Imagine you wake up tomorrow thinking it’s 1994. In that year you were thirty-one years old, with a partner. You expect Friends to be a brand-new show on TV and The Lion King to be number one at the box office. But, of course, once you get up, the calendar most certainly does not say 1994. You look in the mirror and you’re clearly decades older than thirty-one. Oh, and no more “partner”—now you’re married. (Congrats, by the way.) But you remember nothing that occurred between 1994 and right now. Pretty disorienting, huh?
Now imagine this happens every single day. Every morning you start off thinking it’s 1994, remembering nothing that has occurred since then. You have what’s called “anteretrograde amnesia.” No, not what Jason Bourne had. He forgot his past. That’s “retrograde amnesia.” Anteretrograde is when you cannot make new memories, at least none that last for very long. For you, they persist for roughly a day. You move through the world just fine, but nothing sticks until tomorrow. People will say you did this or that, and you’ll have to take their word for it. If you’re reminded of the movie Memento, you’re spot on. And that film has actually been praised by neuroscientists at Caltech for being extremely accurate.
Please excuse all the movie references, but although various forms of amnesia are common in fiction, they’re actually rare in real life and usually brief. The closest most of us get to any of this is a temporary version brought on by one too many cocktails. But not for you and your 1994 issue. This is chronic. And as we saw with HSAM, memory is poorly understood, even by experts. Doctors can’t fix this.
So reading this book is kind of a lost cause for you. Tomorrow you won’t remember what you read today. Upside is you can enjoy your favorite TV episodes again and again like it’s the first time you watched them. Dealing with people is harder. Unless you met them in 1994, they’ll always be strangers to you, even if you see them every day. You’ll register the awkwardness, their expectations, but you won’t know why they think they know you. Every day.
Thank god you trust your own handwriting. You’ve left a lot of notes for yourself. A system that helps you get by. But going out is still always a risk. Sometimes the memories don’t last a day; sometimes it’s just minutes and you’re full-on Dory from Finding Nemo. And it’ll be like this again tomorrow. And every day. You will awaken with your mind in 1994, but the world will have moved forward.
Luckily, this is not your life. But it is the real life of Michelle Philpots. After two vehicle accidents in the mid-90s, she had seizures and her memory began deteriorating. And then one day it just stopped making new memories that lasted more than a day.
Yes, it’s tragic, but it’s not all bad. She’s not alone. She has her husband, Ian. Um, actually, it’s more nuanced than that. In 1994, Ian was her boyfriend. So every morning, to her, he’s still her boyfriend (and a boyfriend that has aged dramatically overnight). But to Ian, and to the rest of the world, he is her husband and has been for over two decades.
So Ian must remind her. Every day. Well, actually, not “remind” her, because the memories aren’t there. He doesn’t say “we’re married” and then she replies “Oh yeah!” He says “we’re married” and she says “Really?!?” And Ian breaks out the wedding album, just like he did yesterday. (And in our continuing discussion of amnesia-related cinema, if you’re thinking of the Adam Sandler–Drew Barrymore movie Fifty First Dates, you get a gold star.)
And he must be pretty convincing, because he gets her to believe it every day. Imagine having to gaslight your spouse every morning—but with the truth. It must seem like an elaborate prank to her at first. Sure, she can see in the mirror that she’s no longer thirty-one, but emotionally it must be difficult to accept this thing everyone else keeps calling “reality.”
Can love really survive when the memories are gone? I’m pleased to be able to answer that with a confident yes. The science here is fascinating. As we saw with HSAM, all memories are not the same. With that condition, memory for abstract facts (“semantic memory”) is normal. But HSAM’ers had perfect recollection of personal events (“episodic memory”). Those are distinct and separate in the brain. Jason Bourne didn’t forget his martial arts skills, and that’s accurate. In retrograde amnesia people forget their past, but they don’t lose “procedural memory”—how to walk, how to drive a car, or, in Bourne’s case, how to kick ass. Michelle has lost the ability to make new semantic and episodic memories, but her procedural memory is okay. She may not remember the password to her smartphone, but she can remember the pattern of digits she punches in with her fingers.
