I was there to find out why people so…
Page 48 I was there to find out why people so often felt unheard and misunderstood by their partners. The answer was simple. People in long-term relationships tend to lose their curiosity for each other.
— from Friends, Community & Society (Relationships/Community/Society)
In the book
Then keep the good ones well. The best relationships are win-win — built on a real concern that the other person win as much as you do, not just in business but in friendship and love. Stay curious: the deepest reason long-married couples and old friends drift into feeling unheard is that they simply lose their curiosity about each other, so make a point of staying a kind of permanent researcher in your closest relationships. Be open to feedback — one of my favorite tools is to ask someone close, "On a scale of ten, how am I doing, and what would make it a ten?". […] Choose your circle. Run, do not walk, from toxic people; stop trying to win over the unsupportive; and for the people who matter, ask whether you like, trust, and respect them. Keep the good ones. Stay curious about them; play win-win, wanting them to win as much as you do; and keep a few friends honest enough to challenge your thinking. Work at love. Treat marriage as continual work, not a finish line; insist on both truth and tenderness; and aim for the love in which you can be fully yourself. — Friends, Community & Society (Relationships/Community/Society)