Yet they can change the feel of a day. 

Most people know this from experience. A tense morning can soften when someone treats us with unexpected warmth. A crowded commute can feel less anonymous when another person makes space. A classroom, workplace, neighborhood, or family can become more humane through gestures that are almost too brief to record.

In a recent paper in the International Journal of Wellbeing, we use the term “microkindness” to describe these moments, though the word itself has appeared in earlier work. We define them as small gestures, motivated at least in part by genuine warm feelings toward others, that benefit someone else. These acts are brief, often lasting less than five seconds, and they involve little personal cost or risk to the person offering them.

That definition may sound modest. It is meant to be. Microkindness is not heroic sacrifice, sustained caregiving, or major generosity. It is the tiny act of human regard that passes from one person to another in ordinary life.

But the fact that microkindness is small does not mean it is trivial. Indeed, its smallness may be part of its importance. Because such acts are easy to perform, they are available almost everywhere. Because they are brief, they can occur many times a day. And because they are social, they may not stop with the first person who receives them.

The intriguing possibility is that microkindness may spread.

The flip side of microaggressions

The idea of microkindness partly arises as a counterpart to the better-known concept of microaggressions: brief, often everyday words or behaviors that communicate disrespect, exclusion, or contempt. One lesson from that literature is that small things can matter, especially when they accumulate. A single slight may be brushed aside. Repeated exposure can become a burden.

Microkindness invites a parallel question in the positive direction. If small acts can wound, can small acts also repair, include, affirm, or encourage?

This does not mean that a warm smile cancels out injustice, or that individual kindness is a substitute for structural change. The point is more precise: Daily social life is partly made out of small signals. Human beings constantly communicate whether others are welcome, noticed, respected, and safe. A microkindness is one way of sending a positive signal.

In a classroom, this might mean a teacher smiling warmly at a student. In a workplace, it might mean acknowledging someone’s contribution in passing. In public, it might mean a brief friendly exchange with a cashier or neighbor. These moments do not ask much of us. But they can alter the emotional tone of an interaction.

They may also shape what others do next.

Kindness as something that travels

When people think about epidemiology, they usually think about disease: how viruses spread, who is most at risk, and how outbreaks can be prevented. But the broader tools of epidemiology can also be applied to positive states and behaviors. This is sometimes called positive epidemiology: the study of the distribution, causes, and spread of positive health-related qualities, not only illness and risk.

In the case of microkindness, the question becomes: Where do these small acts occur? What makes them more likely? Who receives them? Who is left out? Under what conditions do they ripple outward?

This way of thinking matters because kindness is often treated as a private moral choice. It is that, but it may also be a social phenomenon. People act within environments. A family, school, workplace, online platform, religious community, or neighborhood can facilitate kindness—or make it less likely to occur. Some settings invite warmth; others reward suspicion, speed, competition, or emotional distance.

Research on social networks suggests that emotions and behaviors can cluster and spread among people. Happiness, cooperation, and prosocial behavior are not merely individual traits floating in isolation. They can be shaped by relationships and social norms. If kindness operates in a similar way, then the smallest acts of goodwill may contribute to a larger social climate.

That does not mean kindness spreads automatically. A smile may be returned, ignored, or misread. A friendly gesture may land differently across cultures, contexts, or relationships. What feels warm in one setting may feel intrusive in another. The study of microkindness needs to take these complexities seriously.

Still, the possibility is worth investigating: Some acts of kindness may not only benefit the person who receives them. They may increase the chance that kindness continues.

Why a smile may matter

Our paper focuses especially on smiling as an example of microkindness. This is not because every smile is kind. Some smiles are fake. Some may even express superiority or pleasure at another person’s discomfort. Context matters.

But a genuine, kind smile is one of the clearest examples of a microkindness. It is brief. It costs little. It can communicate warmth, safety, recognition, and goodwill. It can be offered to people we know well and to people we barely know at all.

Smiling is also interesting because it is visibly social. A person’s smile can elicit a smile in return. That returned smile can affect the next interaction. In this way, smiling offers a simple case for thinking about how microkindness might move through a room, a classroom, a gathering, or a community.

Imagine entering a meeting where no one looks up. The room feels closed. Now imagine entering the same meeting and being greeted by one person’s warm smile. The agenda has not changed. The organization has not changed. But the social meaning of the moment has shifted. There is now a signal: You are seen. You belong here.

Such signals may be especially important in environments where people are uncertain about whether they are welcome. A student entering a new school, a patient in a medical office, a new employee on a first day, or an older adult entering a community event may all be scanning for cues. A microkindness can serve as one of those cues.

This does not require exaggerating what a smile can do. It simply recognizes that human beings are relational creatures. Much of our well-being is shaped not only by major life events but by the texture of daily contact.

Microkindness and flourishing

The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard defines flourishing broadly as the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of life are good, including the contexts in which a person lives. Its framework often focuses on several domains: happiness and life satisfaction, physical and mental health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and financial and material stability.

Microkindness touches several of these at once.

It can support happiness, because warm social contact can lift the emotional tone of ordinary life. It can support mental health, not as a treatment in itself, but as one small part of a less hostile and more supportive social environment. It can support meaning, because offering kindness connects daily action to the good of another person. It can support character, because kindness is a habit of attending to others with goodwill. And it can support relationships, because relationships are built not only through major commitments but through repeated small gestures of care.

Microkindness is clearly not the whole of flourishing. But small acts are one part of the social world in which flourishing becomes more or less possible. They help create the atmosphere of a place. Over time, that atmosphere can influence what people expect from one another.

What this means in daily life

The practical implications of microkindness are intentionally modest, but not insignificant.

First, microkindness asks people to notice the many small opportunities for goodwill already built into the day. These are not elaborate interventions. They are brief acts of recognition: smiling, greeting, thanking, acknowledging, encouraging, or making space.

Second, it suggests that kindness may be especially powerful when it becomes part of a culture rather than an isolated act. A classroom in which students are greeted warmly, a workplace where people routinely acknowledge one another, or a community gathering where newcomers are welcomed may become an “epicenter” of microkindness. The goal is not forced cheerfulness. It is a shared norm of humane attention.

Third, it points to the role of institutions and media environments. If microkindness can spread, then the environments that shape attention matter. News and social media often amplify outrage, threat, and conflict. A healthier information environment might also make room for stories and signals of kindness, not as sentimental distraction, but as part of the social ecology that affects public life.

Finally, microkindness calls for humility. A gesture intended as kind is not always received that way. Cultural norms, power dynamics, prior experiences, and context all influence interpretation. Studying microkindness well will require attention not only to the person offering the act, but also to the person receiving it.

A small beginning toward a better world

The study of microkindness is still new. Our paper is an invitation to research, which asks whether the tools used to study the spread of disease might also help us understand the spread of kindness. It asks whether small gestures deserve more scientific attention. It asks whether societies concerned about polarization, loneliness, and distrust should pay closer attention to the brief moments in which people communicate goodwill.

That may seem like a small place to begin, but much of life happens in small places: in doorways, sidewalks, classrooms, checkout lines, waiting rooms, emails, meetings, and glances across a room.

A kinder society will require more than microkindness. It will require justice, patience, courage, forgiveness, strong institutions, and serious commitments to the common good. Still, the path toward such a society may be shaped, in part, by what people repeatedly communicate to one another in passing.

A smile. A greeting. A thank you. A moment of recognition.

Small acts may be bigger than we think.

Liudmyla Herasymenko, an associate professor at the Ukrainian State Flight Academy in Kropyvnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Ukraine, is one of the millions of educators carrying the invisible weight of supporting her students’ social and emotional well-being despite the turmoil that surrounds them every day.

“Because of the existing threat, which is hanging, you cannot plan your day in advance,” Herasymenko says. “You can have some plans, but everything can be changed in one second, and you need to adapt to be flexible about it. We have alerts, so that means we need to go to the shelter, then schedules of electricity, which means you need to find power and Wi-Fi. So, it’s a lot of stress that we are experiencing.”

Herasymenko is not alone—a rising number of children and educators are currently facing unprecedented disruption and stress due to living in conflict-affected areas. More than 473 million children live in or are fleeing settings of conflict and crisis around the world, and approximately 204 million people worldwide live in areas controlled or contested by armed groups.

Educators in these spaces are navigating burnout, secondary trauma, and constant uncertainty, while they simultaneously hold space for students’ fear, grief, and hope. In these conditions, the question is not whether teachers and students need support, but rather what kinds of support are actually feasible, sustainable, and relevant to them.

Small practices that make the day possible

Despite years of disruption, Ukrainian educators have found creative ways to help students stay connected and engaged. They adapt lesson plans around air raid alerts, maintain routines that foster belonging, and cultivate community across distance and displacement. Social-emotional learning (SEL) practices have become one more tool in that effort, helping educators strengthen the care and support they were already providing.

According to a recent journal article, SEL Kernels—short activities and strategies that are used to support the growth and development of social and emotional skills and competencies—helped support teachers and students in wartime Ukraine. These include games, routines, and activities that target specific skills like emotional regulation, conflict resolution, and building relationships.

When SEL practices are not adjusted to be responsive and relevant to a particular culture, they’re less likely to have benefits. These SEL Kernels, developed by Harvard University’s Ecological Approaches to Social Emotional Learning Laboratory, were modified to fit the evolving needs of educators and teachers in Ukraine. How? Rebecca Bailey and her colleagues started with landscape research to identify what challenges students and educators in Ukraine were actually facing.

“Building on these findings, we engaged in a collaborative co-design process with Ukrainian teachers and a team of LEGO Foundation Ukraine Master Trainers to adapt and refine the Kernels for local relevance and usability,” they write.

They conducted a survey and organized focus groups for teachers to discuss their concerns about student well-being and mental health. Teachers identified areas where additional support could strengthen the work they were already doing, including helping students regulate emotions during air raid alerts, rebuild social connections, and navigate prolonged uncertainty.

Based on the survey and focus group discussions, the researchers identified five priorities for the Ukraine Kernels materials, including cooperation, mindfulness, cognitive skills, emotional intelligence, and teacher well-being.

“Finally, we piloted the adapted Kernels materials in diverse classroom settings, gathering data on implementation, feasibility, and relevance,” they write.

After the final revision of materials and rollout of the Kernels, Bailey and her colleagues found that teachers viewed the SEL Kernels as beneficial for both their own and students’ well-being. Teachers reported that the activities helped support emotional and psychological health, made learning more engaging and meaningful for children, and provided practical tools that eased the demands of teaching.

For example, Herasymenko has found that short mindful moments help ground both her and her students. Having students name their rose, thorn, and bud for the day—having them reflect on something positive, naming a challenge, and looking ahead to something they’re excited for—have helped them hold on to hope.

Additionally, she leads a five senses grounding practice with students to reconnect the mind and body without taking up a large amount of time during the learning day. In high-stress environments, practices like these work because they are small enough to hold, even on hard days.

“I cannot imagine my teaching being the same as it was before the war,” Herasymenko says. “Everything is different now. So, I prioritize my students’ well-being more than their academic achievements. I think that now it’s more important for them to be OK and to be without stress in my classes. This is my priority now.”

The impact of Ukrainian conflict in neighboring countries

Data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre show that internal displacements—people who have been forced to flee or leave their homeland to avoid the effects of armed conflict, violence, or violations of human rights—increased from 20 million in 2024 to 32 million in 2025.

Schools in Poland have been significantly shaped by the conflict in Ukraine, and many educators are experiencing new emotional and practical challenges while supporting students. Małgorzata Lidacka, an educator in Kraków who works with displaced Ukrainian students ages seven to 10, has had to approach teaching in a much different way to help her students acclimate to the new environment—often slowing down and reminding herself not to rush to solutions while navigating both lesson plans and emotional responsibilities.

“When you’re a subject teacher, no one tells you that you will then have to be a coach, or some kind of therapist,” Lidacka says. “You can make a mistake and then it can influence these kids. So I feel this burden that it’s a lot for one person to combine those roles.”

The cultural barriers have also made it difficult for her to connect with parents, and some students have fallen behind because they refused to learn Polish when they first arrived, thinking that the stay in a new country would have been over much faster. The anger, fear, and hopelessness that her students are experiencing make it increasingly difficult to focus on academics, and Lidacka empathizes.

To support herself and her students while carrying this increased mental load, Lidacka turned to social-emotional learning strategies. She now routinely advocates for play to promote shared joy beyond language barriers and encourages small acts of kindness—like lending a pencil or a book to a classmate. Additionally, when working with parents, she began asking open-ended questions and practicing mindful listening, which she found made a huge difference in connecting and finding common ground.

“During the workshops with parents, I just listen,” Lidacka says. “And they are creating such great ideas about the future—for them and for their families.”

Despite the challenges Lidacka has faced with her students, she has also seen how remarkably adaptable they are. Many have learned to transition between online and in-person learning at a moment’s notice, they support classmates navigating similar disruptions, and most really dove headfirst into learning the new language and culture.

“The best part is small acts of kindness on a daily basis, and also a huge determination from Ukrainian kids to learn Polish,” Lidacka says. “They really wanted to learn very fast. And we have some pupils in the first grade that are fluent in Polish, even though their parents aren’t. So I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ Of course, it was a requirement, but not everyone succeeds.”

Supporting the supporters: Teacher well-being in real time

While searching for additional support and resources for her classroom and her own well-being, Lidacka found the Greater Good Educators Community of Practice (CoP). The CoP offered a space for educators across the globe to connect with one another and learn science-based practices focused on purpose, awe, self-compassion, gratitude, and kindness and compassion for others.

For educators like Lidacka, who had already experimented with small, bite-sized SEL practices, the Greater Good Educators CoP created a space to expand on what she already knew. The practices emphasized that teacher sustainability begins with teacher well-being, and the community conversations helped her see she was not alone.

“After these three years, I see among my peers that we are exhausted,” Lidacka says. “More and more often, we are searching for places to debrief or to just sit and talk about how difficult it still is to manage this.”

Alongside learning SEL practices like mindful listening and self-compassion, the educators who joined the CoP were encouraged to practice the shared community invitations of curiosity, compassion, and respect with each other. These invitations helped create a supportive environment where teachers could connect across experiences and process challenges together.

Herasymenko is one of the many educators Lidacka was able to virtually connect with, and she shared similar sentiments about the importance of having an outlet to support her own mental well-being.

“It’s great to have some kind of community of teachers during all these hardships,” Herasymenko says. “Before the war, I didn’t pay so much attention to my well-being, and now I understand that this is an important part of a teacher’s job. To think about taking breaks, to think about how to recharge yourself.”

Educators like Lidacka and Herasymenko are not waiting for ideal conditions to create caring learning environments. They have continued teaching, adapting, and building community through years of uncertainty. SEL initiatives are not a one-size-fits-all cure for the challenges they face, but they offer additional support for work they are already doing. By investing in educators’ well-being, we help sustain the people who make learning, connection, and hope possible—even in the most difficult circumstances.

Jean-Michel Robichaud, a psychologist at the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick, studies situations like this when adolescents feel hurt by their parents’ actions. While working as a therapist at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal during his Ph.D. studies, he saw families with damaged relationships—often because of a hurt that occurred when the teen was younger. This led him to be curious about how parent responses to an offense impact family relationships and teen well-being.

In this hypothetical scenario, Sophie—we’ll call her—feels compared to her older brother, who is high-achieving and a good kid, while she is thought of as the rebel in the family. Her parents are worried about her, so they give her less autonomy.

Robichaud wanted to offer his clinical patients research-based advice to help them where they felt stuck in moving forward in a conflict. His research addresses where apologies fit into parenting—whether they’re helpful, and what they should sound like. He wondered how to offer an apology that brings satisfactory resolution and well-being, but he didn’t find many studies on the topic when he began his work.

What apology research says

Previous research supports the idea that apologizing can facilitate forgiveness from those who have been hurt.

Karina Schumann, who was also in her Ph.D. program in the late 2010s, noticed that most work on forgiveness studied the victim’s perspective: “How do people perceive apologies? Does it contribute to forgiveness?” But she wondered about the transgressor’s side of things. “What does it mean to be a person who has harmed someone, and what then moves you toward engaging in a reparative action?”

To fill that gap, Schumann, now a University of Pittsburgh psychologist, began focusing on apologies. “What might influence our willingness to apologize? . . . How can we understand what motivates transgressors to apologize?”

Meanwhile, Robichaud saw that the scant research that existed addressed dynamics other than parenting—such as governmental or institutional apologies and romantic relationships. When he took his first faculty position at the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick in 2022, he became intent on researching apologies in parent and child relationships.

Schumann and Robichaud teamed up. “Right away the results were astonishing. . . . It seems to be something that is very important in parent-child relationships,” says Robichaud.

What prevents apologies?

Schumann wrote about three main barriers to apologizing based on insights from a review of recent research. The most common obstacle pertains to saving face. People protect their self-image. “It’s an icky, uncomfortable feeling for us to face our mistakes. We want to be good people, partners. All of that can make us feel really uncomfortable,” she says.

In the moment we realize our behavior was hurtful, we immediately think of all the reasons why we behaved the way we did. “I’m stressed, tired, or you haven’t done these things for me or supported me. We can create excuses around our behavior, even if we don’t verbalize it,” she says.

Adding to that, many conflicts are characterized by dual responsibility.

“We often feel like we’re not the only ones responsible. We find ourselves in a situation, ‘Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that,’ but we have such a strong inclination to want to feel good about ourselves.”

People feel that if they apologize first, it makes them more responsible for the conflict than the other person. “I worry you will think I’m 100% responsible,” explains Schumann. While conflicts are often thought of neatly as having a victim and a transgressor, sometimes both parties are responsible for misbehavior—even though the blame might not be evenly shared.

In another paper, coauthored with her graduate student Anna Vazeou-Nieuwenhuis, Schumann found that more self-compassionate people are less likely to withdraw in shame after they’ve done something wrong. Shame does not lead to forgiveness-seeking, according to a 2013 study led by Calvin University psychologist Blake Riek. When people perceive mistakes to be self-defining, they’re inclined to avoid admitting responsibility in order to protect their self-image, says Schumann. However, people who understand that they will make mistakes and don’t let mistakes define them are more likely to apologize.

Another reason people avoid apologies is that they struggle to empathize with the victim, she writes in the review. MacEwan University psychologist Andrew Howell that people with certain personality traits (like higher self-esteem and compassion) are more willing to apologize, while people with other traits, like narcissism, are less willing. In a series of experiments, Schumann found that people with higher empathy for a romantic partner or friend offered higher-quality apologies rather than defensive responses.

Schumann lists a third restraint: the perception that an apology won’t elicit forgiveness or compassion from the victim. A 2012 study found that transgressors stay attentive to any clues that a victim is willing to repair the relationship and tailor their responses accordingly. 

Different types of apologies

Robichaud refers to apologies as “psychological vitamins”—that’s how good for parents and children he believes them to be. “When you make a mistake, you just created an opportunity to teach several key values to your child and to nurture your relationship with your child,” he says.

However, successful apologies contain specific elements. “The way you phrase your apologies will also be key in reaching forgiveness and all the benefits that come with it . . . both for the one who apologizes and the one who receives,” he says.

Robichaud along with Schumann tested victim-centered apologies and defensive apologies among French-speaking teens in Canada. Victim-centered apologies included things like “I’m sorry,” “What I did was unfair,” “I hurt you,” or “I reacted too quickly.” They even might request forgiveness but without pressuring: “I hope you can forgive me, but I understand if you’re not ready.”

In contrast, defensive apologies fail to empathize with the hurt a teen might feel. They might explain the mistake, justify particular actions—“I did it for your own good”—blame the child, or minimize the hurt—“It was just a joke.” 

The studies tested apologies in a variety of ways, including participants answering questionnaires about their relationship with their parents, writing responses about a particular situation they could recall, and responding to a hypothetical scenario.

Robichaud found that parents who apologize to their children create an environment that cultivates forgiveness. “We have data consistently showing that the more parents do this, the higher the likelihood [adolescents] will forgive, but also the healthier the reasons they will forgive.” In other words, forgiveness is offered freely without the motivation of a controlling parent.

Beyond forgiveness, adolescents who receive parental apologies have higher well-being and act in kind and helpful ways, says Robichaud. When parents apologize, adolescents are more likely to disclose their own mistakes to their parents and less likely to lie.

