: we have fewer marriages, and the marriages that do happen are, on average, sturdier.

How should we interpret this shift?

First, take heart. The cultural panic of “half of all marriages end in divorce” was always an oversimplification and it’s even less true today. Many couples are entering marriage later, with more shared expectations, and they’re staying together longer. That steadiness shows up in the data Pew just pulled together and in the federal stats underneath it.

Second, remember what actually protects kids and couples day to day: not a date on a license, but the temperature of the relationship. Reviews in top journals keep pointing to the same levers such as lower conflict, clearer routines, and intentional commitment. Those are choices any couple can practice, whether you married at 23 or 33.

Finally, keep the denominator in mind. Because fewer people are marrying at all, crude divorce rates will stay low even if behavior doesn’t change. That’s why the refined rate is so useful, because it tells us that among those who are tying the knot, marriages really are more durable than they were a generation ago.

That’s worth a quiet cheer, a date night, and maybe a shared Google calendar to keep the wheels turning at home. 

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org.

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New Study Shows Online Dating Can Lead to Lower Relationship Satisfaction

According to a global team of researchers, people who meet their romantic partners online tend to be a little less satisfied in their relationships than people who meet the old-fashioned way, through friends, work, or a random meet-cute at the grocery store. Now before anyone throws their dating app out the window, let me say this: meeting online isn’t the problem.

In fact, it’s how millions of people meet these days, especially busy single parents, college students, young professionals, and even those looking for love later in life. But the study, which surveyed over 6,600 people from 50 different countries, found that on average, couples who met online reported lower levels of intimacy, passion, commitment, and overall relationship satisfaction than couples who met offline. 

So what’s going on? Well, one reason might be that online dating throws open the floodgates of possibility. You suddenly have access to more potential partners than ever before, which sounds great, right?

But psychologists have long pointed out that too much choice can lead to decision fatigue. It’s the jam aisle dilemma: faced with 24 flavors, we freeze up, question our choice, or assume there’s always something better.

Another factor is what researchers call “homogamy.” It means people tend to have stronger, more satisfying relationships when they share common ground, such as similar values, cultural backgrounds, education levels, and life goals. Offline couples, it turns out, are more likely to have that natural overlap because they tend to meet in shared spaces, like church, school, mutual friends, the lunch line at work.

There’s also the challenge of community support. When you meet someone through friends or your social circle, you automatically get a little network of encouragement. Your people know their people. There’s history. And maybe some gentle accountability. But when you meet online, you don’t get that built-in backup system, at least not right away.

None of this means online dating is doomed. Plenty of strong, loving, deeply connected couples met on Bumble or Hinge or (gasp!) even Craigslist back in the day.

The research just reminds us that if we’re going to find love in the digital age, we need to be intentional.

We have to move beyond swiping, past the highlight-reel conversations, and toward the real stuff: communication, vulnerability, shared purpose, and mutual respect.

As someone who leads a nonprofit focused on strengthening families, I think a lot about how relationships begin and how they grow. The spark is fun, sure. But it’s the slow burn of trust, laughter, shared grocery lists, and “I’ll get up with the baby this time” moments that keep couples going strong.

So if you met your partner online, wonderful. Keep watering that relationship. Build your community. Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions. And if you’re still swiping, maybe balance that screen time with real-world connection. Let your friends set you up. Go to that birthday party. Say hello at the library. Sometimes love shows up when your phone is in your pocket.

We live in a world where everything moves fast. But building love? It still thrives the most when we slow down.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org.

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Spring Cleaning Your Relationships: Clearing Out Resentment, Guilt and Unspoken Expectations

There’s something about spring that invites us to shed what’s stale and breathe fresh air into our homes.

And believe it or not… spring will be here this month!

It’s the season to dust off forgotten corners, donate what no longer serves us, and stand back to admire the crispness of a clean slate. But what if we treated our relationships the same way? What if we took this season of renewal as a cue to clear out the resentment, guilt, and unspoken expectations that can quietly clutter our marriages and parenting?

Just as a home full of junk can feel stifling, relationships burdened with emotional debris can limit our joy and connection.

And research agrees. A 2015 study published in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that unresolved conflicts and unmet expectations are significant predictors of marital dissatisfaction. Similarly, parenting experts warn that lingering guilt and unspoken assumptions can create friction with our kids.

Dusting Out Resentment in Marriage

Resentment often starts as a small speck—an eye roll when your partner forgets, yet again, to take out the trash. But left unaddressed, it can accumulate into a layer of grime that blurs your view of each other. According to Dr. John Gottman, renowned marriage researcher, the antidote to resentment is open communication. “Small things often,” he says, emphasizing that regular, honest conversations can prevent small irritations from growing into deep divides.

To begin, set aside time to talk without distractions. Start sentences with “I feel” rather than “You always,” which keeps the conversation focused on your experience instead of sounding accusatory. And, yes, it’s uncomfortable at first—kind of like pulling the couch away from the wall and finding a collection of dusty mysteries. But the relief of a clean, honest space is worth it.

Sweeping Away Parenting Guilt

If I had a dollar for every time I felt guilty as a parent, I’d have enough for a luxurious kid-free weekend getaway—and probably still feel guilty about going. Parenting guilt is a universal experience, but carrying it unchecked is like dragging a mop through muddy water: it only spreads the mess.

Parenting expert Dr. Tina Payne Bryson advises acknowledging guilt as a sign of care but not letting it dictate our actions.

“Guilt can be a helpful signal, but it becomes unhealthy when it turns into shame or when it keeps us from being present with our children,” she explains. Instead of dwelling on where you think you’re falling short, focus on small, intentional moments of connection with your kids—whether it’s reading one more story at bedtime or sharing a silly dance in the kitchen.

Scrubbing Out Unspoken Expectations

Expectations are tricky. We all have them, but when left unspoken, they can become invisible tripping hazards. Whether it’s expecting your spouse to know you need a break or hoping your child will behave perfectly at the grocery store, unspoken expectations often lead to disappointment and friction.

Dr. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, emphasizes the importance of “clear is kind.” She encourages us to be explicit about what we need and to ask our loved ones to do the same. When my five-year-old started kindergarten, I realized I had an unspoken expectation that he’d adjust easily. When he didn’t, I felt frustrated—not at him, but at the gap between my expectation and reality. Voicing this allowed me to shift my approach, offering him more support and patience as he navigated the transition.

Embracing the Fresh Air

The beauty of spring cleaning—whether in your home or your heart—isn’t in achieving perfection but in creating space for what matters most. When we clear out resentment, guilt, and unspoken expectations, we make room for grace, laughter, and love. We let in the fresh air of connection and breathe a little easier in our most important relationships.

So, as you sweep out the dust bunnies and fold fresh linens, take a moment to dust off your relationships too. It may take time, but the reward is a home—and a heart—where love can flourish.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org.

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