Assume good intent: the story you tell about your partner shapes the relationship

The Short Version

Most fights between partners are not fought over what happened. They are fought over the story each person tells about what happened, and especially over the motive each one assigns to the other. Couples therapist Esther Perel says couples routinely mistake their subjective version of last night for fact, and that the cure for the rapid spiral of attack and defense is curiosity: "an active engagement with the unknown" [1]. Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb describes all of us as unreliable narrators working from old, unrevised scripts [2]. Mel Robbins, her husband Chris, and trial lawyer Jefferson Fisher arrive at the same practical rule from different directions: assume good intent, because the benign story leaves "no room for resentment" and the hostile story usually isn't the real issue anyway [3][4]. None of them says to excuse real mistreatment; what they share is the idea that you check your interpretation before you react, and that this one habit stops a great many fights before they start.

Table of contents

What They Said

Esther Perel: curiosity against reactivity, stories against facts

Perel, speaking from almost 40 years as a couples therapist, calls curiosity "one of the top words for me because it stands in opposition to reactivity" [1]. She describes reactivity in precise terms: "Reactivity reinforces the cycle it just creates narrow repetition rapid you know cycles of escalation it in usually involves defense and attack and blame" [1]. Curiosity, by contrast, "is an active engagement with the unknown" [1]. She accepts Andrew Huberman's definition of curiosity, wanting to find out without being emotionally attached to the outcome, and says "much of what I do is try to have people switch from reactive to curious" [1]. That switch requires partners to be "willing to enter empathically and respectfully into the realm of another person whose narrative is completely different" [1].

The reason she cares so much about narrative is simple: "I believe that the story shapes the experience" [1]. The trouble begins when people "hold on to the story and they don't think it's a story they think it's fact" [1]. She mimics how it sounds in her office: "this is what happened last night I'll tell you what you did I'll tell you what happened" [1]. The summary of the conversation calls this "pseudo factual talk": it sounds like a report of events, but it is really a subjective rendering [1]. Perel is careful not to dismiss the story. It is "totally valid but it's valid as your experience" [1]. Once people realize they are telling a story rather than reciting facts, they can become curious, though she admits that hurt and defensive bodies make that very difficult [1].

She gives a vivid image of how two narrators can share one event and leave with two histories. Two people can sit in the same session and walk out with completely different versions of it, like Swiss cheese, where one person's gaps are filled in by the other's story [1]. This is why she has been invited to meetings on societal polarization: couples, she says, are a laboratory for intractable conflict, and peace-building methods begin not with the issues that divide people but with their shared humanity [1].

Most relevant to the question of intent is her example of a person who hears "I didn't mean to hurt you" and insists that the partner did mean it [1]. Her explanation is that our need for coherence makes us attribute intent to explain our hurt [1]. If I am hurt, the story you meant to hurt me makes the pain make sense. In other words, the hostile motive often comes from our need for the story to add up, not from anything we observed.

Perel ties this to two biases she calls neutral and universal. Confirmation bias leads us to seek evidence for what we already believe [1]. The fundamental attribution error is summed up in her line "I am complex and you are more simple": my bad mood is due to traffic, yours is your personality [1]. Both biases push the story about a partner toward character flaws and bad motives while excusing our own behavior as situational.

She also describes where these stories come from. Perel lays out three "choreographies of conflict": both partners attacking, both withdrawing into silence, or one pursuing while the other distances [1]. Beneath the plot of any fight, what matters is who is feeling what at the hands of whom [1]. In one example, a partner's silence recreates a childhood feeling of neglect for one person, while the other, feeling pursued, relives being flooded in a chaotic childhood home; in her words, "their younger selves have completely taken over" [1]. The hardest nugget of couples work, she says, is that people don't realize they are in their past, collapsing past and present [1]. Huberman adds that brain imaging work by Allan Schore and others shows the circuits for infant-caretaker attachment are repurposed for romantic attachment, and quotes a line he attributes to Paul Conti: "you didn't have six hard relationships. You had one hard relationship six times" [1].

Her best-known illustration is a couple from her podcast who fight about everything, every day. "They think they're fighting about the closet the cat litter and the cat," she says [1]. What they are really fighting about is this: when she asks why he left the closet open, he instantly thinks of his military father and hears "you end the boss of me"; and when he pushes back, she, who grew up alone caring for two siblings, hears that she will be alone for the rest of her life [1]. Each partner is reacting to a story that was written long before the closet was left open. As Perel puts it, "this is what they're fighting about but they're talking about why did you leave the cat closet open" [1].