Taking responsibility in your apology

Sometimes in Robichaud’s clinical work, parents offered apologies that included justifications for their behavior: “You were difficult,” “I was sick,” “Your father wasn’t there.” In the scope of things, he thought that “those seemed like very legitimate reasons, but the families weren’t doing better.”

In the example with Sophie, her parents felt accused of being neglectful and reacted highly defensively. “How can you even say that? We give you so many privileges. You have a TV, and your brother never had one.”

But that kind of response fails to address how the teen feels and instead focuses on the parents’ feelings. What it sounds like to the teen is: “What you are living is not real,” while the parents intended to communicate: “We love you equally.” Teens either react back or close up when parents act defensively, says Robichaud.

“What I noticed is that the families where the parents could find it in themselves to apologize and take accountability for what they had done . . . they were doing much better after months of therapy,” he says.

Later, let’s say the parents realized that their teen’s complaint had some truth in it: “Even though they valued treating their children equally, they failed to do it,” describes Robichaud. He explains how they could offer two apologies: one for their initial reaction and another for their unfairness, while opening a discussion about how to give Sophie the same opportunities that her brother had.

Parents who hope for positive outcomes should leave out any explanation for their behavior. “If you want to apologize, don’t defend yourself at the same time. That’s the equivalent of having done nothing,” says Robichaud. “They might be tempted to defend themselves, minimize the harm that was done, or blame the child—‘if you hadn’t acted so horribly for so long, maybe I wouldn’t have freaked out.’ That defensive language has been shown to have the opposite effect. It increases lying, reducing disclosure, reducing forgiveness.”

Parents can model what it looks like to take responsibility for your mistakes. “You give [teens] the experience of how good it feels to be validated after being hurt,” says Robichaud. “When parents apologize to their children, the more teens or children are inclined to apologize to their parents later. . . . They learn from that.”

What we know—and don’t

The research on apologies is less robust than the psychology of forgiveness, and Robichaud is still working through some remaining questions.

However, one apprehension Robichaud sought to address early on in his research is a popular concern about parent apologies. Some blogs and online advice from clinicians suggest that apologizing to children might undermine parental authority in some way. When parents apologize, it upsets the typical power dynamic: Parents must put themselves in a position of weakness. Some wondered if that shift creates an insecure environment and leads to a passive-aggressive pressure for the child to forgive their parents. Though appearing humble, apologizing may actually be controlling.

In a separate paper, Robichaud and Schuman tested for that in multiple ways but didn’t find any significant effect that apologies had on parental authority.

“When you apologize, you tap into the relational trust, bond, care, love, but you don’t tap into the hierarchy rules or respect,” says Robichaud. “It’s not about that. It’s about repairing the bond that has been broken, the relational damage, the trust that has been hindered by the mistake.”

Robichaud also wants to know: Could severe cases of abuse or chronic patterns of mistreatment diminish the benefits of apologies? “What happens when it’s a cycle or the parent repeats the same mistake over and over? Are words enough? Do they lose their power?” he asks. Additionally, while he started his research among teens, he’s interested in understanding parent apologies to younger children.

What Robichaud is sure of: All parents make mistakes. “The list of factors that can bring even the best of the best of parents to make a mistake goes into the hundreds. There are so many factors that have been identified as a risk factor that can impact the quality of parenting behaviors. There are too many factors at play for a parent to expect they can be perfect,” he says.

“Every parent has bad parenting moments,” says Robichaud, especially considering various cultural factors around parenting, common childhood struggles, and pressures outside the home, such as work-related stress. “They do have consequences, but that’s where parents have control. They will make mistakes—they can’t realty control that—but when they do, they can apologize. How parents respond to the mistake can determine whether the mistake will have a negative effect or a less negative effect.”

It was last May and the Knicks were facing the heavily favored Boston Celtics in the first game of their playoff series. The Knicks had fallen behind by 20 points early in the second half. By the end of the third quarter and into the fourth, though, the resilient Knicks started clawing their way back into the game.

That night, I was actually attending a Yankees game in the Bronx with some friends, but Amanda—who at 12 was aware of the Knicks since I was a big fan, but not particularly invested in the team—had started casually watching the game at her mother’s place. “You watching this game, bruh?” she texted me as the Knicks’ comeback gathered steam.

I began checking the scores on my phone and soon realized I had a strong enough cell signal to watch the actual game. Amanda and I began furiously texting with each successive play that narrowed the deficit: “Did you SEE that shot, Dad?” and “Holy crap, they just hit another three!!!” and “I can’t believe we might actually WIN this game!!” At one point when the Knicks had tied the score and the Celtics took a time out, Amanda called me, breathless, and we went over all the big plays, marveling at what we were witnessing. 

I eventually started ignoring the baseball game I was attending to focus on the Knicks contest, which ended with one of the Knicks making a huge steal from the Celtics biggest star to seal the win. Amanda and I could barely contain ourselves, ecstatic over the outcome.

Incredibly, two nights later, when Amanda and I watched the next game together, almost the exact same scenario occurred—the Knicks again fell into an early 20-point hole, before slowly scratching their way back into the game. And once again, that same Knicks player who made the clinching play in the first game did the SAME EXACT THING to claim victory at the end of the second game.

All the while, Amanda and I were losing our minds, high-fiving each other and jumping up and down with each new charge by the Knicks and missed shot by the hated Celtics. Our hometown team would eventually win the whole series, four games to two, in a massive upset. The Knicks continued to step up and deliver, and the Celtics’ biggest star unfortunately suffered a season-ending injury midway through the series.

Those games, and especially those wildly dramatic two victories at the start, were when I knew Amanda had gotten hooked on the Knicks, opening up a whole new exhilarating chapter in our relationship.

Building the relationship I wanted

My own father, who emigrated to the U.S. with my mother from Hong Kong in the 1960s, took me and my older brother to a handful of Yankees games back in the 1970s, with the idea of exposing us to this quintessentially American pastime. But he was a distant figure, raised in a different time and culture and, as I would later learn, scarred by his own unhappy childhood. He spent little time explaining the game or what was going on. So while attending those games—and the Yankees’ dominance in those formative years—helped engender a lifelong love of the team, I didn’t associate them at all with my father and our relationship.

At my daughter’s birth, I vowed things would be different, and not just with respect to sports.

From an early age, I made sure to encourage her and validate her feelings, and our similar personalities—perceptive and highly sensitive to others’ feelings, but also anxious at times and imaginatively inclined—connected us even further. As she grew up, we bonded over creative activities like cooking, especially baking, and making up our own lyrics to popular songs.

When Amanda was about six, her mother and I split up, with each of us taking 50-50 custody and alternating time with her every two to three days. This heightened my desire to maintain a close relationship with Amanda and make sure she felt seen and supported.

For a time, I took her with me to a basketball clinic for adults I attended every Sunday, after which we’d practice dribbling in the hallway. I still have a video of her successfully executing several crossover dribbles and then proudly proclaiming that “I’m probably the first kid that’s ever done that!” When I hesitated to agree with her, she emphatically qualified that she meant a kid “my age!”

But Amanda’s interest in playing eventually waned, and my dreams of coaching her into a future basketball star receded. I understood that such things couldn’t be forced, but I at least hoped to bond over watching basketball and rooting for the hometown Knicks.

As a self-conscious and sometimes timid child of immigrants, I recognized from an early age the power of sports fandom to connect with others. Cheering for the Knicks and Yankees established an instant bond that made me feel safer around new people, no matter their backgrounds. Not surprisingly, I later formed several close friendships in my 20s and 30s because of a shared love for the Yankees and Knicks and watching games together.

Indeed, social scientists have long known that when people experience emotions as a group, those feelings tend to be more intense and long-lasting. And few shared experiences can match the emotional ups and downs of cheering for a pro sports team, with joy and hope alternating with dread and heartbreak, sometimes within the space of seconds. Moreover, a significant amount of other research shows that fathers often connect with their children through stimulating, emotionally charged forms of play, and that these interactions can strengthen emotional regulation and trust.

I envisioned sharing wonderful moments with Amanda, cheering on the New York teams, but the Knicks performed woefully in her early years, having become a bit of a laughingstock as their management made one terrible draft pick and trade after another. At one point I resorted to taking her to a few Brooklyn Nets games, whose tickets were much more affordable, and whose team was much more talented at the time.

But the Knicks still had a stranglehold on most New Yorkers’ hearts, including mine, owing to their long and storied history, and that was made abundantly clear as the team finally started to become more competitive around the time of the pandemic. The previously meddling owner took a new hands-off approach, and a fresh front office deftly acquired several talented new players. I gradually began watching more games on television, with Amanda sometimes sitting beside me and getting to know some of the players, including those on the despised Celtics.

And then came that fateful playoff series against Boston last year.

In that second game we watched together, Amanda and I developed what became a signature routine. One of the Knicks, Karl Anthony Towns, nicknamed KAT owing to his initials, scored a particularly impressive basket, prompting me and Amanda to make cat-like clawing gestures with our hands. This led to us developing special gestures for the other players, too.

• After three-point baskets by the Knicks’ stoic leader, Jalen Brunson, we imitated his signature kissing of three fingers on each hand and raising those hands to the sky, adding a shout of his initials, “JB!”
• To fast-break baskets and hustle plays by Josh Hart, the team’s engine, we thumped a fist to our respective hearts.
• Swishes by the smooth-shooting small forward, Mikal Bridges, became a fluttering of one’s fingers over the other’s and a shout of “building Bridges!”

Coming up with one for the Knicks’ tall and athletic forward, OG Anunoby, proved a bit more challenging, but we found our solution while watching the TV broadcast for one of the home playoff games against the Celtics. After an emphatic dunk by Anunoby, the camera panned to the cheering crowd and eventually zoomed in on former Knicks great (and ex-New Jersey senator) Bill Bradley, who put his hands together in a large “O” shape above his head. Amanda and I instantly knew we had found our celebratory sign for OG.

Every time a new player joined the team, we came up with a new gesture, testing it out for effectiveness and ease of execution, and refining as needed. Rooting strongly for the same team allowed us to come up with our own language.

Lessons beyond basketball

Bonding with Amanda over the Knicks helped me see and appreciate some of her talents more clearly. I always knew she was a quick study, but her ability to grasp some of the nuances of basketball strategy surprised even me at times.

“If the other team keeps fouling Mitch Robinson”—referrring to the Knicks’ center, whose terrible free throw shooting sometimes prompted opponents to foul him intentionally—“why don’t the Knicks just take him out of the game?” Amanda once asked me. “Well, that’s exactly the calculation the Knicks have to make,” I explained to her. “Is it worth it to keep Mitch in for his incredible defense and rebounding, or do you sit him because of his offensive liabilities? The answer varies depending on the situation.” She quickly nodded in understanding.

Another time, she asked me why it was so much easier to get rebounds when a team was on defense, as opposed to offense, which I told her had to do with the positioning of players on the court. Knowing she was able to grasp these ideas made me realize I could explain some very high-level concepts to her and quickly level up her understanding of the game.

The next round of the playoffs, this time against the Indiana Pacers, who had eliminated the Knicks the previous year, presented yet another opportunity to ratchet up our shared fandom. Dave, a good friend of mine who had also successfully converted his young daughter into a Knicks fan, happened to mention that tickets for game 2 of the series that Friday night in New York were actually selling on the secondary market for a relatively reasonable price.

At the time, I didn’t have money burning a hole in my pocket, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that splurging could be worth it for the rare opportunity to see a pivotal playoff game in person with Amanda. I wasn’t sure, however, how my often introverted and anti-social daughter would feel about going to watch a raucous game with 20,000 insane sports fans. When I mentioned the possibility, she immediately said “sure!,” much to my delight.

Dave snagged four tickets at almost $700 each, the most by far I’d ever spent for a sporting event, but a good price for the circumstances and seat locations. I joked to Amanda that we’d be eating a lot of instant noodles for the next few weeks—something I’d learned from her mother that Chinese people often say following an extravagant purchase.

Arriving at Madison Square Garden, known to many as “the mecca of basketball,” the atmosphere was electric. Watching the game in person compared to on TV was like upgrading to 4K ultra high definition from standard definition, and being in the physical presence of so many other fans rooting ferociously for our team heightened the experience immeasurably, just as studies had suggested. 

As the two talented teams clashed, Amanda and I executed our special celebrations for each player with added intensity, sprinkling them in with high fives and fist bumps with Dave and his daughter—and some of our neighbors—at other big moments. It was close, but the Pacers made the big plays when it counted and won by five points. And while we were, of course, deflated by the final result, it had been exhilarating for both of us to be in the building to see our team live in action. 

The Knicks eventually wound up losing the series in heartbreaking fashion as the team’s fortitude and good fortune simply ran out. As Amanda and I watched the final seconds tick down, I tried to put things in perspective. I thought about the famous tagline from ABC Sports when I was growing up—“the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat”—and explained to her that in sports, as in life, you can’t have one without the other, to which she merely nodded her head dolefully.

Lessons like these were much of what I had always wished to receive from my own father, who unfortunately lacked the tools and experience to impart them to me. But seeing Amanda absorb and appreciate them has been incredibly healing in its own way, a confirmation that these lessons are important, and one that’s empowering to me as I’ve been able to actively create the kind of relationship I had always craved. My father passed away suddenly earlier this year, and a frequent feeling I’ve experienced as I’ve bonded with Amanda over the Knicks has been sadness—for both myself and my father—that he seldom got to experience this sense of connection and closeness with a child of his.

More than just a game

The Knicks’ offseason came with its own drama, as just a few days after the playoffs ended, the team fired its dyspeptic head coach, who had helped turn the franchise from a joke into a respectable and now even competitive team. Coming so soon after the team’s magical run, we were among many feeling shocked.

To follow that one in-person playoff game, I began to contemplate another splurge: partial season tickets for the upcoming season. One conversation with a fellow fan cemented the decision. Ed was a security guard about my age at a cafe in lower Manhattan where I often worked. After one particularly thrilling playoff victory, my Knicks t-shirt prompted a discussion between us about the game. It turned out he had gone to the game in person, having been a partial season ticket holder for several years.

On subsequent visits, I learned that Ed’s own father had fostered his fandom, taking him and his siblings to Knicks games as kids. Later, Ed and his wife continued the tradition with their kids, despite how expensive tickets had become over the years. 

I peppered him with questions about the various season ticket plans and rules, and one day, sensing I was close to pulling the trigger, he put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. “You’re going to be doing a wonderful thing, Nelson,” Ed told me. “Your daughter will never forget going to these games with you.” Given my own remote relationship with my father, I didn’t need much more convincing.

I took Amanda to about half a dozen regular season games, thrilling to the rhythms of the live contests—the solemn renditions of “The Star Spangled Banner,” the arena-induced prompts to shout “Let’s go, Knicks!” and “Dee-fense!,” the roll call of celebrities on the Jumbotron, and the exuberances—sometimes profane—of the fans around us.

In between those contests, Amanda and I watched most of the other regular season games on television together in a way we never had previously. We discussed the team’s performances and prospects obsessively, and soon began sending each other social media posts and news about the Knicks. Following the Knicks had truly become our shared enterprise.

The victory that mattered most

After an overall good, but quite uneven, regular season in which the team never fully jelled for any length of time, this year’s Knicks finally unlocked their formidable talents when they were fighting for survival early in the playoffs. At one point, they became virtually unbeatable, ripping off an incredible 13 straight wins, and this past weekend, they secured their first championship in 53 long years, an unlikely development that has united our oftentimes fractious city, draping it in an ocean of orange and blue.

As dramatic and exciting as this year’s championship run has been, however, the truth is that Amanda and I already won long ago. 

Through the Knicks, I’ve been able to show her how wins can be amplified and losses mitigated by sharing them with loved ones, and she’s witnessed how wonderful it can be to be a part of a group that’s bigger than herself. I’ve shared with her important life lessons about the value of consistent dedication to an ideal, and the importance of being present in the ecstatic moment. Above all, we’ve become closer than ever, and I’m confident that our abiding love for this team will build the foundation for her to come to me whenever she experiences challenges in the future.

One of the things I’ll cherish most about our shared fandom is the gift Amanda got me for Father’s Day last year, right after the team’s surprising run. It’s a hardbound collection of key stories about the Knicks that have been published in the Daily News dating back to 1947, a gift idea she’d seen advertised on Instagram. The cover of the book notes that it was “Presented to Nelson Wang” and the front page bears a personalized inscription from Amanda: “Hope you enjoy reading this as it’s as nerdy as you!”—a playful testament to our shared passion.

What sweeter victory could there be than this?

As a researcher who studies nonresident fathers, as we call fathers who don’t currently live with their minor children, I’ve seen firsthand the value of their engagement in children’s lives and the importance they place on their parental role. A few years ago, as part of a large federally funded project with nonresident fathers enrolled in fatherhood programs, I learned about the struggles these men experienced in trying to stay connected or reconnect with their children—and to be the fathers they wanted to be.

One dad, covered in tattoos from head to toe, wanted to reconnect with his children, but didn’t know how or where to start. When he learned that his eight-year-old daughter was being bullied and didn’t want to go to school, something ignited in him. He vowed to take her to school and pick her up every day. He wanted other kids to see that she had a father who loved and protected her, so no one would “mess with her.” He was still not able to pay all the child support that he owed, but he could “be there” for his child.

Fathers don’t live with their children for a variety of reasons: parental separation, incarceration, and lost custody. Yet research finds that engaged, nonresident dads play a vital role in the emotional and psychological development of their kids, and that they are connected in ways that may be invisible to even their families and other adults who play a supportive role in the world of the child. While Black and Hispanic dads are more likely to be nonresident, they are also more likely to see their children than nonresident white dads. The more that everyone can recognize the importance of non-resident dads and the role that they play, the more their engagement can be supported, for the benefit of the child.

Who are nonresident fathers?

Nonresident fathers are more likely to be young, be Black or Hispanic, lack a college education, and be unable to meet child support obligations on top of their basic living expenses, research finds.

Out of 76.7 million U.S. parents in 2021, more than 9.7 million did not live with their children, 75% of whom were fathers, according to the Congressional Research Service. The majority (81%) of nonresident fathers are men of color, and the majority (72%) have at most a high school diploma or GED. Just over two-thirds are younger than 34 years old. That is, most nonresident fathers are economically disadvantaged.

One simulation using modern child support guidelines found that most nonresident fathers would be unable to meet their taxes and basic expenses for food, clothing, housing, and transportation if they paid their formal child support obligations in full. Despite these difficult circumstances, Black and Hispanic nonresident fathers are more likely to see their children than white nonresident fathers, suggesting that residency may not be a requirement for paternal involvement for ethnic minority men. However, the limited human capital of most nonresident fathers, and the fact that they may be supporting several children from different households, make it challenging for these men to invest money and time equally for all their children.

What leads to more engaged fathers?

The fact that nonresident fathers do not live with their children poses obvious obstacles for staying engaged in their lives. Frequent and meaningful contact with children gives fathers the opportunity to engage as teachers, advisors, playmates, and disciplinarians. Nonresident fathers often pack as much activity as possible into the limited time available during visits.

In our own research, we have found large variability in both the quantity and quality of father engagement among nonresident fathers. Nonresident fathers’ engagement in their children’s lives depends on multiple factors that often don’t align: intentionality of birth, prenatal involvement, race and ethnicity, the quality of parental relationships, whether mothers repartner, and payment of child support.

Whether the child was planned strongly relates to fathers’ engagement with their children. Fathers’ desire to father a child influences their commitment to care for and stay involved in the baby’s life. Intentionality, however, is not the only factor that matters. The quality of the couple relationship can be key. A study of Mexican American infants and their parents revealed that mothers’ desire to have a baby, rather than fathers’ desire, was related to greater father engagement (e.g., caregiving). However, when couples disagreed about wanting the baby, fathers were more involved when they were also happy with their partners.

There is also some evidence that fathers are more likely to leave their families when they are less involved during the pregnancy period, referred to as prenatal involvement. The prenatal period is an important context for men as it is the time when they begin to think of themselves as fathers and make plans for their future child. We conducted a study and found that low-income fathers who were engaged in prenatal activities (e.g., attended prenatal classes, saw a sonogram of the growing fetus) were more likely to be involved in their child’s life at age five because they had moved into a stronger relationship with their partners, such as moving from cohabiting to married. 