But those aren’t the only types of memory we have. Wonderfully, we also have “emotional memory.” In anteretrograde amnesia those feelings of love remain and can still grow, even if the facts and events don’t stick. Luckily, Michelle remembers the love she and Ian had back in the nineties. And those emotional memories can compound. Only the facts of their story must be refreshed every day. So tomorrow morning, Ian will take out their wedding album yet again to patiently remind her of the story of their love.
Maybe he tweaks the story some days. Not maliciously, of course. He certainly edits and condenses it, so it definitely changes. He must rewrite it to some degree simply because his own brain does that.
What would you give to be able to rewrite the past a bit? A second chance. To live a fresh, new story of love? The feelings are always there, but imagine a new and improved story to bolster them. To rekindle it daily. A ritual of reminding and rewriting love. A small ember can become a roaring fire yet again when tended to. A phoenix reborn.
You may not have anteretrograde amnesia, but that doesn’t mean this is less true for you. You can not only remind yourself of your love story, but you can rewrite it as well. The hope and power of a rewritten story is no less true for you.
To stay the same, it must change. This is how you fall in love with someone over and over again.
* * *
Romantic love requires a defibrillator. Something that keeps the heart going when it stops or gets wonky. We want the magic back. That story, that idealization from early love. And we can get it. We saw in the MRI data some couples do maintain it for decades. But how?
I am happy to report there is some balance in the universe. Yes, NSO is scary, but there’s also PSO: positive sentiment override. That’s the fancy term for the magic, the idealization, the not-exactly-true but oh-so-wonderful story. If those caught in the Hades of NSO are biased negatively, constantly scanning for their partner’s errors, those with PSO wake up seeking to confirm all that is good and wonderful about their partner and their relationship. The positive things are lasting; the negative stuff, well, my wonderful spouse must be having a tough day.
The idealization of early romantic love is not under our control. That’s why it feels like a fairy tale. But we’ve seen it often fades, and entropy can be equally inexorable. To renew love, we must be proactive and deliberate. We can’t wait for the magic; we must make magic. Lucky for us, PSO can be built and sustained.
I dumped a lot of sad stats on you at the beginning of this chapter, but a lot of good stuff is coming—or at least it can be good if we roll up our sleeves. We’re going to cover a lot of techniques speed-round-style to not only build that 5:1 ratio but to shift things closer to that wonderful state of biased PSO. Paralleling Gottman’s Four Horsemen, we’re going to take four steps to get there. We’ll call them the Four Rs.
Love is a verb, so let’s start verbing:
In a 2002 study, Karney and Frye found that overall relationship satisfaction has more to do with recent feelings. Unsurprising, but just how important are those recent emotions? Eight times as important. Ian renews those feelings with Michelle every morning. We want to bootstrap a feedback loop for those emotional memories.
But how? You don’t just “choose” to feel warm and fuzzy about your partner. Here’s where the concept of self-expansion comes in. Because of entropy, you’re either growing together or drifting apart. The most commonly cited reason for divorce isn’t fighting or affairs; 80 percent of couples said it was losing closeness. We often talk about feeling like we’re growing, learning, and expanding ourselves as a result of love, but it turns out this is actually one of the creators of love. Arthur Aron and Gary Lewandowski found that when couples do stuff that makes them feel they are learning and becoming better, it increases love. Just like boredom kills love, when we feel our partner is helping us become a better, more interesting person, we love them all the more.
Doing things together that are stimulating and challenging stretches our self-concept wider and provides a buzz. The angle of attack is simple: never stop dating. You did all kinds of cool stuff together when you first fell in love. You probably saw that as a result, not the cause of romance, but it’s both. “Quality time” together won’t do diddly if you’re merely making more time to be bored together. The research is clear here: you need to do exciting things. It’s the antiboredom EpiPen. Researchers did a ten-week study comparing couples who engaged in “pleasant” activities versus those who pursued “exciting” activities. Pleasant lost. Couples who went out to dinner or a movie didn’t get nearly the marital satisfaction boost that those who danced, skied, or went to concerts did. Another study Velcro-strapped partners together and had them complete an obstacle course. Huge increase in relationship satisfaction. We need interaction, challenges, movement, and fun. Psychologist Elaine Hatfield said it best: “Adrenaline makes the heart grow fonder.”