In the room, Perel tries to interrupt reactivity before it starts. She works "like a tailor," sometimes having partners sit side by side instead of face to face, sometimes having everyone sit in silence for ten minutes to let their systems regulate, and she likes to begin with "what have you done this week to make things better?" rather than hearing about the latest blowup [1]. She also notes that in relationship therapy the question is not whether an interpretation is absolutely true but whether it resonates and helps [1].

Finally, Perel links good-faith interpretation to accountability. She wants people to arrive in relationships with self-awareness that turns into accountability, without blame or shame [1]. She says couples often treat her like a drop-off center for their partner's problems, with great insight into the other's flaws and little sense of being part of a system [1]. She often asks clients, "knowing yourself as well as you do what you think makes it hard to live with you" [1], a question that turns the story-telling eye back on the teller.

Lori Gottlieb: we are all unreliable narrators

Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, supplies the idea's broadest frame. Her conversation with Lewis Howes is not specifically about couples, but her central claim applies directly: we all carry childhood-formed stories that haven't been revisited with adult eyes, and these stories shape how we perceive ourselves and others, often trapping us in outdated scripts [2]. The summary of her episode heads this idea We Are All Unreliable Narrators [2].

She describes therapy as an editorial process in which the therapist helps you revise the faulty narrative so you can move forward, and she calls being stuck a psychological "writer's block" [2]. We get stuck, she says, not because we're broken but because the story we're telling ourselves no longer serves us [2]. When we are stuck in one version of events, she says, we become prisoners of our own editing [2].

Her cornerstone exercise is to rewrite a key story from your past through the lens of the other people involved [2]. This is not to excuse harm, but to gain compassion, widen perspective and break out of a victim-only narrative, which lets you reclaim agency [2]. If we don't revise the story, she warns, "we will relive it" [2]. That warning echoes Perel's observation that couples collapse past and present, and Huberman's "one hard relationship six times" [1][2].

Gottlieb also names a pattern that fuels the hostile story inside couples: "pain competition," where partners or friends try to prove whose pain is more valid, which undermines healing and connection [2]. Instead, she says, healthy relationships are built on mutual responsibility and emotional generosity, and even if someone hurt you, your response is your responsibility [2]. And she warns about what she calls "idiot compassion," the blind agreement friends often offer ("you're totally right, they're horrible"), as opposed to "wise compassion," truth with kindness that lovingly holds up a mirror and gently challenges you [2]. Idiot compassion, in effect, confirms whatever story you walked in with; wise compassion asks you to check it.

Mel and Chris Robbins: assume good intent, and describe impact instead of blame

Mel Robbins brings the idea down to the kitchen sink. Her third lesson from about 30 years of marriage is, in her words, "Assume good intent. Never forget the goodness inside the person that you chose to be with" [3]. She explains: "at our core, I believe people are good. And it's easy when you get caught up in the day to day of your life and you let those little resentments build and you let the emotions bottle up. It's easy to forget who you actually committed to" [3].

For Mel, assuming good intent is not a feeling but a trained habit: "assuming good intent about the person that you're committed to is a skill and it is one that will make your relationship last" [3]. When dishes are left in the sink, instead of assuming selfishness she reminds herself that Chris was probably busy and will come back to it [3]. Her explanation of why this works is almost exactly Perel's point about stories, stated in reverse: "There's no room for resentment because you've created a story that's positive and in support of the goodness of the other person and the goodness in your relationship. And that creates room for more goodness" [3]. Where Perel warns that the story shapes the experience, Mel deliberately chooses the story.

The idea of two stories runs through the whole episode. It opens with a clip of Mel's father on his 56th wedding anniversary, comparing marriage to sailing and saying "you have to realize that there are two sides to every story. And your opinion may not always be the correct one" [3]. Chris says what struck him about the clip was "his apparent ability to see it from both sides" [3].