Research on frequency of contact indicates that certain demographic and psychological characteristics either facilitate or hinder contact, including ethnicity or race. A study with a nationally representative sample of babies and their parents found that Black toddlers generally have more frequent contact with their nonresident fathers than white children.

In cases where everyone is on the same page, finding opportunities to spend time with children can be relatively easy. In other situations, contentious relationships among noncustodial parents and others make it difficult. Nonresident fathers who remain in romantic relationships with the mothers of their children are more likely to be involved than other nonresident fathers. Having a positive relationship with the child’s mother—romantic or not—is an important predictor of how much time nonresident fathers are allowed to be engaged with their children.

Positive relationships often underlie some form of economic support. The ability to pay child support is an important source of conflict between parents that can diminish father–child contact. Fathers with child support arrears are less likely than those without arrears to have contact with their children or to be otherwise involved in their children’s lives. Of course, causality can be the other way around. Poorer-quality relationships with mothers explain much of the association between high arrears and lower father–child contact, and both poorer relationships and poorer paternal mental health account for much of the association between high arrears and low levels of informal support provided by nonresident fathers.

Lastly, mothers’ repartnering is a strong indicator of involvement. Recent studies focusing primarily on never-married nonresident fathers show that children are less likely to have contact with their nonresident fathers when their mothers have repartnered. However, the role that repartnering plays appears to be conditioned by fathers’ ethnicity. Latino mothers report very few changes in family structure (repartnering) compared to Black mothers.

Nonresident fathers’ involvement helps children’s development

Fathers who do not live with their children have driven much of the public policy on families because their children are more likely to live in poverty. The policy focus is on their financial contribution. However, nonresident fathers’ love and emotional support of their children is just as important as their economic support. In some states, nonresident fathers have visitation rights, but these depend on multiple factors, so it’s not always granted. In general, we define visitation and engagement as what fathers and children do when they have contact, and responsibility as the degree to which fathers take responsibility for meeting children’s basic needs.

Although research on how nonresident fathers matter to their children’s well-being is comparatively limited relative to the research on resident fathers, it has provided strong rationale and empirical evidence that all fathers, including nonresident, play a significant and long-lasting role in their children’s development. One central point: It is entirely possible to be engaged and deeply involved with children who do not live with you. Physical residence is not a necessary condition for engagement. Examining how much time, the quality of the time spent with children, and the myriad ways to be engaged helps researchers understand how fathers make a difference in their children’s lives.

Spending time with children in fun activities, such as social play, doing errands, and shopping, helps fathers get to know children and develop a genuine connection with them. These activities support children’s cognitive development, as well as their social skills, executive function, and self-regulation. Exposing children to manageable stress—such as climbing a tall ladder or joining a new group of kids to play—promotes trust and gets children out of their comfort zone. Fathers are key in showing compassion, conflict resolution skills, and positive ways to deal with disappointment.

Studies involving observations of nonresident father–child interactions offer the most compelling evidence that the way nonresident fathers interact with their children promotes children’s well-being, in the quality, not just the frequency, of contact. In a study using families enrolled in Head Start, children whose fathers showed high levels of participation through activities such as reading demonstrated greater increases in mathematics readiness than children in the control group.

There is some empirical evidence that showing love and affection to children connects to better outcomes. In a study of Early Head Start children, Sheila Anderson and her colleagues found that the quality of observed father–child interactions (especially fathers’ encouragement and teaching behaviors) was positively associated with children’s later language skills. Fathers’ affection, responsiveness, encouragement, and teaching during father–infant interactions were positively connected with children’s behavioral skills later. Each fathering behavior during infancy was positively associated with emotional regulation among four year old children. Finally, teaching during father interactions with three year old children was associated with stronger emotional regulation among four-year-old children.

An important dimension of fathering is that fathers, more than mothers, encourage their children to take risks during play, especially during rough-and-tumble play. The extent of this type of play has been measured by the degree to which father behavior, child behavior, and their dyadic interactions display warmth, control, sensitivity, winning and losing, physical engagement, and playfulness. One study selected 25 Early Head Start father–child dyads, both resident and nonresident, that frequently engaged in rough-and-tumble play and examined associations between the quality of interactions at two and three years and later child outcomes. It is notable that neither measure was significantly correlated with demographic characteristics, such as father’s education and residence, and, after controlling for the mother’s supportiveness and intrusiveness, both measures showed small (negative) correlations with prekindergarten aggression.

Showing warmth, affection, and joy are important ways to bond with children and make them feel cared for and loved. I’m reminded of a young white father who said that he had no problem hugging and kissing his daughter, but he expressed less physical warmth with his son. He thought his interactions with his son were warm, by saying, “Hey bud, how’s it going? Give me five!” It never occurred to him that his son also wanted to be hugged and kissed until the leader of a focus group pointed out that all children—boys and girls—need to feel loved and protected. He said when he next greeted his son with a hug and a kiss on his head, the little boy cried inconsolably and hugged him tightly. This was a powerful moment for him, when he realized that he did not have a memory of his own dad showing affection to him.

In summary, the evidence we have on how nonresident fathers show up for their children reframes the perception of these men from “deficient fathers” to “constrained but motivated caregivers.” Most barriers to nonresident father involvement are not about lack of care or love for their children—they’re about access, relationships, resources, and recognition.

The evidence challenges the stereotype of the “absent” nonresident father and instead points to a more complicated reality: Many fathers remain committed to their children but face relational, structural, and economic barriers to staying engaged. Supporting their participation requires coordinated efforts across the multiple systems surrounding the child.

• Mothers and co-parents can facilitate consistent, low-conflict communication and recognize caregiving beyond financial support.
• Schools and educators can intentionally include nonresident fathers in outreach and everyday learning opportunities.
• Health care providers can engage fathers early, particularly during the prenatal period when parental identities take shape.
• At a structural level, policies that align child support obligations with fathers’ actual economic circumstances, expand access to employment and reentry programs, and protect visitation rights can reduce the tradeoffs that often push fathers out of their children’s lives.

Together, these efforts shift the focus from judging fathers’ circumstances to supporting their capacity to remain present in their children’s lives in meaningful ways. This positive and sustained engagement is beneficial for fathers but especially for children, who just want their dads to love and care for them—even if they do not live with them.

I woke up two hours later to my baby crying again. This time, he was kicking his feet as if trying to get them through his footie pajamas. I narrowed my eyebrows, got scissors, and carefully cut them off. And like magic, Zade fell back into a peaceful sleep. Today, Zade is 34 years old.

Our middle child, Dury, is now 30. When he was five, we took him and his brother to Walt Disney World. Refusing to walk when tired, I carried him for hours each day. He was a plump little guy, and I came back with my arms feeling detached from my body.

And my little “Nutmeg,” Demi, now 26, loved this bedtime ritual: I would draw gentle circles on her forehead with my thumb, and she would say while fading to sleep, “How does that work?”

What those stories have in common is how my brain was reshaped after becoming a father.

According to a 2022 article in Scientific American, fatherhood triggers significant structural and functional “rewiring” in the male brain, similar to mothers, to support caregiving and attachment. New fathers show changes in gray matter in regions controlling motivation, empathy, and emotion regulation, especially when they are actively involved in child care.

• With Zade crying all night because his feet felt trapped, my motivation heightened to solve the problem and cut off his pajama footies.
• With Dury refusing to walk when he was tired at Walt Disney World, my elevated empathy made carrying his 40-pound body manageable.
• With Demi fading to sleep as I gently rubbed her forehead, my emotional regulation helped me establish a loving bedtime ritual.

I have always wondered about this overwhelming love I have for my children.

From elementary to high school, they would come home with friends, and I would grab them by the cheeks and cover them with kisses for what seemed like eternity.

Their friends would look wide-eyed and ask, “What’s your dad doing?”

And my children would nonchalantly say while waiting for it to end, “He’ll be done in a minute.”

According to another 2022 study in Developmental Psychobiology, the arrival of my children increased levels of oxytocin in my brain, the “love hormone,” suggesting a neuroendocrine change associated with becoming a parent.

In humans, oxytocin is a hormone associated with social bonding and attachment. It doesn’t cause love, but its increase across the transition to fatherhood aligns with research showing changes in neural and hormonal systems that support bonding, caregiving, and emotional attunement.

Becoming a father to my three brilliant and beautiful children has taught me the true meaning of unconditional love—a love unlike anything else, rooted in that place reserved for sacred, sacrificial things. A love so vivid it resembles a river with fierce rapids, its waters brushing the banks, the trees casting dancing shadows in the breeze.

Am I a better human being since I became a father? I believe I am. My three young people matter to me more than life itself. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for them, and the beautiful thing is that they know it and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Becoming a father does not turn me, or any man, into a perfect emotional navigator overnight. But it does explain why late-night lullabies and repeated soothing feel less like chores and more like instinct—our brains learning and adapting quietly.

To me at least, here is what that brain rewiring looks like. (Important to note here that while I mainly list the positive aspects of my becoming a father, I had my difficulties like everyone else.)

Empathy. Empathy and patience were never among my virtues, but I had to learn them when I became a father. The many sleepless nights are a good example. My three kids are four years apart, which means 12 continuous years without decent sleep. It was worth it. Science helps explain this change. Involved fathers experience a drop in testosterone, which is associated with shifts in caregiving patience and sensitivity. These hormonal changes align with broader shifts in brain systems involved in deeply caring about the state and feelings of others.

Tradition. When I was little, I used to hide from my strict mother in my father’s Abbaye (Middle Eastern camel-hair house robe). My children hid in mine when they were young. Another ritual was our pretend books, made-up stories while holding my palm up as the book. And every time I woke them up, I would ask them, “Did you go to the moon?” Most of the time, they would say no. But sometimes they would grin and say, “Yeah.” I trust they will pass similarly sweet traditions on to their own kids. There is a biological component here. Research finds that fatherhood changes levels of hormones such as testosterone and oxytocin and reshapes brain networks related to functions including empathy and emotion regulation, laying the conditions for bonding and the formation of comforting rituals.

Emotional intelligence. Research often finds that, on average, women show higher attunement to emotional cues, shaped by both biology and social experience. This sensitivity can make the emotional landscape of relationships easier to interpret, especially in moments of tension or change. Fatherhood helps here. Becoming a father nudges a man’s brain toward real-time emotional calculation. Studies of new dads show changes in brain regions associated with perceiving another person’s emotional state and responding appropriately. This doesn’t make us experts, but it boosts our capacity to tune in instead of tuning out.

Kindness. Fatherhood has taught me how to be firm without ever letting go of love. When my children broke a rule, reasonable discipline was part of the job, but I learned early to keep it kind. As they got older, it became less about correction and more about conversation, heart-to-heart, eyes locked, no distractions. Over time, I came to understand something science supports: Fatherhood is associated with changes in brain regions involved in attention and caregiving. Research suggests that these shifts, especially in fathers who are more engaged in hands-on care, may help them better attune to their infants’ cues. The result is a greater ability to balance structure with connection in responding to children.

Friendship. As my kids grew older, something shifted between us. We became not only father and children, but something closer and more reciprocal. I wasn’t the most popular father by any means, but many of my kids’ friends seemed to gravitate toward our home. They would linger there, talk, and laugh; over time it turned into a kind of open-door life where we enjoyed spending time together, even through the teenage years. Life feels at its sweetest when your teenage children start asking you deep questions, not out of obligation, but out of needing guidance. And that has continued as they became adults. Scientifically, these relational changes reflect how human bonds evolve over time. We are not built solely for fixed, limited roles, but for enduring attachments that shift as life stages change. Research on parent–adult child relationships suggests that as children mature, bonds often become more reciprocal, marked by greater emotional mutuality.

Perspective. When teenagers, they will do things that make you pause in disbelief, like getting a tattoo from a friend who did it with an electric toothbrush. Or staying out far past curfew and ending up in the emergency room after a night that went too far. Those happened to me. Eventually, my children became productive and stable adults, and somewhere along the way, I learned to lighten up. I once wore those shoes, too. What science now suggests is that caregiving is associated with changes in brain systems involved in social responsiveness. These shifts, shaped by experience and hands-on involvement, can increase a father’s sensitivity to social and emotional cues over time. In that sense, the brain shaped through fatherhood learns to notice both the subtle signals and the broader emotional landscape in which they occur.

And now, the one that matters the most . . .

Love. Show love. Communicate love. Offer love. In the unconditional and abundant offering of loving care, something quietly accumulates. The Center on the Developing Child’s “serve and return” framework describes how responsive back-and-forth interactions between father and child help build the developing brain. Each moment of attunement and each response to a child’s signal strengthens neural systems involved in emotional regulation, attention, and connection.

For fathers, this is not a one-way process. These repeated acts of caregiving also shape the caregiver. Over time, consistent engagement with a child’s emotional world is associated with changes in the brain systems involved in emotional attunement, social cognition, and emotion regulation. The father learns to read cues more finely, respond more steadily, and remain present.

When love flows with no limits, then practiced repeatedly, it becomes embedded in the neural patterns through which both child and father learn attachment itself.

It lingers, this attachment, in the small, ordinary moments long after they stop needing you in the same way. In the silence between conversations. In the way they still look back when they leave the room. In the quiet knowledge that what you built together does not disappear; it settles into a new form, and fatherhood reveals itself as the gift it was always meant to be. And if you are lucky, you realize it was never just something you were teaching them. It was something they were teaching you, too.

When you look closely at the life experience and biology braided together, you begin to see a quiet truth: Fatherhood is not only lived in moments; it is etched into the architecture of love.

Happy Father’s Day, and don’t forget to take the footies off their pajamas so they can fly, even if it means watching them leave the ground without you.

Even so, most Americans marry eventually; 87% of women have wed by age 54. In For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage, historian Stephanie Coontz outlines the truths and fictions when it comes to the institution, and how the myths are polluting our ideas of what marriage should be.

Marriage today has new rules, argues Coontz, director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families. She shows how nostalgia for the past relates more closely to economic anxiety than anything else—and how our outdated views fail to serve us. I spoke to Coontz about the state of marriage and what it really takes to make a successful union today.

Here is our interview, condensed and edited for clarity.

Hope Reese: What is the real purpose of marriage now? Why are people getting married?

Stephanie Coontz: We are still trying to figure that out, because you don’t have to get married, and you can have a very good relationship without marriage. Women don’t need it the way they used to. Increasingly, men are prepared to do the cooking and home life and stuff that they used to marry a woman to get done for them. So what do we want from marriage? We’re getting a lot of different messages.

One message is that it should be the most important relationship in your life. You should get most of your satisfaction from it. Another is that marriage is a way of supporting each other, and bringing our separate social networks and connections to bear. In a sense, we are doing what marriage developed to be in band-level societies—creating more relatives and more social connections.

HR: Which relationships are replacing marriage?

SC: Living together doesn’t replace marriage. Very few people who cohabit think of it as an alternative to marriage. For many people, cohabitation is a prelude to marriage or a fallback after a marriage fails. We need to think about diversifying rather than replacing.

The majority of people still want to marry, but they only want to marry under circumstances that mean that they can do marriage a little differently and be more confident in it than they have been able to for the past several decades.

HR: Marriage has been transforming for a while. How can history help couples today?

SC: We have new values, but we also have problems putting them into place. A lot of things going on in the economy now really make family life more fragile, more tense, and more difficult.

It’s not new experiments with gender and sex and different living arrangements that are the problem. There are historical origins. For instance: I spent most of my career telling people they should not be nostalgic for 1950s families. A tremendous pain and sense of loss and discouragement drives this nostalgia. But the pain won’t be solved by getting rid of new gender norms and new marriage norms.

A historical perspective can help people who support those new norms not to demonize the people who don’t—to understand where they’re coming from.

HR: Where are they coming from? What are some of these myths we’ve internalized?

SC: You hear all the time—from progressives, as well as people who oppose the changes—that “men are like this” and “women are just like this.” That women pay more attention to emotions. That men either have to adjust to our caring, or we have to adjust to their inconsideration.

But this isn’t the way it has to be. Men have been doing emotional work in many societies through the ages. They’re quite capable of it. But for at least a century and a half, they’ve been told that it makes them unattractive to women if they do it. And it makes them a target for other men. We women have only had the reputation of being altruistic for about 150, 200 years. Before that we were thought to be more ambitious and more selfish and more self-centered than men are.

HR: I found it interesting that one of the myths is that men cannot express themselves emotionally, when, in fact, they were doing that earlier.

SC: There are tons of letters from the Revolutionary era—men exchanging these letters, crying, complaining the way women are thought to complain. We also have letters that historian Richard Godbeer and others have looked at where men will write like “I’m not hearing from you enough,” and “Don’t you care about me anymore?”

Through a whole lot of history, it was not women’s job to massage men’s egos and take care of the home. Patriarchy was brutal on women, but there was no expectation that men were not emotional, not capable of keeping track of obligations. There was no expectation that women would massage all men’s egos, even their husband’s egos.

They were partners in what was a business, whether it was a small farm or a great big political alliance. Women were considered just as shrewd and ruthless and business-like as men, not particularly that much more emotional.

HR: Really? When were women considered more selfish and ambitious?

SC: Early Christians talked about women’s selfishness, and many societies across the world have talked about women being the ones you can’t really trust, that they’re going to put their own individual and their kids’ interests first. We shouldn’t be glorifying these aspects of our personality and thinking that somehow the men need to catch up with us. We have to be patient with ourselves and our partners and those around us, because these myths have been drilled into our heads.

These are ideas that, ironically, developed with our transition to democracy. As we began to think that all men are created equal, we weren’t quite willing to let women do that. We began to develop these more benevolent excuses for the male dominance.

As men went into the labor force and women had to stay and do things around the home, there began to be this romanticization of women’s domestic expertise. A lot of women began to develop their whole ego and pride around that domestic expertise. It’s a lot to shake off.

HR: You write about the latest period of marriage starting in the ‘70s. What was happening then?

SC: By the 1950s and ‘60s, people were discontented with the idea that marriage should be something where the woman was the homemaker and the man got all of his identity from being the breadwinner. As it changed, even though some women wanted to go to work and some men wanted to have more egalitarian relationships, earworms from the past were present.

Up through the ‘70s, if a woman earned more money, had more education than her husband, that was a divorce risk. If a woman did less than half the housework, which is now kind of our goal, that was a risk that her marriage would dissolve.

Sexually, men and women were turned off if they had too many egalitarian roles. That showed that all of the ways that we had learned to make marriage work had been internalized in our psyches, that even our sexual ideas were reflecting it.

For complex historical reasons, men decided that they had to be the teachers. They had to be the ones who were stronger. They earned, they were the ones who gave the money. They learned to confuse showing off with showing love.

One of the good points of the changes that have been wrought by feminism and by increasing acceptance of some of the principles of gender equality is that men are beginning to not define themselves purely in terms of knowing more and earning more than their partner.

It’s no longer a divorce risk when a woman outearns her husband, or has more education. And men and women sharing child-rearing are the most sexually satisfied in their lives.

HR: What are the most important insights for couples who want a successful marriage today?

SC: Marriage does not save anyone, economically or psychologically. The most important predictor of whether you’re going to have a successful marriage is if you can organize a successful, satisfying personal life, where you have friends; you keep commitments to friends; they keep commitments to you. And you’re basically happy with what you’re doing. If you find somebody who is also happy, and with whom you enjoy doing things, you’re going to get better.

Another false belief is “cocooning.” The best way to build the kind of rich, supportive relationships we want is to go out and get outside input that you can bring back. Mounting research shows that when couples engage in such egalitarian relationships, their love grows over time instead of the tensions beginning to rise.

HR: What are the practical barriers to marriage today? How can couples make it work?

SC: Because we have much higher standards of marriage than in the past, it takes more negotiation, more time, more attention to one’s own work and expectations of support for that work and attention to your partner’s work and ideas. Marriage is much more personally involved than marriages of the past were, or had to be.

You need patience, you need time—and you need work schedules that allow you to take the time. So a lot of the barriers are in the economy. The increased work pressures that we face and the economic precarity that we face undermines those kinds of skills. Financial insecurity is a bigger predictor of negative communication in marriage than having divorced parents or what happened to you in your childhood, because it pulls your attention away from the things you need to keep going.

HR: Marriages from the ‘50s didn’t have the personal satisfaction prerequisite, but the economics were easier, right?