But how does this increase love? It’s due to the criminally underrated concept of emotional contagion. When we feel excited, we associate it with what’s around us, even if that thing is not directly responsible. When we feel partner = fun, we enjoy their presence more. And that lets us be somewhat lazy by letting environments do the work for us. Go to a concert. Get on a roller coaster. You want a fairy tale? Great. Go fight a dragon together.
In fact, any strong emotion can increase love. People often reference Stockholm syndrome, the phenomenon of hostages coming to sympathize with their captors. It’s real. And what many people forget is that after the actual 1973 event in Stockholm, two of the hostages actually got engaged to the criminals. This is why some people stay in toxic relationships. Though they may not realize it, to them, the drama and fighting are preferable to another night watching TV. (Obviously I’m not recommending this, and, for the record, there is research on make-up sex, and it doesn’t live up to the hype.)
Not only do “self-expansion” activities improve relationship satisfaction, but studies show that they also increase sexual desire. Couples who did exciting stuff were 12 percent more likely to have sex that weekend than those who did typical stuff. And speaking of sex: have it. Only 58 percent of women and 46 percent of men are happy with the current amount of sex they’re getting. (Yes, they’re getting an F in sex this semester.) Denise Donnelly of Georgia State reports that sex less than once a month is a harbinger of misery and separation. And a low-sex relationship isn’t just a result of unhappiness, it’s also a cause. Let those hormones do the happiness work for you. It’s fun. (I do not need data to prove that.) And don’t be afraid to get kinky. A 2009 study found S-M activities can boost intimacy. Definitely qualifies as novel, stimulating self-expansion . . . Just sayin’.
Excitement, learning, experiencing, growing. This allows you not only to feel better in the moment but to collect emotional memories. Scenes for your story of love. Gottman says those feelings are the antidote to contempt. When fondness and admiration leave a relationship, you’re on your way to NSO. And when those feelings are gone, he advises therapists to terminate treatment. The patient cannot be saved.
Want a concrete way to get started? Go out with your spouse and pretend it’s your first date. This isn’t just some cheesy advice from Aunt Barb: it’s been tested. To fall in love again, redo the things you did falling in love the first time.
Okay, I cheated. This is not really “reminding.” I needed an R word. What we’re really doing here is going deeper and learning more about your partner to build intimacy. A 2001 study found couples who really open up to each other are nearly two-thirds more likely to say they have a happy union. Our buddy Casanova once said, “Love is three-quarters curiosity.” And Gottman’s research backs him up. The happiest couples understand a lot about their partners. He calls this deep knowledge a “love map.” Knowing how they like their coffee, the little worries that bother them, what their biggest hopes and dreams are. This info not only increases intimacy but also reduces conflict by what Gottman calls “preemptive repair.” We all have concerns and sensitivities, rational or not, and when you’re aware of those, you can avoid them before they become an issue.
So look up from your smartphone and get to know your partner better. Use those questions Arthur Aron created that I mentioned in chapter 2. (You can download a PDF of the questions here: https://www.bakadesuyo.com/aron.) Not only did answering those questions build friendship, but the very first pair of research assistants who answered them together ended up getting married.
Knowing how they like their coffee is good, but the real value here is in understanding the personal, idiosyncratic meanings they have of things. What does love mean to them? Marriage? Happiness? Dig for their unique perspective on things like what “being fulfilled” entails. When you know that your partner sees the completion of household chores as an important expression of caring, then it’s not a mystery why they’re getting upset—and you can do something about it.