Chris does not simply agree. He pushes back: "I think it's hard for people to continue to assume you could assume good intent," and adds that if a behavior keeps happening, eventually you'll lose patience with it [3]. Mel's answer is a story about how Chris himself taught her the second half of the skill. She loves unpacking deliveries but hates flattening cardboard boxes, and would stack them by the door to deal with later [3]. After many arguments, Chris sat her down and said, "Mel every time I see a cardboard box stacked by the door I see you giving me the middle finger," explaining that the boxes had come to mean he was the maid and his needs didn't matter [3]. Because he described the impact rather than calling her a slob, she did not get defensive, and the conflict rose to what it was really about [3]. Her takeaway is that nearly every petty argument is really about not feeling considered, respected or treated with kindness [3].

This story is worth dwelling on, because it shows the whole mechanism in one scene. Chris had built a story (you are telling me my needs don't matter). Rather than acting on it as fact, he offered it as his experience, which is exactly the move Perel describes as valid "as your experience" [1][3]. Mel, hearing an experience instead of an accusation, could respond with care instead of defense [3].

Two other Robbins lessons feed the same idea. In the flowers story, Chris, as the stay-at-home dad, thought he was doing everything right, while Mel came home from 150 days a year on the road to a vase of dead flowers she had cut herself the week before, which she read as nobody thinking of her [3]. Each was rowing hard in a separate boat, and as Mel puts it, "it's not about the flowers" [3]. And on money and roles, she warns that "when you don't talk about something, your emotions build up and your emotions start doing the talking for you" [3], which is the Robbins version of Perel's reactivity: unspoken stories eventually speak for themselves.

Mel also names the social side of the hostile story. She admits, "I've made the mistake way too many times of finding myself in a raft with a bunch of friends bitching about you versus being in the boat with you" [3], a vivid picture of Gottlieb's idiot compassion at work, with friends confirming the story instead of challenging it [2][3].

Jefferson Fisher: grace, curiosity, and the issue under the issue

Trial lawyer Jefferson Fisher comes to the same conclusion from cross-examination and conflict with strangers, not marriage, but his reasoning applies directly to partners. Asked how he learned to assume good intent, he says, "I believe that the most people are good. They want to do good. And there are people in this world that are truly hurting. And they came in hurting long before they met me" [4]. Because you can't know someone's childhood or insecurities, a harmless comment about someone's job may trigger "oh, well, you think your job's better than mine?"; in that moment, he says, "your hearing is just insecurity. That's what you're hearing" [4]. His father taught him that "the issue that they're giving you is not the real issue. Meaning there's always something that's layered underneath that" [4], and that you have to be curious and patient enough to find it [4]. That is almost a translation of Perel's cat litter couple into a lawyer's language [1][4].

Fisher's most striking claim links interpretation to how heavy life feels: "how often you take things personally is a direct reflection of how much grace you give other people" [4]. He continues: "if you never give somebody the benefit of the doubt, it's heavy" [4]. His example is ordinary: you pass someone in the hallway who doesn't say hello and conclude, "Oh, they must be mad at me," when they were simply preoccupied [4]. His tool when he catches himself doing this is to say "put it down, Jefferson," because "I'm picking up what nobody has asked me to carry" [4].

He also teaches that "the person that you see is often not the person you're talking to" [4]. In one deposition, a big, brash witness was hostile to every question until Fisher asked, "what are you struggling with today? Let's just set aside the case" [4]. The man had just moved his mother into assisted living after his father died, was her only caregiver, and was nervous about letters from attorneys [4]. More broadly, Fisher sees difficult personalities as people acting from a fear, insecurity or need, and he sees conflict as a bid for connection, people wanting to feel heard and important [4]. Mel Robbins draws out the lesson that labeling someone as difficult or narcissistic is already a problem, because you've made the interaction difficult before it begins [4], the same warning Perel gives about labels [1].

Where the Robbinses give a mindset, Fisher gives scripts for checking your interpretation out loud instead of acting on it. When a message seems rude, ask "did you mean," for example "Did you mean for that to sound short?" [4]. He uses it with his own father and notes that some people are simply better on the phone than in writing [4]. When a comment seems to be a jab, ask a question of intent, such as "did you say that to hurt me?", which works like a mirror; people usually backtrack [4]. When someone says "nobody ever listens to me," he gently asks whether they feel he never listens or whether he objectively never does, then says, "It's helpful to know. I'm here. I'm listening" [4]. For small-stuff arguments, like spouses bickering over detergent in a grocery aisle, he asks "Is this something we have to agree on?" [4]. And to lower defensiveness, he tells the other person what he learned, that they've been helpful, or what he agrees on, and he uses phrases like "I could do better" and "Maybe you're right" [4].