SC: People look back to the 1950s with nostalgia. You certainly should not feel nostalgia for any of the marriages of that period. But that was a period when real wages were rising, when every economic expansion up to the early ‘70s gave 90% of its benefits to the bottom 90% of the population. The rich were not getting richer.

All of those economic and social changes that we think of as separate from our personal lives have really big ramifications now that we are trying to build personal lives that really involve this kind of patience, gratitude, love, and reaching out. A study of families and marriages during the big financial crisis and housing crisis found that domestic violence reports from the most educated, secure women soared up to the levels of their less educated and less secure peers.

HR: How can you explain the nostalgia for an earlier period? What do you make of the trad wife movement?

SC: Well, I used to be pretty contemptuous of it. But I’ve gotten softer in my old age and after seeing what’s been happening over the past 30 years or so. I’ve come to believe that this nostalgia is kind of “referred pain.”

Our brain has trouble figuring out where pain originates. It often gives us the wrong messages. It will tell us that our neck hurts, when in fact we ate too much and the stomach is pressing on the diaphragm. Physicians call it referred pain. You think it’s in one location, but treating it there is not going to work at all.

That is a delightful analogy for what’s happening with so many of the pains that people feel, and the nostalgia they feel for 1950s families. It occurs at a deeper place in the body politic and in the economy. It occurs in these changes in the economy and in the increasing development of a K-shaped economy where the rich are getting richer and the poor and the middle class are getting poorer. With these things, it’s easy to say, “what went wrong?” and to think “maybe it’s because we don’t have those families that we used to be able to watch on TV and look at how well they organized their lives and how happy they seemed.”

HR: What does it take to build the kind of mutualistic relationship that people want today?

SC: Historical perspective and sociological perspective could be one of the best therapeutic tools that there is. We often treat our male partner as an unskilled assistant, telling him what to do. It’s called gatekeeping. I’ve talked about gatekeeping in my research all my life, but my husband still catches me doing it sometimes. He finds it easier to accept this behavior, which is quite insulting, when I explain to him what an ingrained habit it is, and that I know it’s a bad habit and am trying to shake it.

Historical perspective on where these things come from won’t solve everything, but can create a space in which you can discuss them without having to decide “is this a symptom of some deeper problem in this individual or in our relationship?” It creates space in which you can depersonalize it and say, “But what needs to change?” And let’s stop saying, “Why are you doing this, you bad person?” or “you inconsiderate person?”

You are doing this because it’s been ingrained in you that you should do this.

HR: Basically, things don’t need to be as they are today.

SC: That’s the point of all historical and anthropological research. Once you examine the variety of ways that people have experienced and expressed emotions, and related to each other, it gives you a bigger sense of how much of a straitjacket we’ve been put in. Especially by the stereotypes that we inherit, that we’re dealing with now—the manosphere and ideas about toxic masculinity and all of these things—things that make it seem much more permanent and much less changeable than it actually is.

This is what’s known as “anticipatory grief”—a reaction to loss that hasn’t yet occurred. While it’s fairly common to experience it for a loved one facing a terminal illness, you can also experience it in other potential loss situations, like retiring from a fulfilling career, a child going away to college, or divorce. It often involves a liminal state of being, like what I experienced, that can wreak havoc with your well-being and interfere with your ability to be present.

While similar to after-loss grief, anticipatory grief has its own issues and trajectories that can make it hard to manage, says Alan Wolfelt, director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition and an expert on the topic. While you may lean toward ignoring or pushing away these complex emotions, denying your grief and suffering silently will probably not help you or your loved ones cope better.

“Too often, people are trying to be happy at times when they should be sad, and that inhibits their ability to fully integrate a life transition into their world,” says Wolfelt. “We can better cope with realities we face by acknowledging them.”

Anticipatory grief, like after-loss grief, can be painful. But by understanding what it’s like and giving yourself permission to explore its many facets, you might be able to mitigate some of the pain and move through it with more intention.

Similar and different from regular grief

Like grief after a loss, anticipated grief can involve strong and varied emotions. You may feel happy, sad, angry, confused, worried, relieved, guilty, and more, and the feelings may arise at seemingly random moments, sometimes overwhelming you. Your feelings can be hard to explain even to yourself, let alone others.

For example, imagine your teenage son is applying to colleges. Suddenly, you’re hit with the reality that he’ll be leaving home soon and your life will change dramatically. You may feel sad anticipating losing your son’s everyday presence, look forward to a new, freer chapter in your life, or both. You may feel pride and joy for his bright future, but fear losing your close relationship and your role as his parent.

These myriad emotions can be disorienting—but it’s important to honor them, however they show up, says Wolfelt.

“The more open acknowledgement you can have of what your genuine, authentic emotions are, the better,” he says.

While grieving a death may seem natural and expected, anticipatory grief may come with some resistance, like telling yourself (or other people telling you) there’s no reason to feel what you’re feeling. However, according to Wolfelt, denying your pain only adds to it, negatively affecting your everyday well-being. A better way to handle anticipatory grief is to own it and process it through mourning.

“Grief is the internal response, the thoughts and feelings inside,” he says. “In contrast, mourning is the shared social response or grief gone public; it’s taking your grief and putting it into action. That creates change or movement.”

The importance of mourning

There are known, socially acceptable ways to mourn someone who’s died, like funerals, sitting Shiva, Dia de los Muertos, and other rituals. While there may be fewer structured ways to manage anticipatory grief, we can help ourselves through the experience by understanding the importance of mourning in processing grief.

“Mourning helps you integrate loss and be transformed by your grief,” says Wolfelt. “You get stuck if you grieve but don’t mourn.”

The very nature of anticipatory grief (or any grief) is that it can feel different from one moment to the next, and from one person to another. That means our mourning needs may change over time. No one needs to follow a specific pattern, says Wolfelt, but we all need to pay attention and take our grief seriously.

This may be easier or harder, depending on several factors. How close you were to a person, your cultural or spiritual beliefs, and differences in your personality and gender can all influence how you mourn and how effective you are at managing grief versus staying stuck in it.

“If you have low social support, a history of anxiety, a history of a [strongly] dependent relationship with the person (for example, you haven’t expanded your social support system beyond the person who’s dying); those are risk factors that research clearly shows can make it more challenging for you,” he says.

A healthier way to mourn

While no one needs to mourn in the same way, Wolfelt suggests in his guidebook on the topic that people try to meet six specific needs to get through the experience:

1. Acknowledge that you are grieving and the reality of your loss. You may feel it’s too hard to acknowledge the impending loss, but denial doesn’t help. Instead, acknowledging all emotions is a better path toward well-being, even in the midst of grief. Facing your reality more squarely can help you figure out what you need.

“Thinking of yourself in this way will help you be both self-compassionate and honest about how challenging your current circumstances are,” he writes.

2. Embrace all of your emotions, pleasant and unpleasant. Anticipatory grief is marked by changing, intense emotions. Naming them can help to tame them, making them less overwhelming. You can also try reframing the meaning of your feelings to make them less problematic, such as recognizing grief as a facet of loving someone deeply.

If you’re feeling emotionally overwhelmed by grief, Wolfelt recommends dosing it—meaning, letting yourself fully experience your emotions, but limiting how long you do that. When not focusing on your grief, it’s fine to distract yourself, evade thoughts, or do whatever you want to keep your grief from being so dominant, he adds.

“There’s a balance to be had between doing the work of anticipating loss and in balancing that with the ability to stay present in the here and now,” he says.

This may be especially important when taking care of someone you will be losing, as caregiving often requires a more outward than inward focus. Having a way to care for your emotional needs outside of that role can be helpful.

3. Explore memories of the love or attachment you’re losing. This may seem like a step to avoid, but Wolfelt says it’s important for managing anticipatory grief. Reviewing past memories allows you to create a narrative around what is happening, something humans need to help make sense of their lives and feel congruency. Research suggests that allowing ourselves to feel nostalgia for the past has many benefits, including putting us in touch with our authentic selves and what matters in life.

“The more time and attention you devote to exploring memories and sharing and discussing them with others, the more your sense of peace will grow,” writes Wolfelt.

4. Develop a new self-identity. Often our relationships are part of our identity—we are a partner, a mother, a daughter, or a colleague. Our impending loss may make us question who we are in the world. It’s important to recognize that and address it.

For example, if you’re losing your wife of many years, through divorce or death, your friendships may be affected and your social circle may shrink; once-shared activities may no longer appeal or be possible. While you may grieve this transition and the changes it brings, it also opens up possibilities to embrace new roles in life.

“Change is often both a loss and an opportunity, even if it’s an opportunity you would never willingly have chosen,” writes Wolfelt.

5. Search for meaning in the experience. When facing loss, many of us begin to question the meaning of our lives. “It’s important to focus on meaning and purpose, both in the attachment that is ending and in your continued living,” writes Wolfelt. This might take you into spiritual territory, stimulating questions about why you exist, what it all means, and how you can go on.

Seeking meaning from your experience can help one cope in the present with difficult future losses as well as later on, after the loss has occurred. To help explore that, Wolfelt suggests reading inspiring texts, meditating or praying, talking with spiritual advisors, journaling, or spending more time in nature. Whatever puts you closer to your own sense of meaning will help you find peace, and more reasons to get up in the morning if you are feeling dragged down.

6. Reach out to others for support. As mourning is an outward experience of inner pain, finding other people who can listen as you grapple with your emotions, memories, and questions about life’s meaning can be soothing and helpful.

“You might feel undeserving of attention because the ultimate loss hasn’t really happened yet. But I’m here to tell you that your current grief is completely real, valid, and necessary. And there are others who will understand,” he writes.

Look for someone who can listen empathically without trying to guide you (or bully you) into feeling better, he says. No one experiencing anticipatory grief should ever be pushed into something that doesn’t feel right or given pat phrases that discount their pain.

“Cliches can be very painful to somebody who’s experiencing grief—trite comments like, ‘You’re holding up so well, time heals all wounds, think of what you still have to be thankful for,’” he says. “While well intended, they’re often misinformed and are a projection from the outside in.”

Choosing whom exactly to share with can be tricky. But you can look to family and close friends, support groups experiencing the same types of anticipated loss, spiritual advisors, or professional counselors, writes Wolfelt.

“Find people that can walk into the metaphorical wilderness of grief and honor that you’re in a liminal space, without feeling the need to pull you to the left or right or to pull you out,” he says. “Those are the genuine, compassionate people that we need in our lives.”

If approaching someone with your grief feels too daunting, you can still help yourself by just being around people more generally. We all need social connection for our health and happiness, and having a fun night out with friends, small interactions with neighbors, or a coffee at the local café can make you feel less alone, even if you don’t explicitly talk to anyone about your grief.

Dealing well with grief is a life skill

We will all face loss at some point in our lives—but we’ll only anticipate grief when the loss involves someone we love. Love and grief go hand in hand, says Wolfelt, making it central to a life well-lived.

“The capacity to give and receive love means we will likely mourn someday,” he says. But living in a “mourning-avoidant, emotion-phobic” culture, he adds, we don’t always have the right tools handy for guiding ourselves or others through it.

To be better prepared, it’s wise for us all to cultivate the skills that will serve us well in times of grief and loss. Having greater emotional intelligence, mindful attention, meaning and purpose, social connection, and hope can all help, says Wolfelt. Fortunately, these can all be deliberately practiced long before a loss comes along, helping us lead healthier, happier lives overall.

“These are central needs. The more you can befriend those needs, the more you integrate loss into your life,” he says.

For example, more people of all ages are meeting on “the apps”—and, not unrelatedly, more of them are complaining about the exhaustion of modern dating. Perhaps as a result for some, many say they are happily single and have no interest in finding a romantic partner.

There’s another change we’ve seen over the past few decades that has been less noticed—many of the people still interested in dating and long-term relationships aren’t in their 20s and 30s (who are often seeking to marry and maybe have children), but rather are middle-aged and older. There are more later-in-life singles than ever before, thanks in part to the rise of “gray divorce”—people in their 50s and older who are divorcing faster than any other age group.

Perhaps in response, we’re starting to see reality-TV shows about this group like Later Daters, The Golden Bachelor, and The Golden Bachelorette. In popular culture, we’re seeing high-profile people in their 50s and older partnering up, including author Anne Lamott, who married for the first time at age 65, and model and pro-aging activist Paulina Porizkova, who recently got engaged at age 61.

In fact, a cultural shift seems to be taking place—the idea that there is no expiration date for the desire for love and sex, or at least romantic companionship. Even so, there are some challenges to finding love later in life, especially for women, who tend to live longer than men and outnumber their male counterparts as they age. Just knowing in advance about these challenges can help you to navigate them—but the bottom line might be that the path to dating happily in later life is to let go of the hopes and expectations you held at a younger age.

Gender and sexuality

The first challenge that may come to mind is a common (and not completely inaccurate) belief that most men prefer youthful beauty. It can be harder for a woman in her 60s and older to find an age-appropriate male romantic partner—often referred to as “silver foxes”—as many tend to skew younger, often 10 years or more, when partnering again. That tendency may no longer be restricted to men, as we see the rise of “the cougar”—older women seeking younger men—which seems to be experiencing a moment.


Older gay men, too, often experience ageism in a dominant gay culture that also elevates youth, fitness, and beauty, which makes partnering a challenge. There’s even some evidence of age gaps in lesbian relationships.

But the desire for youth and beauty isn’t the overwhelming reason why many later in life adults aren’t romantically partnered. Actually, there are many reasons, all of which deserve greater scrutiny—and honesty.

Perhaps surprisingly, they tend to touch upon things like family and gender roles.

A big barrier is caregiving. In social scientist Lauren E. Harris’ 2023 study of how family caregiving responsibilities among single men and women aged 60 to 83 affects their desirability to someone of the opposite sex, an unexpected pattern emerged.

The men often found women in their age group to be less desirable if they were heavily involved in caregiving their adult children or grandchildren or both. The women, however, found men in their age group who were close with their families to be more desirable, perceiving their carework “as a sign of good character and family orientation.”

While the men stated they wanted to be a romantic partner’s top priority, most of the women didn’t demand the same. They did, however, have one major concern—taking care of the men, especially if the women already had caregiving responsibilities.

“Older single women were quite aware of the ways men may require their time, attention, and care,” Harris writes. “Though they were looking for romantic relationships and companions, women prioritized performing less carework over a relationship that required carework like raising a man’s children or nursing him through decline.”

Family matters

There are other family issues that pop up for those dating later in life.

Understandably, having minor children in the house might impact a parent’s re-partnering decisions. But it doesn’t necessarily change when the kids reach adulthood. Although a young child might not have much control over whom their parent dates, lives with, or marries, adult children and stepchildren have much more power in the decision and often aren’t afraid to exert it.

When author Eve Pell married a widower when she was 71 and he was 81, his adult children were resistant at first. She didn’t expect that. But in interviews with later-in-life couples for her book, Love, Again: The Wisdom of Unexpected Romance, many had similar experiences.

Some shared that their adult children liked their family “as is,” with their divorced or widowed parent or parents remaining single. Some adult children didn’t want to let go of their childhood memories. Others feared that a new romantic partner would take time or inheritance or both away from them and their children.

Adult stepchildren can be as disgruntled as younger stepchildren, writes Wednesday Martin in Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do.  “As the kids get older, issues like estate planning and inheritance can come into play, adding an extra layer of anxiety and resentment.”

In fact, the desire to pass on wealth to their children is why many older single parents won’t marry a new romantic partner, research suggests.

Some adult children who no longer live with their parents react poorly to a new partner and may limit the number of times they visit their parents, not allow their children to visit their grandparents, especially if the new couple moves in together, or refuse to forge any type of bond with the new partner, as a study of middle-aged divorced and widowed people in the Netherlands finds. Some even severed their relationship with the parent altogether.

This is why, the study notes, some single parents choose to be in a live-apart-together (LAT) relationship with a new partner, although not always happily. But even that didn’t always guarantee things went well.

As one 78-year-old woman in a long-term LAT relationship told the researchers, her daughters wouldn’t visit her if her new partner was over, and she was not invited to his granddaughter’s wedding.

While they wanted to enjoy their new love, their adult children’s negative reactions made them feel sad and stressed.

“Children of all ages feel betrayed and abandoned when their parents divorce because their cozy nest is disrupted. This even upsets kids who are already out of the nest,” says psychiatrist Dr. Carole D. Lieberman. “The message their parents are sending is that it is more important for them to have a life of their choosing than to remain in their prior, primary role of mom or dad.”

Not all adult children and stepchildren create complications for their parents, however. In a 2025 study, family sociologist Cassandra Cotton found that two-thirds of the adults (aged 55 to 92) she interviewed shared that their children, grandchildren, or siblings were generally supportive of their search for a new partner. Some even set up a dating profile for them or helped them navigate online dating.

Still, that means about a third of those surveyed experienced some pushback by family, which may prevent them from re-partnering even if they want to. And they tended to see their prospective partner’s family—not their own—as being potentially problematic.

Facing the stress of dating

Beyond family concerns, there are other barriers to a new relationship later in life—they’re stressful, at least at first, according to a 2025 study.

Exploring how later daters manage conflict in newer dating relationships, the researchers found that many struggle to find a way to merge their daily lives and get their routines in sync. Without the history of shared positive experiences and trust that long-married couples typically have, later daters were quicker to have negative feelings about a new partner and often saw small annoyances—ones that might easily be ignored by long-term couples as a way to keep the peace—as threats to the relationship’s future.

While both men and women suffered physically in the early throes of a new relationships when there was tension, women also suffered emotionally, reenforcing what previous studies have found: Women tend to carry a heavier emotional burden in a heterosexual relationship and often are more sensitive about handling conflict.

Still, the study found that while later daters’ well-being may suffer in the beginning, it could be beneficial in the long term as it might prompt them to leave an unhealthy relationship or one in which they have different dating goals—marriage, cohabitation, LAT, something casual, or a committed monogamous relationship—quickly.

Different dating goals is another barrier to later-in-life partnering. Single men in their 60s and older often want and expect to cohabit with or marry their female romantic partner but many women did not, stating that they were unwilling to give in to the “structural commitments” of cohabitating relationships such as cooking, cleaning, and caregiving. While those women said they dated for companionship, they indicated they were willing to be lonely before sacrificing their independence. That often led to the end of otherwise satisfying romantic relationships.

Some struggle more than others

While some of the complications to dating later in life seem to be universal, there are some that are unique to people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ+) people, adults with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and other marginalized people.

Some lesbians often feel a need to go back in the closet as they age for fear of discrimination, making finding new potential partners a challenge, North Carolina State University professor Paige Averett tells me.

Growing up at a time when society was less accepting and more stigmatizing about being LGBTQ+ than today could influence boomer lesbians’ self-image and thoughts about forming romantic relationships, she shares. Some LGBTQ+ people who came out in mid- or later life, often after having been in heterosexual relationships, feel that they’re inexperienced in dating. It can be hard to put oneself out there and so they often don’t.

For African American women, who are the least likely to marry, dating later in life can be challenging, sociologist Cheryl Y. Judice discovered while doing research for her book, Interracial Relationships Between Black Women and White Men.

There just aren’t that many available single Black men to date, she notes, and they have longer life expectancies compared to Black men. Older Black people are twice as likely as their white peers to live below the poverty line, which has an impact on dating possibilities. In addition, health factors in: Black women have higher rates of disability than white women and both Black and white men, which also can create challenges to finding a romantic partner.

So, too, can socio-cultural issues. For older divorced or widowed Mexican-American women, who make up a substantial portion of the older Latinos in the United States, seeking a new partner could possibly lead to vergüenza (sexual shame) or culpa (guilt) in a culture where a woman expressing her sexuality in later years or outside of a church-sanctified marriage is frowned upon.

Finding a romantic partner can be challenging for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) of any age due to barriers such as caregiver control, often removing the ability for them to make decisions on their own; limited social opportunities; a lack of privacy;  and the potential loss or reduction of essential federal programs such as Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid if they wed or even if they live with a romantic partner.

Because more people with IDD are living longer than ever before, the population of those aged 60 years and older is growing and projected to reach 1.2 million by 2030. Many will have lived much of their adult life without a romantic partner.

Letting go of old scripts

Ultimately, researchers find that later-in-life dating and partnering, while often desired, can be complicated.