Dan Wile once wrote, “Choosing a partner is choosing a set of problems.” But when you take the time to get to know somebody, you can see the emotional reasons why things don’t mean to them what they might mean to you. That understanding can change “difficult problems” into “lovable quirks.” When you know they leave the lights on in the bathroom sometimes because of a childhood fear of the dark, the lazy idiot becomes a sympathetic human with acceptable foibles.
And, more important, Gottman says that understanding people’s idiosyncratic meanings is how you overcome those perpetual problems—the intractable 69 percent. What does gridlock on an issue mean? It means this is tied to something important to them. Values. The same thing causing you all that grief can be a door to a deep insight into your partner. If you know what something really means to them, maybe you can find something that honors both of your visions of life. Or maybe you can at least respect each other’s position instead of the NSO path to thinking they’re trying to sabotage your happiness. Like Gottman said, dealing with those perpetual problems is about regulation, not resolution. And that works a lot better when you’re honestly able to tell them “I don’t agree, but I see why you feel that way.”
Expanding on meaning, talking about dreams and values may sound saccharine, but it’s crucial. You’re on a journey together, so it’s kinda important that you both wanna head in the same direction, eh? What’s their ideal life? Their ideal self? These are big questions, but if you start answering them, the smaller stuff starts falling into place and that crazy person you live with can start to make sense. All couples argue about money. Why? Because money is all about values. It’s a quantification of what’s important to you. Get closer to an understanding of their values, and the money problem magically gets easier to deal with.
You don’t want to just “get along.” God, how low a standard is that? Do all the above right and you get on the path to shared meaning. That’s the first step toward the good side of “the Tolstoy principle”: your unique culture of two. Folie à deux. To have your own secret language. An emotional shorthand. Silly stuff infused with rich personal meaning. Those inside jokes, things you say that are crazy to everyone else but mean so much to the two of you. Building your own little religion. This is when couples truly can’t bear to be apart, because they have a shared identity, a shared story, because the other person is inextricably a part of their future progress, future goals, and how they will become their ideal self.
And that unique culture should be supported by unique rituals. A big part of making this special culture of two and cementing a shared identity is infusing the day-to-day with that special meaning. These aren’t the big, exciting moments of expansion; they’re the little things. Mealtimes, bedtime, vacations, date night, partings, reunitings, scheduled snuggling appointments, and celebrations are all perfect moments for having a special, weird something that sets your love apart.
A good concrete one to start with? At the end of the workday when you reunite, you each take a turn sharing the good news of the day. And both of you support and celebrate what the other says. Repeated studies have shown this can boost happiness and relationship satisfaction. UCSB professor Shelly Gable has found that how couples celebrate can actually be more important than how you fight. Again, like Gottman said, in many cases, if you increase the positive, the negative doesn’t matter quite as much.
But what about when change is necessary?
Okay, so you know your partner better. It’s a natural response to want to change them a bit. No, this is not good, at least not the way it’s usually done. A study of 160 people found that this usually doesn’t work and decreases marital satisfaction. Why? Because you’re not objective. You’re saying you know better than they do who they should be. There’s always a bit of selfishness in there. The enormous irony here is that you have to accept someone fully before they can change. As John Gottman notes, our instinct for autonomy is wired deep, so, ironically, people change only when they feel they don’t have to.
There’s a healthy (and effective) way to help your partner move in the direction of positive change. But it starts with who they want to be, not who you want them to be. You have to help them become their own ideal self. That’s one reason why the love maps process above is so important, for you to ask and know, rather than guess, what this ideal self is.
We got some help from Aristotle on building friendships; for improving partners, we’ll receive assistance from another master: Michelangelo. Speaking about his artistic process, he once said, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work.” He didn’t feel that sculpting was creating; it was revealing. The sculpture just has to be freed from the stone around it. And psychologists found the same idea applies to improving your partner.
Just as in romantic love we’re able to see our “real” partner but discount the negatives and idealize them, we can benefit from that here. With the knowledge of the current block of marble and what it has the potential to be, we can better see how the idealized version parallels it.