Fisher also addresses the body, because reactivity is physical. Defensiveness, he says, is biological: "I perceive a threat. I'm going to send it right back. That's what fight or flight is" [4]. When threatened, muscles tighten, shoulders rise, you hold your breath and get louder; instead, he recommends a conversational breath and to "let your breath be the first word that you say" [4]. He adds, "Silence can never be misquoted" [4].

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

Where they agree

All four sources agree that the story you tell about another person's behavior is not the same as the behavior. Perel says couples "don't think it's a story they think it's fact" [1]. Gottlieb says we are prisoners of our own editing, working from scripts that were never revised [2]. Mel Robbins says you can deliberately create "a story that's positive" about your partner [3]. Fisher says what you hear in a prickly remark is often just the other person's insecurity, and that the issue someone gives you is not the real issue [4].

They agree that the hostile interpretation tends to be automatic. Perel describes the need for coherence that makes us assign intent to explain our hurt, plus confirmation bias and the fundamental attribution error [1]. Fisher describes the reflex of concluding that a colleague who didn't say hello is mad at you [4]. Mel describes little resentments building until "It's easy to forget who you actually committed to" [3].

They agree that a lot of the story is about the past, not the present. Perel's couples collapse past and present, and their "younger selves have completely taken over" [1]. Gottlieb says our stories are formed in childhood and never revisited with adult eyes [2]. Fisher says people "came in hurting long before they met me" [4].

They agree that curiosity is the alternative. Perel explicitly sets curiosity against reactivity [1]. Fisher says you have to be curious and patient enough to find what's underneath [4]. Gottlieb's exercise of rewriting a story through the other people's eyes is curiosity applied to the past [2]. Chris Robbins's cardboard box conversation turned an accusation into an explanation Mel could be curious about [3].

And they agree that this is not about being a pushover. Gottlieb's rewriting exercise is explicitly not meant to excuse harm [2]. Mel says "unconditional love does not mean unconditional tolerance of bad behavior" [3]. Fisher gives firm tools for disrespect and gaslighting alongside his generosity [4]. Perel insists on accountability and sincere apology [1].

Where they differ

The sources differ in emphasis more than in substance, but the differences matter.

Choosing the story versus questioning it. Mel Robbins's version is active and optimistic: you choose a positive story, and that crowds out resentment [3]. Perel's version is more neutral and investigative: the goal is not to replace a negative story with a positive one but to recognize that any story is a subjective rendering and to get curious about your partner's very different one [1]. Gottlieb sits between them: you revise the story by seeing it from the other people's point of view, which tends to produce compassion but is aimed at accuracy and agency rather than at thinking well of anyone [2]. In practice these fit together: Perel's curiosity gives you the question, and Mel's default gives you a starting guess while you ask it.

Does good intent hold up against repeated behavior? This is the one open disagreement in the sources, and it happens between husband and wife. Chris Robbins says it is hard to keep assuming good intent when the same thing keeps happening, and that eventually you'll run out of patience [3]. Mel's answer does not deny this. Instead, her story shows the next step: when a pattern repeats, you stop silently assuming and start describing the impact without blame, as Chris did with the boxes [3]. Fisher offers the same bridge with his "did you mean" and "did you say that to hurt me?" questions: when you can't tell, ask rather than assume either way [4].

Where good intent stops. Mel draws a hard line: behavior reveals who someone is, and explaining away disrespect or abuse means chasing potential [3]. Fisher, for all his grace, also says some people are playing a game of praise or provoke, noting "They delight in your anger as much as they delight in your praise," and that with gaslighting you should simply say "I remember things differently. Period." [4]. So assuming good intent is a starting point, not a verdict you hold onto against evidence. Perel adds a different caution: labels like narcissist and gaslighting are now often weaponized to separate people [1]. Taken together, these warnings pull in two directions. Fisher gives tools for real bad actors, while Perel and Mel Robbins warn that reaching for those labels too fast can itself become the hostile story [1][3][4].

Couples specialists versus general communicators. Perel and the Robbinses speak directly about romantic partners [1][3]. Gottlieb's summary is about personal narratives in general, with only a brief note on couples and pain competition [2], and Fisher's examples come mostly from depositions, strangers, parents and co-parents [4]. Their conclusions line up with the couples experts, but readers should know that some of the support here is borrowed from outside marriage.