“There are many unanswered questions regarding the role of gender, age, and family in the dating process that deserve to be addressed,” Harris writes. “At present, practitioners need to be aware of the hurdles, as well as the stigma, that single older adults face in seeking a romantic partner.”

That said, older singles don’t have a romantic script to follow as many of us do when we’re younger, often without realizing that we are. We all know that script: meet, fall in love, move in together, maybe put a ring on it, and pop out a few kids. Once you’ve hit your 50s and beyond, many have been there, done that. It’s perhaps the first time in life when we can create our own script without societal pressure.

That’s why many embrace the LAT lifestyle. Others seek casual relationships to satisfy their needs—or even embrace polyamory, the practice of cultivating multiple, simultaneous romantic partnerships. As one 84-year-old woman in an ethical non-monogamous relationship shares in the 2023 anthology Gray Love: Stories About Dating and New Relationships After 60:

No longer are there many plans for the future or discussions around raising a family. No longer do I feel the need to live with someone or be in an exclusive relationship. … the need for companionship, intellectual connection, warmth, holding, and sex are all still present and central to what I call “old love.”

In other words, our desire for love, intimacy, companionship, and connection doesn’t go away just because we’re older, but it can take on new forms if our expectations of what a romantic relationship “looks like” become more expansive. If you’re looking for love in your later years, perhaps the most important takeaway is to be open to the various ways you may find it.

The Repair Award: Chilli from Bluey (Australian Broadcasting Corporation / Disney+)

When I was a child, I kept a notebook where I would imagine the things I might do to be the perfect parent. Later, when I became a parent, I read books about baby brains and the developing child, attachment styles, gentle parenting, self-parenting, you name it. I was never going to yell at my kids, “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”

And then I did. Sadly, nothing prepared me for the fate that befalls us all: being an imperfect parent. And that’s what makes my favorite TV mom an animated dog named Chilli on the kids’ TV show Bluey. 

Chilli is kind, patient, calm—and also weary, stressed, and fallible.

There is an episode called “Sticky Gecko” that is so accurately stressful that I can’t bear to watch it more than once. Chilli navigates a situation you may be familiar with: trying to get anywhere on time with young children. She and her kids find themselves caught in a terrifying time loop by the front door—finding their shoe, brushing teeth, spitting out gum, finding a hat, playing a quick game, finding shoes… Is this forever?

Chilli eventually steps on a spiky toy, slams the front door, and angrily tells the kids they’re not going anywhere. Bluey approaches and begins to ask questions: Why do we have to go now? Why do we have to be on time? Why, why, why? Sitting down in a chair, Chilli addresses her questions one by one, with honesty and humility, until Bluey opens up, too, and together they learn why they can’t get out the door. And then they do.

Chilli validates feelings, plays with her kids, and holds firm boundaries. She also messes up and embodies the art of repair, giving us all an example to follow. — Lauren Lee

The Helping-Kids-Find-Themselves Award: Violet Bridgerton of Bridgerton (Netflix)

Amidst their lavishly stylized, corseted, culturally diversified 19th century Regency London milieu, the widowed Dowager Viscountess Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) does the seemingly impossible: single parenting eight children spanning 10 to 30 years old.

Based on the novels by Julia Quinn, Bridgerton follows the fortunes of Violet’s offspring as they navigate high-society London in search of suitable matches. Sure, she doesn’t do the clotted cream or the laundry—Lady Bridgerton has servants for all that—but she actively sees, honors, and very genuinely nurtures her perfectly dressed brood as they gossip, promenade, dance, horse-back ride, lean back on garden swings, read in uncomfortable chairs, and more.

When she’s not wrangling manners with a well-directed stink-eye or smoothing local township drama, Violet is asking her children to discover what truly matters to them and whether the person they are trying to love really brings out their inner passion, fuels their purpose, or makes them feel belonging, contentment, or fulfillment. As she tells one daughter, “You must simply marry the man who feels like your dearest friend.”

Stewarding self-discovery while offering clear, heartfelt, and trustworthy insight, Violet makes the viewer forget to be skeptical about the absurdity of excessive privilege. Perhaps in a future season, Violet will expand the circle of her mother’s love to encompass a wider expanse of humanity? Stay tuned! — Emiliana Simon-Thomas

The Persistence Award: Deborah on Hacks (HBO)

My favorite joke from Hacks is a work of perfect comedic patience. In the first episode, we meet comedian and actor Deborah Vance’s adult daughter, DJ—but we have to wait until the end of episode seven to find out what DJ’s initials stand for: Deborah Junior.

By the time the punchline drops, it’s been firmly established; Deborah Vance is too self-obsessed to be a good mom. Indeed, beyond making her daughter into an extension of herself, she’s always letting DJ down. Deborah Senior seems far more interested in bestowing her limited supply of maternal attention upon her writing-partner-turned-BFF, Ava. Mentoring an employee is more appealing than mothering, and there’s certainly more in it for Deborah.

Of course, DJ’s no angel, either. She’s petulant. She sells unflattering photos of her mom to TMZ.

But Deborah and DJ won’t give up. They fight for a real relationship. They’re willing to have hard conversations. They’re willing to get hurt. To fail. Do you know how hard it is to keep doing a thing you’re bad at doing? In every other facet of life, Deborah kills. It can’t be easy to keep bombing as a parent.

As the series goes on, this persistence brings growth—incremental, but realistic. At the end of the third episode of the third season, DJ has just performed a blisteringly funny stand-up set at her mom’s roast. She tells Deborah, “I finally get it—why comedy was always the most important thing to you. You know, I spent my whole life thinking you were a narcissist, but turns out, you’re actually an addict. Like me. You’re addicted to getting laughs. . . . I feel so much better.”

It’s an insight that comes from empathy, self-compassion, and wisdom that only DJ could muster. Deborah isn’t magically transformed by it, but she manages to listen and offer a heartfelt apology for her most recent transgressions.

The truth is, sometimes parents and kids have to grow up together. Thanks, Hacks, for making that reality so funny and moving. — Kelly Rafferty

The Wise-Witness Award: Sarah on Heartstopper

The great Olivia Coleman plays the mom of teenage jock Nick Nelson (Kit Conner), one of Heartstopper’s two main characters.

Hearstopper began as a wildly popular graphic novel by Alice Oseman, and was inventively and perfectly adapted for the screen by her, as well (she wrote every single episode of the three seasons available now on Netflix). It tells the story of Nick’s slow but deep plunge into first true love with Charlie Spring (Joel Locke), an openly gay, brave, gentle figure at their British boys’ school. The two are surrounded by a cast of brilliant and fun adolescent misfits who form a strong subculture of their own amidst the wider social world of toxic masculinity and fakery.

Nick’s single mom, Sarah, has this way of wisely watching what happens without being overbearing. She seems to sense her son’s evolving identity underneath the hustle and bustle of adolescent life—rushing out the door in the morning while wolfing down his cereal, running across the rugby field, going out to parties—and waits for him to come to her with the necessary disclosures. Somehow you don’t get the sense that she’s checked out, or passive, but instead a steady, unconditionally loving witness.

Her tool is titration of her presence and her questions—never too much, never too little. When Nick finally does come out to her, she’s loving and curious, still following his lead into new social unknowns, dynamics that she probably felt unprepared for (with an older son who was not only straight, but possessed some of the stereotypical male certainty and anger of their absent father). And when Nick and Charlie’s relationship grows more complex due to Charlie’s mental health struggles, she is still there, faithful and trusting witness, leaning in, but never weighing him down with her own fears.

The series will finish with a feature-length finale scheduled to appear on July 17, 2026. — Courtney Martin

The Doing-Her-Best Award: Margo on Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Apple TV)

Unlike almost all the other mamas discussed in this article, Margo Millet (Elle Fanning) is no one’s maternal ideal.

She’s a 20-year-old community-college student who gets knocked up by her married-with-kids literature professor. The show’s title sums up its premise: After the baby is born, Margo does indeed develop some quite serious money troubles. Through the first season, we see how she starts to address them through paid sexual performance on the platform OnlyFans.

While that might sound lewd and sensationalistic, that’s really not the tone of this gentle, psychologically insightful show—which is about, yes, money, but also about the ways money shapes familial relationships.

The most interesting thing about it is how the story draws direct parallels between Margo on OnlyFans and her father Jinx’s work as a professional WWE wrestler. After he finds out about the OnlyFans, Jinx (Nick Offerman) is angry. Later, he says to her: “I was so wrong to judge you before. I’m sorry. I was feeling protective of you. But what you’re doing? We’re all just putting on a show. Entertaining.”

Jinx has made his money with his body, and now so is his daughter—and he invites the audience to consider how little difference there is between their lines of work. I don’t believe the point of the show is to hold up Margo or her own mother as ideal, or to show Jinx as a perfect father (he’s a drug addict who abandoned them both when Margo was a toddler). Rather, it’s to compassionately portray people we might be inclined to judge as real humans struggling to do their best with what they have—as so many moms have had to do. — Jeremy Adam Smith

Dueling Motherhood Archetypes Award: Samantha and Terry in Paradise (Hulu)


Paradise is a dystopian drama that centers around a community of more than 20,000 people that feels not quite right, somehow. The power behind the throne in the town of Paradise is Samantha Redmon (Julianne Nicholson), who goes by codename Sinatra—and she seems to be hiding something, as well. 


Sinatra is a self-made tech billionaire who holds a deep-seated grief after losing her son at a young age to cancer—a loss that casts a sadness over her throughout the show. Perhaps guided by her motherly instincts toward her surviving daughter or maybe the desire to protect her investments, Sinatra makes a series of ruthless decisions to keep the community secure and functioning, ranging from murder to kidnapping.

Her counterpart is Terry Collins (Enuka Okuma), wife to the show’s intense and observant hero, Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown). A Ph.D.-level mycologist, she’s a thoughtful co-parent to her two kids and a devoted partner to her husband. But she also values her work and prioritizes it along with her family duties; so much so that it was a work trip that pulled her away from her family the day before a global disaster.

Separated from her family for all of season one, Terry must fight to stay alive in hopes of seeing them again. One way she does this is by gaining strength from her motherly instincts by unofficially adopting an orphaned child she crosses paths with, Bean. She cares for Bean like he’s her own and brings him with her to reunite with her family.

Sinatra and Terry show that there are many faces of motherhood, each bringing its own set of joys, pains, and tradeoffs. — Shanna B. Tiayon

The Mama-Bear Award: Dana Evans on The Pitt (HBO)

The emergency department in HBO’s The Pitt is not a place for the faint of heart—and presiding over all the blood and chaos is one of TV’s most understated yet memorable mother figures: the charge nurse, Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa).

Dana is not, of course, the literal mother of any of the doctors, nurses, techs, and paramedics in The Pitt, but in every scene she vibrates with fierce mama-bear energy. That goes even for interactions with the man ostensibly in charge of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, attending physician Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle). At one point, he actually says to her, “You’re not my mother!” Dana, who never gives an inch, fires right back: “Yeah? Well, too bad. You need one.”

What makes Dana the mama bear of The Pitt? It shows up in the way she juggles a million tasks, protects her nurses against physical and professional threats while nurturing their growth, and makes sure everyone takes their medicine, no matter how bitter it is. Dana shines most in the second season of The Pitt, when she takes recent nursing grad Emma Nolan (Laëtitia Hollard) under her wing. In the course of a single shift, Dana subdues a patient who attacks Emma, guides her through caring for an unhoused “frequent flyer,” and instructs her on tasks that range from preparing a body for viewing to collecting evidence for a rape kit.

Throughout the day, no matter how bad things get, Dana is unfailingly compassionate and tough. It’s sometimes thrilling to watch, and sometimes hard—and that’s what makes Dana one of the most compelling characters in a very compelling show. — Jeremy Adam Smith

Career-Oriented Motherhood Award: Jax in Reasonable Doubt (Hulu)

Jax Steward (Emayatzy Corinealdi) is a formidable Los Angeles power attorney who makes no apologies about prioritizing her career and being excellent at what she does. She’s married to Lewis (McKinley Freeman), a computer game coder, and they have two kids, a pre-teen daughter and teenage son. She’s also the primary earner in the couple. Jax is the only female and Black partner at her law firm, a position she works hard to protect, despite inter-office biases against her. Her prowess comes through sharp commentary, quick retorts, and uncanny ability to turn cases in her favor.

Her career ambition caused a brief separation from Lewis, who wanted her to prioritize the family more over her career, which introduced a new level of complexity to their marriage (including infidelity on both sides). While Jax was deeply affected by the separation, she maintained a stable home for her children, invested in her close female friendships, and took care of herself—all while continuing to navigate office politics and win cases.

When Lewis and Jax reconciled, it was under the condition that she would not be asked to dim her professional ambitions again. Subsequent seasons depict the couple continuing to navigate marital changes, but together and with an appreciation for what each brings to the table, even if it’s not in the traditional sense. — Shanna B. Tiayon

The Large-in-Absence Award: Tia in Shrinking (Apple TV)

Will viewers care about a character they only see in brief flashbacks?

That’s the challenge Shrinking takes on with Tia (Lillian Bowden), a mother who is killed by a drunk driver before the show even starts. Her story is told through her absence, and we see the richness of her life and relationships through the huge hole her loss creates. Over time, we come to understand that the show’s mix of joy, pain, humor, and growth reflect Tia’s personality. 

We see her husband Jimmy (Jason Segel) come completely unglued without her, and then slowly accept his new reality. He finally starts to find his footing by connecting with people who knew Tia and who can join him both in grief and forward motion.

Their daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) copes with her mom’s death as best she can, but as she tries to move on with her life and have typical teen experiences (dating, dress shopping, learning to drive, etc.), we feel the ache of the moments where her mother might have been there for her. 

Over time, the show reveals that Jimmy and Tia did not always have an easy relationship. In an early episode, several friends shower him with praise for his marriage, emphasizing what a great couple he and Tia were. These words land uncomfortably, and flashback scenes show they actually had a lot of arguments and conflict. Despite this, Tia’s best friend Gaby (Jessica Williams) reassures Jimmy that Tia continued to adore him, even when they were clashing.

Although we only learn about Tia in her absence, we come to care deeply about her as the show rolls out and we see the way her love (and her imperfections) affected those around her. — Christopher Pepper

Emotional Intelligence Award: Faith Mitchell in Will Trent (ABC)

Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) exemplifies emotional intelligence in motherhood.

Like a skilled hand at the wheel, Faith is steady, attentive, and responsive to the shifts of life rather than reactive to the fear, most of the time. And when she is not, she is compassionate with herself.

Faith is a single mom. While single motherhood is often framed as exceptional and dysfunctional, roughly one in five U.S. children are raised primarily by their mothers. Among the working middle class, this rises to closer to one in three children. Faith gives narrative form to this common reality, portraying single motherhood not as instability or lack, but as a site of competence, steadiness, and emotional security.

Her life is also shaped by a complicated relationship with her own mother. As the show progresses, we navigate this complexity with her in a way that illustrates deep, meaningful bonds with the women around her. These bonds situate her within a lineage of Black motherhood that honors both strength and vulnerability.

In one scene, she’s angry with her son because he lied. However, it’s through stories like this one that we come to understand that her child is not simply loved, but seen, heard, and guided with consistency. This is an experience of attachment that feels secure precisely because it is practiced.

This emotional intelligence carries over to her job and with her extended family. We also see when she fails and comes to understand that emotional intelligence is not a destination, but a journey that we take with daily intentional practice.

Faith is a refreshing depiction of motherhood that is not idealized and yet is somehow still ideal, something we should imperfectly strive to be. She is not a caricature of the “strong Black mother,” but an authentic embodiment of one. — Tyralynn Frazier

So, why do we still crave these committed, romantic relationships when they can be so fragile? And how can we make them work better and remain satisfying over time?

To find out, I spoke with evolutionary biologist Justin Garcia, director of the Kinsey Institute and author of the new book The Intimate Animal. In his book, he explains some of the biological forces acting upon our most intimate relationships and how that affects everything from modern dating to marriage to polyamory, and more. Below is an edited version of our conversation.

Jill Suttie: In your book, you make a case that intimacy is a biological drive, akin to other biological drives, like hunger or sex. But most of us don’t think of it that way. Why do you?

Justin Garcia: By training, I’m an evolutionary biologist and anthropologist, and I think a lot about the role of evolution and selection in shaping who we are. That means thinking about the reality of our being a social primate.

We know we have a desire to engage in sexual activity for reproduction; it’s important for existing into the next generation. And so much of human social life, reproductive life, and sexual activity is couched in terms of long-term bonds. If we think about sexual desire as one lever that selection is acting on for survival and reproduction, then we also have to recognize that long-term bonds—within which a majority of sexual activity occurs for most humans around the globe, historically—had to be selected for, too.

My goal in The Intimate Animal was to really dive into that and take the role of intimacy in relationships seriously. For me, the social and the biological contexts of relationships are one and the same. There’s so much about connection, whether physical or emotional, that is tied into our story as mammals and, particularly, as social primates. Too often we ignore that to our detriment.

JS: There seems to be a widespread view that men and women have different sexual needs. Is that supported by science?

JG: This debate happens in the public sphere, but it’s also one that happens in academic journals. There’s a wonderful argument and series of articles by the feminist psychologist Janet Hyde called the Gender Similarities Hypothesis. Her work shows that many of the psychological sex differences we talk about between men and women aren’t very big. In large samples, something like 5% can be statistically significant, but does it tell us something meaningful about differences between men and women? Not really.

One of the more consistent findings, though, is that men on average have a larger interest in casual sex than women. So, there are some differences around sexual behavior, particularly around sexual desire. But it’s not as large as people think. Similarly, 20 years ago, everyone said that men engage in infidelity more than women. But in newer studies that are asking the questions in more complex ways, we actually see very small gender differences. So, short answer, there are some differences, but men and women are much more similar than we are different.

JS: One of your arguments in the book is that we are biologically wired for monogamous intimacy but not for monogamous sex. What do you mean by that?

JG: When people talk about monogamy, they often mean a monogamous relationship or a monogamous person. In behavioral and evolutionary biology, though, we don’t talk about monogamy as one term. We talk about two elements: social monogamy and sexual monogamy. Part of what I wanted to do in this book was bring that framework to our understanding of humans and relationships.

Social monogamy is a relationship structure, what we call pair-bonding, involving mutual territory defense, nest-building, and raising of offspring. That mutual piece is the key element of a pair-bond that’s different from sexual monogamy or sexual fidelity with one partner. And the reason we separate that is because there are different mechanisms, including in the brain, and different evolutionary pressures shaping them.

In some species, including ours, these are not totally aligned, although often partners attempt to enforce sexual fidelity in social monogamy. But when we look at the genetic parental evidence and make behavioral observations, we see that many animals that form pair-bonds sometimes sexually stray. By separating these pieces out, it gives us a new lens to think about our relationships and the tensions that exist between the safety that comes with deep intimacy and the excitement that comes with sexual variety.

So, say you’re in a long-term bond, where you feel intimacy, you feel connected; but you have this craving for excitement pulling you away from your primary relationship. Sometimes we can bring that tension into our relationship and harness it, instead. In our studies on couples that have long-term passion, they take vacations, have rituals, and do novel things with each other. There are ways we can integrate that into our relationship, to keep a sense of passion and excitement.

Too often, though, we move around like zombies, being pulled by the pressure in our romantic and sexual lives without understanding where it’s coming from and without consciously making decisions. It isn’t only about love, connection, safety, or the quality of a relationship. It’s about these multiple drives that have evolved to serve different functions.

JS: So, these tensions help explain why there is a lot of infidelity in the world. But at the same time, 85% of the world considers adultery immoral. So, is infidelity bad or should we accept it as a consequence of our biology?

JG: I think infidelity is a problem, because it’s a betrayal of a relationship agreement. That can include people who are in open relationships. You can also have infidelity in those contexts, because in polyamory or in sexually open relationships, most people still have a set of rules they’re abiding by. And those rules can be violated, whether that’s a rule about not having sex with someone in your friend network or always using condoms with someone else.

One of my goals was to explore the tensions, but also let people know they have options that don’t involve betrayal, whether that’s saying a relationship doesn’t work for you and separating, or experimenting with an open relationship, or—instead of letting the desire for spontaneity and novelty pull you away from your primary partner—finding ways we can integrate that into our relationship.