So how do we actually do this? Think back to when we talked about narcissists and “empathy prompts.” (No, I’m not saying your partner is a narcissist; I’m saying humans are more alike than they are different.) The best way to help them improve was by encouraging instead of shaming. Same applies here. In accepting them as they are, you can still focus on and encourage those aspects aligned with their ideal self, who they most want to be. See the “idealized” sculpture in their realistic marble and encourage that. Nurture the ideal them through support and affirmation. Work on that raw diamond to reveal the beauty within; don’t try to turn it into an emerald because you like the color green.
Simply put, this is a more proactive effort to “bring out the best in someone.” And, given it originated with their own goals, it meets far less resistance. You’re not encouraging them to become what you want them to be, you’re encouraging them to be more them. Speak to their best self, encourage their ideal self, and treat them like they already are that person. In a 1996 study, researchers Sandra Murray, John Holmes, and Dale Griffin found that, much like children, adults often come to perceive themselves the way we perceive them. This is why supporting the ideal works and shaming them as bad fails. The delusion of love is necessary because it is a North Star. The lie becomes the truth.
Again, this promotes self-expansion, so guess what? It has some of the same results as self-expansion: “movement toward the ideal self showed positive associations with life and relationship satisfaction.” But not only that, it does help people change, improve, and meet their goals. They do get closer to their ideal self: “Analyses revealed that when partners were more affirming during goal-relevant conversations, targets were more likely to achieve their ideal self goals.” And you can encourage an old dog to learn new tricks. The Michelangelo effect has been shown to work at any age.
It’s idealization all over again, but the deliberate “enlightenment era” version. If we know the “negatives” of a partner but learn the meaning beneath them, we see who they really are and who they can really be. We can then encourage that ideal in a partner and help them actually become that ideal. They become the idealized self, and so the idealization can last. This is a path to a continued romantic love that defies entropy. The Michelangelo effect allows us to fall in love over and over again with same person (without amnesia). Somerset Maugham wrote, “We are not the same persons this year as last, nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.” But we don’t have to leave it to chance.
Okay, we boosted the feelings and intimacy with self-expansion, created a unique culture of two supported by rituals with love maps, and increased positive growth and improvement with the Michelangelo effect. What encapsulates all this? What ties it all together? It’s the same thing we’ve seen to be central throughout the book thus far. The same thing Michelle Philpots needs daily, and Ian provides. A story . . .
In the end, love is a shared story. (My deep and insightful realization that lasting love is inextricably part of a shared story is due to congenital brilliance on my part and has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that leading love researcher Robert Sternberg wrote a book titled Love Is a Story.)
Remember how John Gottman could predict divorce with 94 percent accuracy? Know how he does it? It’s simple: he asks the couple to tell their story. That, and that alone, is his crystal ball to the future of any romance.
So what’s your story? Every relationship has one. Sorry, did I put you on the spot? Don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to be able to answer. The stories we have about our relationships are usually intuitive and unconscious. But they’re there. Some people have a “business” story where they’re all about making sure things in the relationship run smoothly. Others do have a “fairy tale” story of wanting to save or be saved. And there are those who have a “home” story where everything is centered on building a lovely environment. There are an infinite number of stories. None guarantee happiness, but Sternberg found some make it pretty hard. (I recommend avoiding a “war” story.)
And people can repeat their problematic stories, which is why some friends of yours might complain, “Why do I always attract jerks?” They’re casting an actor for the “role” in their story, and decent people might not fit the part. Sternberg’s research has shown that we end up with people who have similar ideas about what the story of a relationship will be. And if they don’t, we’re far more likely to be dissatisfied with the partnership.
First, you need to know what your “ideal” relationship story is so that you can align with it, tweak it, or change it. It can be a great way to diagnose what’s wrong with a relationship, but that’s hard to do if you don’t know what your story is. If you secretly love “drama” but won’t admit it to yourself, you can say you’re seeking a “fairy tale” but keep ending up in a “war” story, saying “Jeez, why does this keep happening to me?” Often people have confusion between the story they’re seeking and the story they think they “should” have.
Our stories are influenced by upbringing and experiences, and the environment we live in. Stories are now far less culturally scripted than in the past, which is a good thing if you craft one deliberately, but if you’re not as proactive about this, it can end up more hellish than being on a group text.