Why It Works

The sources give several mechanisms, some drawn from clinical experience and some from neuroscience.

The story shapes the experience. Perel's basic premise is that experience isn't simply received; it is interpreted, and the interpretation becomes the experience [1]. If the dishes in the sink mean he doesn't respect me, the evening is about disrespect. If they mean he was busy and will come back to it, the evening is about dishes [3]. Mel describes the downstream effect: the positive story leaves "no room for resentment" and "creates room for more goodness" [3].

Reactivity is a fast loop; curiosity breaks it. Perel describes reactivity as "narrow repetition" and "rapid" cycles of escalation involving defense, attack and blame [1]. Fisher explains why the loop is so fast: defensiveness is biological, a fight-or-flight response to a perceived threat [4]. Once the body is in threat mode, muscles tighten, shoulders rise, breath is held and voices get louder [4]. Perel agrees that hurt and defensive bodies make curiosity very difficult, which is why she sometimes has couples sit in silence for ten minutes to let their systems regulate [1]. Questioning the story before reacting interrupts the loop at its first step, before the body has joined the argument.

We fill gaps with intent because we need coherence. Perel's explanation for why people insist a partner meant to hurt them is the need for coherence: attributing intent makes our hurt make sense [1]. Confirmation bias then collects evidence for the story, and the fundamental attribution error pins the other person's behavior on their character while excusing our own as circumstance [1]. The Swiss cheese image shows the result: each partner fills the gaps in memory with their own story, so two people leave the same session with different versions of it [1].

Old circuits, old stories. Huberman notes that brain imaging work by Allan Schore and others shows the circuits underlying infant-caretaker attachment are repurposed for romantic attachment, which may explain why partners evoke our earliest needs [1]. That helps explain Perel's cat litter couple, where an ordinary request is heard through a controlling father and a lonely childhood [1], and Gottlieb's point that unrevised childhood stories keep running into adulthood [2]. Perel calls the idea that couples recreate early patterns in order to transcend them a useful framework, while stressing that such frameworks are tools, not absolute truths [1].

Describing impact lowers defensiveness; accusing raises it. The cardboard box story shows the mechanism directly: because Chris described the impact rather than calling Mel a slob, she did not get defensive [3]. Fisher's phrases work the same way. Hearing the word "agree pulls down the other person's need to keep proving a point, even when you only agree the conversation is worth having [4]. Questions of intent, like did you say that to hurt me?", turn a presumed motive into an honest question and usually lead people to backtrack [4].

Grace makes life lighter. Fisher's observation that how often you take things personally reflects how much grace you give others points to a cost of the hostile story that falls on the person holding it: "if you never give somebody the benefit of the doubt, it's heavy" [4]. Gottlieb makes a related point about agency: when you are stuck in one version of events, you become a prisoner of your own editing, and revising the story lets you reclaim agency [2].

The sources do not cite controlled studies on assuming good intent in couples. The support is clinical and practical (Perel's decades of couples work, Gottlieb's therapy practice, Fisher's courtroom experience, the Robbinses' own marriage), plus Huberman's brief reference to attachment neuroscience [1][2][3][4].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

It applies most to ordinary, low-stakes friction. The examples the sources choose are telling: dishes in the sink, cardboard boxes by the door, a closet left open, flowers, detergent in a grocery aisle, a colleague who didn't say hello [1][3][4]. Mel's takeaway is that nearly every petty argument is really about not feeling considered, respected or treated with kindness [3]. These are the fights that questioning the story prevents most easily, because the facts are trivial and the story is doing all the damage. Fisher adds that the biggest fights often start from the smallest inconveniences [4].

It applies when you are reacting to your past. If a partner's request makes you feel bossed around the way a parent did, or their silence feels like childhood neglect, Perel's and Gottlieb's work suggests the reaction may be about an old story more than the present moment [1][2]. Asking what am I actually reacting to? is especially useful here.

It applies in text and at a distance. Fisher's advice on curt emails and one-word texts, ask "Did you mean for that to sound short?", recognizes that written messages give the story-making mind the most room to fill gaps [4]. He also notes some people are just better on the phone than in writing [4].

It does not mean ignoring patterns. Chris Robbins's objection is fair: assuming good intent over and over, silently, can become its own resentment [3]. When a behavior repeats, the sources suggest you move from assuming to talking, describing the impact without blame [3], rather than either suppressing the story or firing it off as an accusation. Mel warns that when you don't talk about something, "your emotions start doing the talking for you" [3].