Betrayal almost always causes damage, often for both people—and often to their social networks, as well. When people ask me about infidelity, they often assume it happens because there’s something wrong with their relationship. But in our studies, a lot of infidelity happens for reasons that have nothing to do with whether or not someone loves their primary partner. That doesn’t make it any less painful. But it is a good reminder that sometimes it’s about things outside of your primary connection. When we understand that, we can manage our behaviors and relationships better, I hope.

JS: Polyamory seems like it could be one way to solve that tension. But you argue that many of us are not prepared to enter polyamorous relationships. Can you say more about why not?

JG: Different relationship structures work remarkably well for people, whether it’s being socially and sexually monogamous, in a polyamorous relationship, or single and enjoying singlehood. But we have a tendency to sometimes think that the grass is greener. We may think being poly has all these advantages, and we can romanticize those and forget that, just like in any relationship structure, there are people with high and low satisfaction, people that it works well for and people it doesn’t work well for.

Researchers used to call polyamory “ethical non-monogamy;” then they started calling it “consensual non-monogamy,” because whose “ethics” is it? But consensual is kind of a loaded term, too—are both partners always totally consenting to this? Now, increasingly, researchers are calling it “negotiated non-monogamy” or “disclosed non-monogamy.”

JS: I guess that sort of points to the problem…

JG: Exactly. It points out that often there are asymmetries in the desire for these different relationship structures.

In our studies, we found that about one in five Americans have at some point had some version of a disclosed non-monogamous relationship—whether it’s sexually open, like swinging, or polyamory love. In the case of polyamory, it’s interesting. It’s different than a sexually open relationship in that you’re attempting to manage multiple pair bonds. We find there are some people who do it remarkably well. It really satiates their desire for emotional connection and sexual connection. But, for other people, it’s a challenge to maintain multiple relationships—to balance jealousy, gift giving, quality time with multiple partners, etc.

It’s not that polyamory is good or bad. But, as I wrote about in The Intimate Animal, I’m cautious about the way we imagine different relationship structures to be great without recognizing that they just come with different kinds of effort, negotiations, and compromises.

JS: I’m at an age where many of my friends have young adult children looking for romantic partnerships. But it seems more fraught than it was for us at their age. Why is that? And what advice would you give young adults today?

JG: Dating culture has changed dramatically and in a relatively short period of time. That includes the trajectory of a relationship. Just a few decades ago, for instance, young people would often marry fairly early in their courtship process, and marriage was about starting a grand adventure with someone that you were attracted to and could imagine a future with. Young people today think of marriage as the finale, after you already know everything about someone and have fully investigated them.

We did a study with the Match Group, and we found that about 80% of Gen Z-ers said that they believe they will find true love in their life, but about 45% said they don’t think they’re ready for a relationship—they need to work on themselves first. This highlights that they think being ready is a linear process. If you just go work on yourself, one day you’ll wake up and be ready.

But that’s not how we really show up socially or romantically or sexually. In the best case, your romantic partners are there to help you take risks, explore the world, catch you when you fall. That goes back to the mutual part of all pair bonding, of having a copilot to experience life with. When we put too much emphasis on having to be perfect before being in a relationship, we neglect the fact that relationships are containers within which we can grow and make mistakes and experience the world.

This is a challenge that’s showing up on dating apps and in the offices of matchmakers. Dating apps are a remarkable opportunity to find someone with the same hobbies, kinks, religious background, but it’s more data than the human brain can process. We have an information overload. And that means we’re seeing fewer people interested in second and third dates and getting to know someone. After a first date, they’ll say: “Well, you were wonderful, but you held your fork a little funny during lunch, and I can get back on my app and find someone who doesn’t.”

When the brain has a sense of an unlimited resource, we keep going back to the well to find someone who’s perfect. But if we understand that our brain is playing a dirty trick on us, then we can say, “I found someone I like, and, yes, they did this funny thing with the fork, but I’m going to go on a second date with them anyway, because there’s a whole lot that I liked about them.” We have to grab biology by the horns in those moments and focus more on the deal-makers than the deal-breakers.

JS: Many people believe that what’s hurting them in the dating market is that they’re not attractive enough. What does science say about attraction?

JG: In our Singles in America study, we ask people what they’re looking for in a partner. And what’s been heartwarming for me is that in the last few years, in particular, the number one thing that single men and women are looking for in a romantic partner is someone they can trust and confide in. Yes, people say attraction, humor, sexual confidence, and intelligence are important. But number one for men and women is having someone you can trust and confide in.

I think it’s a powerful reminder, but it’s also something hard to determine on a first date. Often it takes a little time to really see if you can trust and confide in someone. It also goes back to why infidelity is such a problem. Betrayal corrodes the number one thing so many people want in a relationship, a partner you can trust.

JS: Are there other practical implications of your work you want to share?

JG: I’m not a clinical psychologist or physician, so I’m often cautious about giving advice. I’m in the business of “how come,” not “how to.” But I do think that when we understand more about ourselves, we can change our approach to our romantic and sexual lives.

One way is by having a lot more empathy for ourselves and those around us. Especially in the case of breakups and romantic dissolution, when people ask, “Are you ready for someone else?” or “Why don’t you get back into the dating market?” or “Try to focus on the things you didn’t like about the person.” We wouldn’t say that to someone who was going through bereavement. But, for some reason, people will tell us we can just move on. We all have to recognize the intense grief people go through when they lose a relationship. It’s why we’ve found 50% of people have a yo-yo relationship; they go back after they breakup.

Another thing is when we’re first dating and falling in love, feelings of limerence [infatuation] are a complete mind-body experience, impacting the brain, hormones, heart rate, and how we perceive our beloved’s behavior. This colors our understanding of what’s going on around us and the decisions we make. Are you making risky decisions or thoughtful ones? Are you balancing the intensity of first excitement with long-term intentions?

I believe that the more that we understand ourselves, the better decisions we can make in our intimate life, really prioritizing the role of close connection. These relationships hold the answer to our loneliness epidemic, to our accumulated anxiety about everything—including the environment, politics, the economy, and health. It all comes down to the power of meaningful, intimate social connections.

But a new book by journalist Lewis Raven Wallace, Radical Unlearning: The Art and Science of Creating Change From Within, argues we can’t always think our way out of our biases. Rather, loving relationships and community more reliably provide the foundation for shifting our views and unlearning bias and oppressive thinking.

Wallace is an Abolition Journalism Fellow at the organization Interrupting Criminalization, author of The View From Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity, and host of the podcast The View From Somewhere. I spoke with them about research related to unlearning, stories of change from the tiny to transformative, and strategies for all of us to open ourselves to other ways of thinking and being. Here is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: Why don’t we start with the question of what do we as individuals, and as a society, need to unlearn?

Lewis Raven Wallace: I came into this project about unlearning thinking about transphobia and racism because those are two areas that immediately affect my life and my activism. I’ve dealt with a lot of learning and unlearning around transphobia within my family as a trans person who came out quite young. I also have been in a many decades-long process of my own unlearning around racism. I’ve always been really interested in family roots, and I come from a many generations white family in South Carolina, where there’s a lot of tension and unspoken challenges around racism, and that’s something that I was interested in surfacing through conversations with my mother and my grandmother.

I’m not interested in telling other people what they should unlearn. For me, it’s been a lot about the systems that underlie the harms we’re experiencing today. Even underlying systems like transphobia and racism, it’s capitalism and ideas about private property and individualism and all the structures and assumptions that make up so much of the day-to-day toxicity that circulates in U.S. society. I wanted to understand more about what is required of us when we want to unlearn, especially things that are ongoing, systems and structures that we’re still living with.

KRL: Can you talk about the role of love when it comes to unlearning?

LRW: One of my first interviews was with Adrienne Johnson Martin, a Black woman in her 50s. What created the conditions for her to unlearn around policing and anti-Blackness was her connection with her family, in particular her son, who has a disability. Through her love for her son, she had undergone all this transformation that she identified as a big part of what made her open to unlearning throughout all parts of her life.

As I read the psychological and neuroscience research for the book, a lot of that was about the neuroscience of connection, the hormonal reactions that happen, and the neuroplasticity that we can access when we’re in loving, connected relationships, how that lays the foundation for unlearning. A lot of that research is actually about trauma, trauma healing, and unlearning trauma.

More and more over the last couple decades, researchers have been finding that it’s not enough to talk about your trauma, it’s not enough to just revisit your trauma, you have to actually experience different kinds of connections and relationships. That can be in a therapeutic relationship, or it can be in a loving relationship in your life. Trauma healing is actually love and unlearning in one.

That was so inspiring to me because trauma is probably the hardest thing to unlearn. It’s really, really deep; it creates these automated reactions in us. It’s uncomfortable to look at; it’s painful. The ways in which experiences of connection to other people can facilitate trauma healing, to me, that was a clue on this journey of trying to figure out the science of unlearning overall.

Every single person that I interviewed, in one way or another, talked about love, connection, community, and relationship. Not necessarily just romantic love, not just familial love, but experiences of connection as an aspect of their own learning.

KRL: Can you talk about attunement and co-regulation as motivating forces that facilitate unlearning?

LRW: There’s this really wonderful thing about human design, how we are made to survive together. Obviously you see it in parenting relationships, the phenomenon that the baby comes and you have to change as a person, you have to change all your lived patterns, you have to give up sleep and sacrifice a lot. So we’re actually neurologically designed to feel this sense of connection and interconnection in a way that makes us more open to change. At a neurological level, they call it rewiring the brain.

The more you use a certain circuit, the more likely you are to react in that same way in the future. We have these windows of opportunity where we are more open, more flexible to changing our reactions. Those windows can be created by oxytocin and the other hormones that are associated with love and connection and attunement. It opens us up at a biological level.

The way that humans tend to react to new information that contradicts us is one of two paths. Either we shut it down and shut it out, and that’s a very common and likely reaction, or we try to resolve the contradiction. The discomfort that’s required by trying to resolve the contradiction is very hard to go through on your own, especially if you’re going through a loss of identity or loss of sense of self. It’s hard, maybe even impossible to do that without a sense that other people are going to be there with you. It’s not just that being in relationship with other people can introduce you to new ideas, but it can actually make you a more flexible person.

So feelings of safety are a really important condition for long-term unlearning. You don’t have to feel safe the entire time, but you have to have some feeling of safety that you can go back to in order to process the things that are hard.

KRL: Your grandmother had a lot of unlearning to do, and your mother to some extent. Can you talk about the tension that you describe in the book between love and fear around your gender identity, and how that came to play in their unlearning?

LRW: When I was coming out as queer and then trans in the late 90s and early 2000s, for my grandmother, who was born in the 1920s, it was just confusing. And she’s a very loving person and she’s also, like a lot of people, kind of stuck in some of her ways. For my mother, it was more an experience of fear. She wasn’t particularly homophobic and there wasn’t really such a thing as transphobia in the way that there is now, because people just didn’t know what it was.

One of the few preconceived notions at the time was this would be a dangerous life, this would be a hard life, to be trans. Both of them had to do a lot of inner confrontation with discomfort and fear in order to relearn how to love me and stay in connection with me. That was not at all an overnight process.

KRL: Talk a bit about the role of generative somatics in unlearning.

LRW: Our bodies and minds are interconnected. We can’t just think our way out of things. In order to re-track our brains, we have to change our practices. Sometimes we even start doing the different thing before we’re totally mentally comfortable. That happens a lot around something as simple as pronouns. People might feel like, “I don’t really feel comfortable with it. I don’t really see it, but I’m just going to practice saying the right word.” And the more that you practice, the more it becomes second nature.

The field that I looked at, of politicized somatics, is taking this idea that change happens in the body and engaging with that as a political act. So asking, how can we strengthen our movements for justice? How can we strengthen our processes of unlearning? How can we become better listeners and unlearners ourselves through developing a kind of awareness of breath, of body, often very subtle things like, “Where do you feel tension as you talk about this? Or where does the energy in your body focus?”

I had experienced something traumatic with a group of people, and we went through a politicized somatic healing process collectively. We had this really incredible experience of somatically releasing an acute, traumatic event, which had been a physical assault by police. I actually felt in my body, I felt the experience of release.

It sounds complicated, and maybe a little woo-woo. But in some ways, it can actually be a shortcut compared to talking about something for years and years in therapy. To get into the physical embodiment of it, you then break the pattern in your body.

KRL: I’d love you to tell the story of Adrianne Black and how she evolved and unlearned the neo-Nazi beliefs of her community and her family of origin.

LRW: She had been raised by a family of activist white nationalists in Florida, and then she had gone to school at the New College of Florida, which is a public, alternative kind of college. She essentially was confronted, often in a very harsh way, by people who said, “Your beliefs and your family’s beliefs are not OK.” On the other hand, a small group of people embraced her and spent a lot of time with her, getting to know her and facilitating this unlearning and trying to talk her out of being a white nationalist.

The year after her graduation, she publicly renounced her family’s views. She alienated herself from her whole family of origin and apologized to a lot of people for the many years that she had spent holding these beliefs that she had come to see were really harmful. She changed through this combination of love, friendship, being loved by these people who spent time with her, and very uncomfortable confrontation, which she’s really come to terms with. She came out as trans a couple years later, so in some ways, her unlearning around racism and white nationalism had opened her up to a whole other world of who she would then become.

KRL: I’m curious about how you reconcile living in our flawed reality, while recognizing that there’s a lot of past inequity and harm that has not been resolved?

LRW: I grappled a lot with what I was going to say about settler colonialism in a book about unlearning. As somebody who’s living on stolen land, I own a home. I almost want to put it in quotes, “own.” I don’t believe that land should be parceled out and owned by people. How do I speak about unlearning something like that, when here I am sitting with all the privileges of it? Nonetheless, what I came to for myself is that there is no reconciliation. You actually remain in an acute awareness of the cognitive dissonance. Let that be motivating in trying to make change at every step. Sometimes those changes are really small and marginal, making a donation or paying a land tax, but over time, I think there’s something to be said for just not trying to resolve cognitive dissonance, letting it be really uncomfortable, and that is emotionally harsh.

Often, people who are in the settler position, or the colonizer position or the white position, we don’t have a lot of tools for looking at and actually feeling the pain of contradiction inside of ourselves, that I will never walk this earth in the kind of right relationship that I want to be in. That part of the story always brought me back to my grandmother and how, as she was essentially on her deathbed, she was still grappling with the impacts of her own internalized oppression, and it was painful to her. She wanted to feel this love and openness, she wanted to feel connected, she wanted to not be racist. But she couldn’t quite let go of all these things. There is a cost, even to the people who are privileged by it and who benefit.

KRL: What would you like readers to take from this book?

RLW: I want it to be a reminder that unlearning is really possible. It’s work that any of us can do. I want it to be a tool for people who want to have these unlearning conversations in their communities and with their families. It’s a very different kind of tool than the dominant narrative of We should talk to each other across the aisle. I find that framework very limited because it doesn’t acknowledge the kind of trauma that may be playing out in some of those interactions. It doesn’t acknowledge the painful fact that we’re not talking about systems of oppression that have ended. We’re talking about ongoing, structural harm. A different set of tools says, Hey, let’s start with ourselves. Let’s start with people right around us that we love and trust, and let’s build outward from there. It’s really possible for anybody to help cultivate these conditions.

Maybe you and your mom are long overdue for a conversation, or maybe you and your best friend haven’t been acknowledging something, or maybe in the work that you do, there’s room to cultivate just a little bit more space for unlearning. I want it to be empowering for people to think about the diversity of ways that we can create those conditions. I certainly have let go of the idea that unlearning is just a hard, crappy slog, and I want other people to feel that.

The realization that dating can be a valuable activity in and of itself, rather than a zero-sum game where a “bad” date means a waste of time, led me to become a dating coach in 2020. I became a different kind of dating coach. Not one who says, “let’s figure out how to manipulate someone into wanting you,” but rather someone who cheers you into viewing every single dating interaction as an opportunity for empowerment. And fun, too, because that’s an essential part of dating successfully. If the goal is to create a fun and fulfilling relationship with another human, the process should reflect it!

But in a world where humans often treat each other as objects of entertainment, disposable ego-boosts, or “needs-fulfilling machines,” what does it actually look like to date with integrity and meaning? Are there steps and principles for creating a hopeful paradigm of dating? Taking things a step further—can dating be used for the greater good?

As a scholar and a coach, the most satisfying thing in the world (at least, to my brain) is to create frameworks that bridge theory with practice. To take big problems, and to be able to say, “I’ve got a framework for that.”

Enter my framework: The six pillars of mindful dating.

In this context, mindful refers to one’s commitment to awareness and integrity, versus the outdated rulebooks, automatic responses, and bad behaviors that often prevail in the dating sphere.

Practicing mindful dating is about letting go of old scripts around love, seduction, and roles, and instead, using the entire process of dating—online and offline—as a playground for developing the authentic presence and relational skills you need to love well in each moment.

Mindful dating actually lays the ground for relationships that are based on truth rather than performance, and true intimacy rather than transactionality. It is particularly resonant for people who practice mindfulness elsewhere in their lives—but might feel at a loss when it comes to dating with integrity rather than self-abandonment.

Deep visioning: owning your WHY

Hiroko came into my virtual office declaring she was ready to get married. She wanted to find her person, and to live the dream of a wedded life—yesterday. She had decided to recruit a dating coach to help her locate her future husband.

Her dating life had been a self-proclaimed disaster so far. She went on many dates, but they never progressed into any kind of commitment. I started asking questions about her deeper motivations: “Why do you want to get married?” Hiroko responded emphatically, “Because it’s that time of life! All my friends are getting married, and I want it too. The wedding, the dress, the Instagram pictures… It seems like the right thing to do. I’m 30 years old!” I further inquired: “What kind of relationship would you like to have? How do you feel about living with someone under the same roof and sharing the mundane parts of daily life?”

The response was illuminating. She expressed that she was dreading the daily realities of partnered life. Part of her was afraid of feeling stuck with the same person, of entering a “boring, sedate life.” She also wanted a life of inspiration, the freedom to focus on her art, and the freedom, potentially, to have more than one partner. At the same time, she craved the social advantages of traditional marriage.

Hiroko wanted two things at once: the social approval, validation, and status that would come with marriage as a major marker of “success” at her stage of life. Another part of her wanted to retain her autonomy, be free, and live alone.

The first step in developing a mindful dating approach with Hiroko was to come to terms with what she wanted from a deeper place—and getting clear on her personal and relational values. After a few sessions, she owned a deeper truth: she wanted the perks of marriage, but not the reality of it. She would redirect her dating efforts towards finding romantic partners with whom she could embody her values of freedom and independence, rather than attempting to fit herself into the traditional mold.

Owning our truest WHY for dating is the first step in creating an aligned dating life. If you are dating on auto-pilot and feeling disappointing results, ask yourself: Why am I dating? What does love and intimacy really mean to me in the spectrum of my life’s purpose? What am I hoping to experience? What are my socially conditioned values, versus my chosen values? Would dating with more integrity require disrupting a social script, and if so, am I willing to do so?

There are no right or wrong answers here, but a sincere inquiry into these questions leads to deeper intentionality with dating, and more aligned results.

Cultivating an empowered self-concept

A big part of dating, online and offline, is deciding how to communicate about oneself. Research shows that how we conceptualize ourselves, and particularly, with what degree of clarity, directly impacts our chances of selecting a compatible mate. Two retrospective studies by McGill University graduate students in experimental psychology found that people with lower self-concept clarity experienced more challenges making dating decisions and were more likely to date incompatible people.

Of course, what we believe about ourselves is going to deeply influence our communication. Many of us have learned to conceal our tender and vulnerable sides in order to be accepted by others, so we show up on the dating scene hiding our true selves. While that’s completely understandable, too much hiding means that no one can truly see you—making it nearly impossible to generate vibrant emotional intimacy.

Mindful dating is an opportunity to practice empowered self-expression, beginning with adopting an empowered self-narrative.

For example, one of my dating coaching clients was an exceptionally funny, bubbly, and spiritually engaged gay man who practiced meditation regularly. When I initially looked at his dating profile, I was shocked to see overly generic statements. It read something like this:

“I’m an accountant, financially stable. I like walks on the beach and travel, and I’m looking for a long-term relationship.”