Look at your past behavior to find your “ideal” story, the one you’ve been unconsciously seeking. What kinds of people did you get involved with? Reject? How has that changed? Ask friends for insight because you’re probably not going to be objective. And then you want to think about what your “actual” story currently is with your partner. Has an “adventure” story become a “running a small business” story since the kids arrived? Talk to your partner and find out their “ideal” and “actual” story. Again, this is why you discussed dreams and values with them and tried to understand their ideal self. Failing to get on the same page about this is why when talking to couples who split, you often hear a Rashomon of two tales that sound completely different. Sternberg’s research found that couples with similar stories are more satisfied.
A critical element is understanding the issue of roles and power in the shared story. Today many couples have a knee-jerk desire to say they’re equals, but that may not reflect their true ideal. Do you feel uncomfortable when you’re leading or uncomfortable when not leading? Roles can be asymmetric, and that’s okay. One can be the race car driver and the other the mechanic.
Remember, there’s no “right” answer, just something both of you are comfortable with that’s in line with your needs. Yes, this is the choose-your-own-adventure marriage. Objectivity and facts aren’t central here: it’s the framing, the perspective, and the mutual buy-in. There is no objective truth here, just two subjective truths.
And that lines up with what Gottman has found about story: the facts don’t matter. It’s all about the spin. Getting his 94 percent prediction accuracy didn’t come from what the couple said but how they presented it. The single most important thing? The theme of “glorifying the struggle.” That means everything. A story of problems that has a positive spin (“We had troubles but we overcame them”) bodes well, but a story of good things with disappointment (“We’re doing fine, I guess; this isn’t what I wanted but whatever”) means problems.
The goal here is to create what journalist Daniel Jones calls “retroactive destiny.” The story isn’t the events: it’s the lens you see them through. We tend to assume that the way we see things now is the only way, but a triumph can be a tragedy when you shift the perspective. The meaning can’t happen until after. You don’t find the fairy tale ready-made, and events unfold according to it. The events happen, and you weave the positive fairy tale and interpret everything through that. A cynic would say this is rationalization, but we’ve already accepted that romantic love is a type of delusion—a good kind.
NSO is a negative rewriting of the story. PSO is the positive version. The facts didn’t change, the lens did. And the story is forever being rewritten, tweaked here and there, as it certainly has in Ian’s daily telling to Michelle. Why are kids such a challenge to happy marriages? You just added a whole new primary character and didn’t update your story. Without a conscious rewriting of the storyline, you shouldn’t be surprised that a “whirlwind romance” became a “sitcom.”
As the research shows, the perfect memory of HSAM’ers harms relationships. We need to be able to rewrite and reframe. To emphasize or de-emphasize parts of the story, as we do with our partners in idealization. Luckily, we do not have HSAM, so we can rewrite the story. Instead of a new story of love through a new relationship, you can forge a new story with the same person. Think of it like recycling. Your shared story of love is quite green. As Mignon McLaughlin said, “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”
It’s not going to happen overnight. But the goal of your “glorifying the struggle” story comes down to a single word: we. Professor James Pennebaker found that the use of we-words predicts a happy relationship. We already saw the other side of this. What did Gottman say often defines criticism, one of the four horsemen? Using the word you in an argument. UC Riverside professor Megan Robbins reviewed studies of 5,300 subjects and found that we use correlated with success in all metrics evaluated, from relationship duration to satisfaction to mental health. And it doesn’t just boost happiness. In a survey of people with heart problems, it was the ones who used we most often that were in better shape after six months.
But is the word we chicken or egg? Does it just signal a good relationship or does using it more improve a relationship? Robbins says it’s likely both. So use more we.
It’s almost time to round everything up. Yes, “we” are almost done. (No, you and I are not in love. You’re wonderful, but I really just think of us as friends.) We’re going to get the final verdict on love’s conquering ability. But first, you might be curious to see what love looks like when it does manage to conquer all . . .