It does not apply to mistreatment or abuse. Mel is explicit that "unconditional love does not mean unconditional tolerance of bad behavior," and that explaining away disrespect or abuse means loving someone's potential rather than who they are [3]. Gottlieb's perspective-taking is not meant to excuse harm [2]. Fisher distinguishes the everyday good-faith assumption from how to handle gaslighting and people who delight in provoking, where he recommends distance, neutral replies and firmness [4]. If you are in a relationship where you feel unsafe or consistently belittled, a qualified therapist or counselor is the right person to help you sort the story from the facts; this is not a situation to solve by assuming the best.

It is not the same as forgiving or forgetting. Perel keeps accountability central: a sincere apology is the first requirement after a hurt, accepting an apology is not the same as forgiving, and "forgiveness is freedom," something you decide on your own timeline [1]. Assuming good intent about a small slight does not require skipping acknowledgement of a real one.

Labels can backfire. Perel says naming, like attachment styles or love languages, helps when it expands understanding and gives a shared language, but becomes harmful when it reduces a person to one identity; she notes terms like narcissist and gaslighting are now often weaponized to separate people [1]. Mel Robbins makes the same point with Fisher: calling someone difficult makes the interaction difficult before it starts [4]. A diagnosis can be one more story that hardens into "fact."

What To Do With It

1. Catch the "fact that is really a story. When you hear yourself saying I'll tell you what you did" or "this is what happened last night," Perel's cue applies: treat it as your valid, subjective version, not the full account [1]. Try saying it as your experience (this is how it felt to me) rather than as a verdict.

2. Make good intent your default first guess. When the dishes are in the sink, try Mel Robbins's move of reminding yourself that your partner was probably busy and will come back to it [3]. Remember why you chose them; as she puts it, "Never forget the goodness inside the person that you chose to be with" [3].

3. Ask a question before you assign a motive. Borrow Fisher's scripts: "Did you mean for that to sound short?" for a curt message, "did you say that to hurt me?" for a comment that stung [4]. If your partner says "I didn't mean to hurt you," notice the pull, which Perel describes, to insist they did because it makes your hurt feel coherent [1].

4. When a pattern repeats, describe the impact, not the character. Follow Chris Robbins's cardboard box model: name the specific behavior and what it has come to mean to you ("I see you giving me the middle finger"), without calling your partner a name [3]. Then look for what the fight is really about: feeling considered, respected or treated with kindness [3].

5. Look for the issue under the issue. Use Fisher's father's rule, "the issue that they're giving you is not the real issue" [4], and Perel's question of who is feeling what at the hands of whom [1]. If you keep fighting about the closet or the cat litter, ask what older story each of you might be reacting to [1].

6. Rewrite one old story from the other side. Try Gottlieb's exercise: take a key story from your past, or a recurring fight, and write it through the eyes of the other person involved, not to excuse harm but to widen your view and get unstuck [2].

7. Calm your body before you speak. Fisher's advice is to take a conversational breath, keep your shoulders down, and "let your breath be the first word that you say" [4]. If a fight is escalating, Perel's approach of a pause or ten minutes of silence to let your systems regulate can make curiosity possible again [1].

8. Ask whether you even need to agree. For small disputes, use Fisher's "Is this something we have to agree on?" and, if you do, whether you have to agree on it right now [4].

9. Choose friends who offer wise compassion. Notice when you're in what Mel Robbins calls "a raft with a bunch of friends" venting about your partner [3]. Gottlieb suggests looking for people who offer truth with kindness and gently challenge your story, rather than blind agreement [2].

10. Turn the lens on yourself, too. Answer Perel's question, "knowing yourself as well as you do what you think makes it hard to live with you" [1], and remember Gottlieb's point that even when someone hurt you, your response is your responsibility [2]. And keep the limit in view: good intent is where you start, not a reason to put up with mistreatment [3][4].

Sources

1. Esther Perel How To Find Build Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships · Huberman Lab
2. Overcome Shame, Process Pain & Maximize Mental Health with Lori Gottlieb · The School of Greatness
3. How To Create Better Relationships: 6 Surprising Lessons From 28 Years Of Marriage · The Mel Robbins Podcast
4. How to Handle Difficult People & Take Back Your Peace and Power · The Mel Robbins Podcast