Also, he was wearing sunglasses in all his pictures—making it impossible to see the brilliant spark in his eyes. When I pointed out he seemed to be hiding his true self from potential suitors, he revealed that he had repeatedly been rejected and mocked for his spirituality and humor—both by his family of origin and by previous partners. He realized that he was now preventing folks who would honor and adore these qualities in him from finding and recognizing him. He then courageously took steps to show the broader range of his true self—adding clear photos of him meditating, being goofy, and reading books, and disclosing his wide array of interests and passions within the profile. Almost instantly, the quality of matches and connections he experienced on the app started to rise!

Learning to embrace and express an empowered self-concept is not arrogance. It’s about leading with your gifts—and what Ken Page would call core gifts in his book, Deeper Dating. According to Page, core gifts are those precious parts of us that we often learn to repress during childhood, to make people around us comfortable—for example, our thirst for love, our sensitivity, our empathy, or our exuberance—but these are the parts that constitute our deepest spark, and are foundational to our ability to experience true intimacy.

Removing the veil from one’s wholesome expression is a healing journey that begins with self-reclamation, and leads to much more compatible dates. Sharing one’s gifts in dating can be vulnerable, but it can be a definitive movement away from old patterns of self-repression, and towards a commitment to authenticity.

Developing an authentic dating strategy

The third pillar is all about action! As you clarify your dating why and develop an empowered self-concept and narrative, the next question becomes: How do I integrate dating into my life in a way that is congruent with my values, interests, and lifestyle?

Forgive the financial analogy—but my recommendation is to develop an aligned dating portfolio. This is about selecting an assortment of ways you can meet new people, so that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket (just like stocks!)

This will most likely include online and offline components.

For example, one of my dating coaching clients decided to attend two in-person events per week, prioritizing dating events—and to use a dating app for 10 minutes per day. He also reached out to his community to ask for introductions to single friends they would vouch for and match his criteria. That way, he would avoid focusing entirely on online dating, and would try out different events where he could also meet new people locally—art openings, volunteer days, dinner clubs, hiking meetups, and singles’ nights. He would use this time not only to scan the room for possible love interests (although that was definitely part of it), he also utilized these opportunities to practice communication skills like asking powerful questions and listening more deeply.

As you might guess, this client built a rich social life and met lots of single women, with common interests, both online and offline. By not over-relying on dating apps, he kept dating fun, vibrant, and alive.

Practicing mindful swiping

I get it: Online dating can feel soul-sucking and dehumanizing. Algorithms gamify dating and make us feel as if we are products on a shelf, rather than whole, complex human beings with intrinsic values. Psychology researchers have even coined a word for this transactional mentality: Relationshopping. Adding the prevalence of dating app burnout to the mix, it is fair to say that dating technologies have an uncanny ability to throw us into swirls of negativity and powerlessness.

That said, most couples do meet online nowadays—and, remarkably, some research shows that relationships originating from online dating are more successful than those that started offline. In a nationally representative sample of 19,131 respondents, the late social psychologist John T. Cacioppo and colleagues found that marriages that began online were slightly less likely to result in a breakup, and reported slightly higher marital satisfaction than their offline counterparts. Perhaps a reason to not ditch dating apps just yet?

I argue that it is crucial to develop a mindful approach to social technologies—and this pillar can help you do just that. Even if you do not select online dating as part of your “dating portfolio,” you may use the principles of mindful swiping to bring mindfulness and digital hygiene into any technology use, particularly social media.

Mindful Swiping is a framework to help us use online dating as a mindfulness practice. I have created an entire workshop and blog on this, but here are the Cliffs notes.

Ritualize your use of the apps. Stop swiping “mindlessly” (dopamine-seeking, addiction-like, or angry swiping)—and create a ritual time and space around your use of the apps. I recommend turning off notifications, so that you are in charge of when and where you swipe. Every time you use the apps (and I suggest no more than 15 minutes per day), breathe deeply; be aware of your somatic state and physical posture, and reconnect with your intentions.

Creating an authentic and empowered profile. Your profile is your canvas! Use the process of profile creation as an act of genuine and truthful self-expression. Pick photos that feel like the real you, and tell a visual story. In the writeup, communicate unique qualities, interests, and values that convey the breadth and range of who you are.

Practice discernment while swiping. When swiping, use your rational mind AND your embodied intuition. What types of emotions, character, and values do they convey? Do these align with yours? Observe yourself and why you tend to swipe right or left. Remind yourself what you’re looking for.

Practice loving-kindness. Online dating is an opportunity to practice loving-kindness—a Buddhist meditation focused on sending goodwill to oneself and to others. It can rehumanize online dating by helping us remember there is a three-dimensional human on the other side of the app—a soul, a heart, a body that’s longing to be loved, just like you.

Communicating to connect

Communication in early dating can be tricky. When a connection is new, it is naturally precarious, and ripe for misunderstandings. The fact that most people rely on texting to connect with new love interests means the non-verbal elements of early interactions easily get lost. That’s why learning to communicate with clarity, authenticity, and deep curiosity is one of the most crucial skills in developing trust and intimacy.

Before you can communicate truthfully, you have to discern what it is you really feel, want, and need—not imagining and complying with what other people expect you to say. In psychological terms, that ability is called differentiation of self: It is at the core of having a sense of agency and empowerment, and is vital to building healthy partnerships and relationships of all kinds.

Once you identify your needs and feelings, you must gather the courage to express them directly (and kindly, of course). Stating your real desires means you might hear “no” for an answer, which can be terrifying. Many people do not communicate clearly because they are sensitive to rejection. On the other hand, hearing “yes” might be just as terrifying—but oh, so exciting!—because that means actual intimacy, and being seen in your truth, is within reach.

In any case, communicating with clarity is an act of kindness—to yourself, and to the other. It is a crucial part of laying a path for success no matter the outcome!

Navigating challenging emotions and integrating learning

Dating has a way of bringing up challenging emotions: Rejection, comparison, loneliness, shame, disappointment, envy, jealousy, judgment, anger, hopelessness. There is no way to completely avoid challenging feelings while keeping one’s heart open.

However, what we can do is change our relationship to those feelings. We can learn to embrace these emotions, and utilize them to grow, learn, and transform, rather than hide away and judge ourselves. In Buddhism, there is the idea that life unavoidably brings pain, in the form of loss, disappointment, or other challenging experiences: That’s the first arrow. But when we judge and condemn ourselves for feeling these emotions, that is the second arrow—the suffering we inflict upon ourselves. The first arrow is inevitable; but the second is optional.

In dating, we cannot avoid challenging emotions altogether—but we can be kind and compassionate to ourselves, and learn to become better friends with ourselves while doing it.

I always invite my clients and workshop attendees to practice positive defiance. That means choosing to keep an open heart and to practice love, kindness, and self-compassion in the face of emotional challenges and negative self-talk. It’s choosing to approach life from a lens of acceptance, growth, and liberation—rather than constantly evaluating whether we got the short or long end of the stick.

What truly supports folks in that realm is to create a love-filled life with abundant friendships, community, activities, mutual care, and passions. When one is engaged with love, generosity, and kindness on a daily basis, romantic disappointments still hurt—but they take a much softer landing, and do not feel like existential loss.

In sum, dating doesn’t have to feel like a means to an end: It can literally become an art form when you leave the old beliefs and patterns behind, and learn to act from a deeper source of self-expression, authenticity, and self-love.

While popular culture may lead you to believe that love and sex addictions are not only accepted conditions but also quite prevalent—think Frank in season 3 of White Lotus; Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest memoir All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation; and pretty much any cultural analysis of the actions of Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw around Mr. Big—the scientific understanding of problematic behaviors related to love and sex is far more nuanced.

Researchers and clinicians hesitate to characterize obsessive love or serial, overly consuming relationships as love addiction, for fear of feeding misinformation or encouraging people to adopt untested treatment regimes. And consider the many varying characteristics. Think about the intensity of your first crush or your devastation after ending it with your three-month situationship. Sure, you might have demonstrated some very concerning behaviors, but would it be fair to call it an addiction? A 2025 systematic review of research noted the growing interest in understanding love addiction and found a significant relationship between love addiction and attachment styles, concluding that a broader lens than addiction is needed to understand and treat harmful relationship behaviors.

Sex addiction, on the other hand, has gained more traction in the scientific community, particularly in the last decade, although clinicians still urge caution as the field comes to consensus. The term itself, along with hypersexual disorder, was denied inclusion in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), when the American Psychiatric Association published an update in 2013. But in 2019, a closely related diagnosis—Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder (CSBD)—was formally recognized in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), which the World Health Organization publishes.

Compulsive sexual behaviors can cause very real distress, change brain pathways, and disrupt people’s entire lives, just as with behavioral disorders such as gambling and harmful Internet use. While many addictive behaviors can be addressed through abstinence, sex and love are important parts of many people’s healthy and fulfilling experiences of life, making recovery more complex than simply achieving sobriety. Individuals struggling to manage unhealthy behaviors must find a way to reintegrate love, intimacy, and sex into their lives without triggering the addiction cycle.

So as researchers work to gain clarity on how sex addiction fits into existing addiction frameworks, clinicians continue to work with clients to build their self-regulation skills, reduce harm, and support healthy intimacy. Seeking to understand harmful sexual behaviors encompasses addiction medicine, behavioral disorders, and a range of treatment options, including psychological, biological, and social. Ultimately, both diagnosis and treatment of sex addiction are complicated because of the unique role that sex and sexuality play in our lives, our deep need for connection to others, and our evolving understanding of sexuality. Whereas in a prior generation, you’d be pathologized simply for having multiple sexual partners, in modern times we understand polyamory, for example, as one expression of the vast range of normal sexual behavior and relationships.

“In reality, people vary widely in desire and behavior,” explains Kerry McCarthy, a Denver, Colorado-based licensed mental health counselor, who warns against labeling “frequent masturbation, pornography use, or diverse sexual interests as unhealthy. . . . Those differences aren’t inherently problematic.”

What is addiction?

Addiction is understood as a “treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences,” according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine. In addiction, normal drives and desires become harmful, changing a person’s brain so they lose control of their behaviors, explains Margaret Jarvis, psychiatrist and chief of addiction services at Geisinger Addiction Medicine in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

“They are pushed . . . by the disease to do things that really are contrary to their own values, contrary to their own interests,” Jarvis says. “It becomes very, very hard for that person to use their brains to do other things, to plan other activities, to engage in other work.”

Researchers first described addiction in the context of substance use, with early 20th century medical and psychological research focusing on behaviors of compulsion and loss of control in relation to alcohol and drugs. In 1960, physiologist and addiction researcher E. M. Jellinek framed alcoholism as a disease with identifiable stages—pre-alcoholic, early, middle, and chronic—marking a shift to viewing chronic substance abuse as a medical condition rather than a moral failure.

In subsequent decades, psychologists including William R. Miller and Mark Griffiths expanded the understanding of addiction to include behaviors such as gambling, overeating, and sexual acts. Griffiths characterized addiction with shared components of salience, tolerance, withdrawal, mood modification, conflict, and relapse. That means the substance or behavior becomes increasingly important, requires escalating intensity to achieve similar effects, causes distress when stopped, alters emotional states, causes interpersonal or functional conflict, and persists despite attempts to abstain, respectively.

Today, the DSM-5 identifies substance use disorder through patterns of impaired control, physical dependence, social problems, and risky use. People diagnosed with the disorder often struggle to cut back or stop using the substance, require ever-higher doses, and continue using it despite negative repercussions in their life or to their health. This diagnosis is made via an 11-question yes-or-no checklist that assesses the prevalence of these symptoms in a patient for the past 12 months. Two or more “yes” answers point to a possible substance use disorder. It’s then up to the clinician to assess the severity. About 48.5 million Americans received a diagnosis of substance use disorder in 2023, according to the United States National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

The one behavioral disorder that is included in the DSM-5—gambling disorder—follows the framework of substance use disorder. However, tolerance and withdrawal are not included. This is because you don’t develop a tolerance to gambling, just as you don’t necessarily display withdrawal symptoms when you stop. Bottom line: Addictive behaviors are not going to impact your brain in the way alcohol or drugs do.

In the 1980s, psychologist Patrick Carnes was among the first to conceive of sex addiction as a behavioral disorder, describing it as a pathological relationship to sex. He defined sex addiction as a person persistently failing to control a specific sexual behavior, continuing that behavior in spite of its harmful consequences, giving up other activities, and distress if unable to engage in sex. He described this specifically in relation to marriages, and the harmful effects of sex addiction on spouses and family.  Carnes and his colleagues urged caution in diagnosing sexual addiction based on frequency of sex, promiscuity, or novel expressions of sexuality, because of the range of normal human behavior.

Only in the most recent 15 or 20 years have researchers begun to understand behavioral addictions, Jarvis says. “The evidence base for substance addictions is really still pretty poor compared to cardiology, cancer treatment, etc. We just don’t have the volume and the depth of research that helps guide clinical decision making,” she says.

How love and sex addiction fit in

The claim of love addiction crops up in pop culture more than in research. Gilbert’s memoir follows her relationship with Rayya Elias, a woman who suffered from drug and alcohol addiction. After Elias develops pancreatic cancer, Gilbert uproots her entire life to take care of her, resulting in compulsive behaviors, codependence, and grief—symptoms she compares to Elias’s substance use addiction.

Science and research have yet to define the contours of love addiction, although the 2025 systematic review noted growing interest in the most recent six years. The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 15 studies with 3,628 participants and found a positive correlation between love addiction and anxious attachment, as well as a negative correlation between love addiction and avoidant attachment. They concluded that it would be too narrow to view problematic behavior around love solely through the addiction lens. By including frameworks and therapies from the attachment literature, clinicians might more effectively diagnose and treat addictive behaviors around love, they suggest.

People with personality disorders might appear to be addicted to love because they passionately fall into new relationships, only to disrupt them or end them abruptly, says Michigan-based therapist Taryn Sinclaire. But actually, that’s part of the unhealthy attachment pattern characteristic of a number of personality disorders, which Sinclaire treats. “I frequently see clients who are swept away at the beginning of a relationship only to end up chasing this initial high for the rest of the relationship, or rapidly devaluing the partner and moving on to someone new in order to feel this yet again,” she says.

University of Nevada associate professor and clinical psychologist Shane Kraus published research that informed the diagnostic criteria for CSBD. His work found that compulsive sexual behavior mirrors addiction in key ways: impaired control, continued engagement in spite of negative consequences, and the development of hard-to-break patterns.

“If you do a behavior over and over and over, your brain will form patterns and habits, and some of those can become compulsive or problematic, and that’s what happens with gambling,” he says. “Same thing for sex. Originally, it’s fun, you’re enjoying it, but now you’re having sex when you don’t want to. You’re having sex when you’re stressed.”

To be sure, high levels of sexual activity alone don’t qualify as problematic. A 2018 paper Kraus coauthored for World Psychiatry states: “Individuals with high levels of sexual interest and behaviour (e.g., due to a high sex drive) who do not exhibit impaired control over their sexual behaviour and significant distress or impairment in functioning should not be diagnosed with compulsive sexual behaviour disorder. The diagnosis should also not be assigned to describe high levels of sexual interest and behaviour (e.g., masturbation) that are common among adolescents, even when this is associated with distress.”

Kraus helped create the 19-item CSBD scale that clinicians now use to diagnose the disorder. Rather than answer yes-or-no questions, patients assess statements based on how much they agree with them (totally disagree, somewhat disagree, somewhat agree, totally agree). Scoring 50 or more points indicates a high risk of CSBD. Like substance abuse disorder, it’s up to the clinician to diagnose.

“In real clinical work, people rarely present exactly as diagnostic manuals describe, and diagnoses always need to be understood in context,” says Martha Koo, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer at Your Behavioral Health, a clinic in Torrance, California. “Loss of control, failure to change on one’s own, and functional impairment are important to arrive at a diagnosis and determine the need for treatment.”

A scientific review committee convened by the International Society for Sexual Medicine in 2024 concluded that clinical expertise is crucial to differentiate “out-of-control sexual behaviors,” understand their impact on mental and sexual well-being, and refine best practices in care and treatment. “Treatment centers have profited from it being labeled an ‘addiction,’ and current social media, periodicals, and online self-help forums have provided a venue for an enormous spread of misinformation,” the committee wrote. “Evidence-based, sexual medicine–informed therapies should be offered to achieve a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences.”

Treatment

Treatment for compulsive sexual behavior focuses on working with patients to reduce distress, create coping mechanisms around problematic sexual urges, and find a way back to healthy intimacy that aligns with a patient’s own values.

Clinicians support patients in learning to regulate their problematic sexual behaviors. For some, this means a temporary break from certain sexual behaviors to help clients interrupt compulsive patterns. Melissa Febos, in her memoir The Dry Season, writes about voluntarily abstaining from sex and romantic attachment after a breakup because she believed it would be a way to reconnect with her own desires and intimacy. Similarly, Jessica Steinman, a Los Angeles–based certified sex addiction therapist, recommends short-term abstinence from behaviors such as dating apps, masturbation, hookups, or sex altogether, paired with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

“Abstaining from sexual acting-out behaviors can help reset those pathways and allow the brain to rewire, which takes time,” Steinman explains. This approach draws from research that shows that compulsive sexual behaviors are reinforced through repeated exposure and habit formation. Some clinicians, like Steinman, use abstinence as a way to reduce reinforcement—though studies measuring the effectiveness of this method are still sparse.

Other clinicians focus more on helping clients regulate behavior while still engaging in sexual expression. “The goal is not abstinence but helping clients manage urges, reduce problematic patterns, and engage in healthy sexual and relational experiences,” says Denver counselor McCarthy.

Michigan therapist Sinclaire finds that clients using regulation strategies may fare better than those pursuing strict abstinence, especially when their sexual behaviors are otherwise healthy and consensual. This may involve identifying triggers, planning for relapse, and setting personal boundaries. The main goal is to reduce harm related to these sexual behaviors.

Koo emphasizes that compulsive sexual behavior resembles other addictions in the way repetitive behaviors can dominate a person’s life. “All addictions, whether involving substances or behaviors, are most effectively treated when treatment includes psychological, social, and biological interventions,” Koo says.

Psychological interventions include CBT, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and narrative therapy, while social interventions include 12-step programs and academic or occupational support to help patients advance their careers, which may have been disrupted by a pattern of sexual acting out. Biological interventions vary depending on the severity of the behaviors and whatever mental health comorbidities exist. Some patients grappling with CSBD may consider medications for depression, anxiety, or insomnia.

“There is not one cookie-cutter combination of bio-psycho-social interventions I would recommend. Rather, it is important to understand that an eclectic, comprehensive treatment approach that addresses the individual’s needs in all three of these areas leads to best outcomes,” she said.

Research suggests that treatment for compulsive sexual behaviors can be effective. A systematic review of 24 studies found moderate to large reductions in symptom severity—particularly with CBT, though much of this work focuses on problematic pornography use. In a randomized controlled trial of group CBT for men with hypersexual disorder, researchers observed significant drops in compulsive behavior and psychiatric distress that persisted over time. In hypersexual disorder, an individual loses control over sexual behaviors, leading to distress and negative impacts on key life areas.

If you’re concerned about your own or a loved one’s sexual behavior, it’s worth taking a step back. Are you worried because the behavior challenges social norms—or because it has truly become disruptive, consuming, or uncontrollable? Care should focus on helping you regain control, not labels.

“What you do, what kind of sex you have, and how you sexually express yourself, is important,” Kraus says. “For engaging in something that doesn’t make you feel good about yourself, how do we shift you to do something that makes you align with your values?”

I first considered living kidney donation years ago when my aunt was diagnosed with kidney disease. That decision was easy; I love her dearly and I’d give her any part of me if she needed it. Fortunately, she recovered without needing a transplant, but the idea lingered, popping up from time to time.

Signs at an intersection near my daughter’s high school asked passersby to register for the National Kidney Registry so a local woman might receive a much-needed donation. I saw a video about a man who walked up and down the side of a road near his home wearing a sandwich board with the message, “NEED KIDNEY 4 WIFE” and a phone number.

On a flight home from a speaking trip, I discovered the documentary Confessions of a Good Samaritan among my seatback viewing options. In the film, director Penny Lane explores the process, psychology, and ethics behind altruistic kidney donation while undergoing the evaluation and surgery herself.

Every time kidney donation faded out of my awareness, some sign came along to remind me that just because kidney donation had disappeared from my thoughts, the need for living donors had not. Currently, over 90,000 people are on the transplant list waiting for news of a donor and for many of them, chronic kidney disease means dialysis, chronic illness, and financial hardship.

The final nudge I needed came via my TikTok feed. The algorithm presented me with Chandler Jackson, or @ChandlerTheKidneyGuy. Chandler has kidney disease and makes videos to help others understand what it’s like to be a college student with chronic illness.

Through his videos, I learned about his onerous daily peritoneal dialysis routine: sanitize his dorm room and hands, glove up and mask, prime the dialysis machine, attach the cartridges and tangles of tubes, and warm three massive bags of dialysis solution. Sanitize hands, glove up and mask again before attaching the entire contraption to the dialysis port in his abdomen so he can begin the nine-hour process of using that fluid and his own peritoneum as a filtration system for the waste his kidneys can’t eliminate.

By the time I’d scrolled through Chandler’s feed, I was resolved. I would donate one of my kidneys in 2026. I likely could not donate to Chandler directly due to geographical and biological limitations, but I could gift him a kidney donation voucher that would move him up the transplant list or start a kidney transplant chain on his behalf.

My life, in contrast to Chandler’s, is much less complicated. I spent most of my time speaking in schools and community organizations about topics from my books: learning, school engagement, substance use prevention, and parenting. When I’m not on the road or writing at my desk, I’m heaving boulders out of my gardens, tending to my bees, or splitting next winter’s firewood. Relatively speaking, kidney donation would have a minimal effect on my life.

Yes, I would have to endure a fairly intense medical workup culminating in a day of testing at my closest transplant center, about four hours away from my home. If I passed that physical and psychological gauntlet, I would undergo laparoscopic surgery under general anaesthesia and spend a couple of days in the hospital. Recovery would take about four to eight weeks at home, so some time off of work would be required.

Consequently, my speaking agent was one of the first people I told about the potential donation. She shared that she, too, was intrigued by the idea of donating and promised to reschedule my existing events. If my screening went according to schedule, I might be able to donate during the cold, dark winter in Vermont, recover while knitting by my wood stove, and be ready to get back out into the garden, forest, and bee yard by spring.

Filling out the kidney donor registration form was easy. I completed it on my phone in under ten minutes while waiting for a flight home from a speaking event. A few days later, a nurse navigator from Mass General Brigham in Boston, my closest kidney transplant site, called to discuss altruistic kidney transplantation and take a more detailed medical history. Once she’d determined I was a viable candidate, she arranged my first battery of blood and urine tests through a local lab, and encouraged me to move up some of my preventative medical tests like my mammogram and colonoscopy.

For the first 55 years of my life my kidneys warranted little more than a passing thought, but once testing began I thought about them constantly. Are they healthy? Donation-worthy? I’d read that my transplant team would determine which of my kidneys is healthiest and most robust and I’d keep that one, so will I keep Right or Left? Should I name them? I’d already started to think of my kidneys as something shared, something I was caretaking for a stranger, and keeping those two fist-sized organs healthy became a bit of a preoccupation.

A week later, after I’d had many vials of blood drawn and collected 24 hours worth of my urine in a large orange jug, I drove to my local medical center for my mammogram. I even took a jaunty picture in the changing room mirror to post on my Instagram feed, captioned with something happy and encouraging like, “Don’t forget to schedule your mammogram, ladies!”

When the breast care clinic messaged to let me know I’d need a follow-up mammogram and possibly an ultrasound, I wasn’t worried. I’d needed them before, and it had always come to nothing more than irregular breast tissue density. I showed up at the University of Vermont Breast Care Center for another gown, another waiting room, and another mammogram.

I’d always been released after the repeat mammogram (“It’s nothing, just some areas of irregular density, have a great day!”), so when the team asked me to stay for an ultrasound, concern started to creep in. I masked it by chatting with the ultrasound technician about our kids as she thoroughly scanned my left breast and lymph nodes.

The technician sent me to a small consultation room to wait, and as soon as the radiologist entered the room with that concerned-yet-caring expression on her face, I allowed worry to blossom into full-on panic. I texted my husband, who was seeing patients in his clinic a few floors up, and asked him to come down to the breast center so I could have a level-headed, rational witness to what I now understood was life-changing news. 

While I waited for Tim, I picked at my cuticles and took stock of the tiny consult room. That’s when I noticed the box of tissues placed prominently on the table next to my chair, at the ready. When he arrived, I saw Tim notice it, too.

The radiologist told us I had a mass in my left breast, one that was almost certainly invasive due to its irregular, spiculated, or spiky, appearance. I’d need a biopsy as soon as possible. Once we knew what we were dealing with, she continued, I could talk with a breast surgeon about my surgical options.

No, I wanted to tell her, she misunderstood. This was not supposed to be about me. I was meant to be giving life to someone else, not weighing the mortality benefits of lumpectomy versus mastectomy.

Thirty years and another ultrasound ago, when we discovered the baby I was carrying had no heartbeat, I remember feeling a similar sense of nonsensical unreality. This is fine, I thought, my baby would be fine without a heart. We’d adjust.

Reality, in both cases, comes later. Tim and I hold hands. We talk. We question. We research. In time, I grasp the full implications of the news and my future. I’d be having surgery and those four to eight weeks of recovery, but it would not culminate in the joy of granting someone else a chance at life.

I was devastated, both for myself and for the stranger I’d already granted a small claim on my body.

And yet.

And yet.

That mammogram, a test I would not have scheduled for at least six more months, caught my cancer early. I was eventually diagnosed with invasive lobular breast cancer, a type that can be difficult to spot in its early stages.

I did, in fact, have surgery–a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction–during the cold, dark Vermont winter, and spent much of December and January near my wood stove, knitting a very lumpy and misshapen shawl. By the time the ground thaws and the trails dry this spring, I will have healed enough to go trail running, split firewood, and heave giant stones out of my garden.

What’s more, Chandler received his kidney transplant this winter after all. Someone else stepped up around the same time I dropped out. She filled out her registration form, went through rigorous medical testing, and successfully donated her kidney. Because her donation was part of a transplant chain, her direct recipient and Chandler Jackson have a chance at life free from kidney disease.

My initial motivation for donating a kidney may have been altruistic, but in a reversal so common it’s cliché, I gained everything I’d hoped to give.

And yet many couples find that even after learning each other’s supposed love languages, something still feels off. They may be “speaking” the right language but not feeling deeply loved or satisfied, research suggests. Or they may feel loved in one moment and neglected in another, despite no change in their partner’s intentions. These frustrations raise an important question: What if the problem is not that we are speaking the wrong language but that we are using the wrong metaphor altogether?

What if love is not best understood as a language at all? An alternative view—one grounded in decades of relationship science—suggests that love is better understood as a menu, offering partners multiple ways to show care rather than a single mode to master. Healthy relationships, like healthy bodies, do not thrive on a single ingredient. They require a range of essential nutrients, offered flexibly and adjusted over time.

This mindset shift—from languages to menus—does not dismiss people’s experiences of feeling especially moved by certain acts of love. Instead, it reframes those experiences in a way that is more accurate, more inclusive, and ultimately more helpful for sustaining long-term connection.

Why the love languages metaphor stuck—and where it breaks down

To understand why the love languages idea resonated so powerfully, it helps to appreciate what it offered at the right cultural moment.

First, it gave people a vocabulary. Many couples struggle not because they don’t care, but because they lack words for what they need. Saying: “My love language is quality time” can feel easier—and less vulnerable—than saying: “I miss you even when we are together.” Second, it offered clarity and a framework. Five categories. One primary language. A clear diagnosis. In a domain as messy and emotional as love, that kind of structure can feel stabilizing. Third, it suggested a straightforward solution: Learn your partner’s language and speak it more often.

But these strengths are also where the metaphor breaks down. Framing love as a language encourages a narrowing logic: the idea that there is a “right” way to express care for a partner and that effort invested elsewhere may not register. It suggests stability, treating preferences as fixed traits rather than shifting needs. And it encourages matching: the notion that success depends on aligning your care with your partner’s “language,” rather than responding flexibly to what they need in each moment.

What research reveals about feeling loved

Relationship science paints a different picture. When researchers study how people actually experience love in their relationships, three consistent patterns emerge.

1. Most people value many forms of love, not just one. When we asked people to rate how meaningful different expressions of love feel—such as affection, support, time together, encouragement, or help during stress—they tended to rate all of them highly. Very few people consistently value only one type of loving behavior while finding others unimportant. In fact, when people are forced to choose a single “primary” love style, their choices often do not match how they respond when each form is measured independently. This suggests that love preferences are not zero-sum. We don’t stop needing emotional support because we enjoy physical affection, just as we don’t stop needing protein because we like carbohydrates.

2. Feeling loved depends more on responsiveness than matching. What predicts relationship satisfaction is not whether your partner expresses love in a specific preferred way, but whether they are responsive to your needs, engaged in the interaction, and willing to show care across contexts. Love does not falter when partners fail to express care, but when they fail to notice what care is needed. A partner who brings flowers every Friday may be “speaking” a love language, but if they don’t notice when their partner is overwhelmed, grieving, or quietly disengaging, the gesture can start to feel hollow. Recent interviews showed that small, consistent acts of effort—such as remembering a partner’s preferences or doing something meaningful without being asked—were experienced as deeply affirming, even when they were not tied to a partner’s “preferred” love language.

3. Love unfolds across situations, not traits. What feels loving in a relationship often shifts as life unfolds. A couple in their 20s might feel most loved through shared adventures and quality time, while the same partners years later—with demanding jobs, caregiving, or health challenges—may value practical help or emotional reassurance. After an illness, a loss, or a period of physical separation, expressions of love that once felt sufficient may no longer meet a partner’s needs.

In this way, relationship needs are not fixed traits but living responses to the circumstances of people’s lives. Any framework that treats love preferences as static traits risks flattening this complexity.

A better metaphor: Love as a menu

What might a more accurate metaphor look like? Imagine love not as a language you must learn to speak and decipher, but as a menu you return to again and again. In this framing, different expressions of love are like different nutrients. Some nutrients may matter more at certain times. Too much reliance on one “favorite” can leave other needs unmet. Health comes from balance, not speaking one language with perfect fluency.

You may love dessert, but you would not thrive on dessert alone. You may prefer protein, but you still need fiber and vitamins. Likewise, you might especially appreciate verbal affirmation, but without trust, care during hard times, shared joy, or accountability, affirmation alone will not sustain intimacy. This metaphor removes the pressure to “get it exactly right.”

Instead of asking: Am I speaking my partner’s language?, couples can ask more generative questions: What does our relationship need more of right now? Which forms of care have we been neglecting? How can we broaden—not narrow—the ways in which we show up for each other?

Expanding the menu: We show love in more ways than just five

When we asked people to describe, in their own words, how they give and receive love—an expanded menu emerged. Alongside familiar expressions like affection, gifts, or time together, people described love as showing up emotionally when life is hard, encouraging a partner’s personal goals, and taking responsibility when things go wrong. They also described experiences of playfulness, shared joy, and practical forms of care that support everyday well-being. Just as important, many people described feeling loved when they were welcomed into their partner’s circle of friends, family, and community.

These forms of love often matter deeply—sometimes more than the classic categories—but they are rarely highlighted in popular frameworks. Yet they are precisely the behaviors that sustain trust, resilience, and satisfaction in close relationships.

Why menus are more inclusive than languages

Another strength of the menu metaphor is that it is more culturally and relationally inclusive. The love languages framework emerged from a relatively narrow context and reflects particular assumptions about relationships—often prioritizing romantic exclusivity, traditional gender roles, and direct forms of expression.

But people’s relational lives are far more diverse. For some couples, love means cheering each other on from parallel paths; for others, it means dividing responsibilities and carrying the load together. Neurodivergent partners may find that touch, conversation, or time together require different forms of coordination and care. And when illness, disability, or caregiving enter the picture, love often shifts away from grand gestures toward reliability, flexibility, and staying present.

A menu allows for this diversity. It does not require identifying a single primary form of care or treating other expressions as secondary or optional.

When love languages become limiting

Although the love languages idea was intended to foster understanding, it can sometimes backfire in subtle ways. Some couples might use love language labels to avoid responsiveness: “That’s not my love language” becomes a reason not to stretch, adapt, or grow. Others might become overly focused on matching, worrying that incompatibility in love languages signals deeper relational problems, despite no evidence that matching itself predicts relationship success. And some people might begin to undervalue care that does not fit their label, overlooking meaningful acts simply because they aren’t delivered in the “right” form.

The menu metaphor gently disrupts these traps by emphasizing that love is not about specialization but responsiveness across domains. What matters is not whether care fits a category, but whether it meets a need.

Practicing love as a balanced diet

What does this look like in everyday life?

In practice, instead of asking, “What’s your love language?,” couples might ask more open-ended questions: When do you feel most supported by me? What feels missing lately? What kinds of care feel hardest for us to give or receive? These questions invite nuance and change, shifting the focus from fixed labels to lived experience.

Practicing love as a balanced diet also means building range rather than striving for perfection. No one excels at every form of care, and the goal is not mastery, but a willingness to offer different kinds of love over time. In our research, people who identified strongly with a single “favorite” love language tended to feel less satisfied with their relationships and less certain about their partner’s care, suggesting that rigid preferences may reflect unmet needs or inflexibility.

Preferences still matter. They can offer useful information about what types of care and affection are likely to land most strongly. But they work best as guides, not rules—helping partners decide where to invest effort without eclipsing other forms of nourishment a relationship needs.

Love as ongoing care

Perhaps the most important implication of the menu metaphor is this: Love is not a one-time translation problem to be solved, but an ongoing practice of care. Relationships thrive not because partners perfectly match, but because they remain attentive, flexible, and responsive as needs evolve. They flourish when love is treated not as a fixed style, but as a living system—one that requires nourishment, adjustment, and renewal.

When we stop asking whether we are speaking the right language and start asking whether we are offering a nourishing range of care, we open the door to deeper connection. Love, it turns out, is not about fluency. It’s about choosing what the relationship needs from the menu.

This apparent contradiction is at the heart of How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most, a new book by happiness scholar Sonja Lyubomirsky and relationship scientist Harry Reis.

The pair surveyed a representative sample of 1,998 American adults and found that two-thirds yearned to feel more loved or loved more often by the people in their lives, and 40 percent wanted to feel more loved by their romantic partner. The authors noted a strong negative correlation between loneliness and feeling loved, expressed qualitatively in comments like, “I have plenty of friends, and I spend a lot of time socializing. But honestly? I don’t know if anyone deeply loves me.”

How to Feel Loved vividly expresses the disconnect between people in our lives expressing love and our experience of feeling that love, and puts the power back in our hands. Lyubomirsky and Reis make a powerful case that by approaching our relationships with vulnerability, curiosity, self-acceptance, and optimism, we can get the love we need. They outline specific strategies for shifting our mindsets and interpersonal interactions to achieve more rewarding outcomes.

I spoke with Lyubomirsky and Reis about the research underlying their book and their recommendations for readers.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: The collaboration at the heart of this book–a happiness scholar teaming up with a relationship scientist–seems long overdue. What are you trying to achieve with How to Feel Loved?

Sonja Lyubomirsky: A lot of people are loved, but they don’t feel loved. And if you don’t feel loved, it’s as though it’s not there. What I have discovered in my research is that feeling loved and feeling connected is really the key to happiness. Almost all of the interventions shown to make us happier, the reason they work is they make us feel more connected to and loved by others. We know relationships are so important to happiness; the Harvard Adult Development Study is very famous for showing that. Then Harry and I started talking and we realized happiness researchers and love researchers don’t really talk as much as they should.

KRL: Your book has such potential to make a difference because people have relationships, they have social connections, but they don’t feel loved, and that often leads to despair and spiraling. How does this connect to our epidemic of loneliness?

SL: Loneliness is such a huge problem, especially among young people, and really, a lonely moment is a moment where you don’t feel loved. So they’re very, very connected, very, very relevant to each other.

Harry Reis: Most people, when they go about trying to get more love, they do it in a way that not only is wrong, but may actually be counterproductive. And so what we’re trying to do is give people a new approach that we believe will be more effective.

One of the ironies in this is that when people are in unsatisfying relationships, that may actually be a more devastating feeling than not being in relationships. When you’re alone, when you’re isolated, you can engage in self-fulfilling activities. But when people are in an unhappy relationship, they begin to question: “Why is this unsatisfying? Is there something wrong with me? Am I not doing things right?” And that can actually be a more powerful negative feeling than being isolated.

SL: We also had this realization that for a lot of problems in relationships, often the source is a sense of not feeling loved, or not loved enough. Take the show Couples Therapy. You see the couple fighting and it’s so obvious that at the root of it is that no matter what he does, she’s not feeling loved; no matter what she does, he’s not feeling loved enough.

KL: In the book, you write about the relationship saesaw, which you intentionally misspell using the word “sea” to align with your metaphor that many of our personal attributes are hidden underwater. Can you explain what you mean by that, and how it functions when it’s done well?

HR: The relationship seasaw is the idea that there’s a reciprocal process of lifting and being lifted in this dynamic interaction. When you lift somebody up, meaning you support them, you encourage them, you show curiosity about what makes them tick, it makes them feel good, it makes them feel loved, but it also encourages them to reciprocate that feeling, and so then they can lift you up. There is this dynamic back and forth between opening up and then listening and encouraging the other. That gives people a sense of connection, a sense of chemistry.

SL: Another way to think about it is that the key to feeling loved is to be truly known to the other person, and also to truly know the other person. It’s like an underwater seasaw. Most of us are kind of underwater. We’re not really showing most of ourselves to the other person. We’re only showing the tip, maybe only the positive sides of us. By pressing down on the seasaw with curiosity and warmth and acceptance and listening, we’re helping the other person reveal more of themselves and to share more. Otherwise, it’s actually kind of hard to take down those walls we keep around ourselves. Fortunately, reciprocity is a really powerful norm of social behavior–it’s evolutionarily adaptive, obviously–and the other persons will reciprocate by showing curiosity and warmth and acceptance toward us, as well as encouragement and support, and by really listening to our story. That doesn’t actually happen that often.

KL: It really is a powerful revelation that feeling more loved is within our control. It has the potential to truly change lives through the new mindsets and the actions that you outline. So you can’t explain everything that took you 300-plus pages in the book, but can you give a brief overview of the five mindsets–Sharing, Listening to Learn, Radical Curiosity, Open Heart, and Multiplicity–and pull out one or two of them to discuss in more depth?

SL: I feel like our book has an empowering message, because most people, when they think about feeling more loved, they think, “I need to make myself more lovable, more desirable, more appealing, show off to the other person how wonderful I am.” But it’s not about changing yourself; it’s not about changing the other person; it’s about changing the conversation. Because a relationship really is a series of conversations.

The mindsets are five different perspectives that we encourage people to embrace as they approach their next conversation with their romantic partner, or their neighbor, or their mom, or their colleague.

I’ll start with the sharing mindset. I might feel that maybe you wouldn’t love me if you really got to know me, all my messy, complicated sides and contradictions and my negative qualities. Sharing allows us to take down our walls a little bit. But you have to share at the right pace. We’re not talking about revealing your deepest secret or trauma right away.

It might be starting small, like, you might ask me, “How are you?” And instead of saying, “Fine,” which is what we almost always do, I say, “Oh, well, I actually had kind of a rough morning,” or “I’m struggling a little today.” Or, it could just be saying something real, your true opinion about something that’s going on.

HR: When people don’t feel loved, often what they think is, “You need to make me feel more loved.” Of course, that kind of thing usually doesn’t work very well. It’s externalizing the problem. It’s putting pressure on the other person. It’s better to change the conversation in a way that can allow a loving conversation to happen, rather than waiting for the other person to do something, because that can often be more like waiting for Godot.

When we listen to another person, we’re often preparing our response. That distances you from the other person. It doesn’t allow you to connect with them. The listening-to-learn mindset is the idea that you need to really pay attention so that you can actually learn something about the other person. You need to be curious about what they’re saying. And then—and this is the important part—you need to encourage them to go deeper. One of the most powerful things you can say is a simple three-word phrase: “Tell me more.”

SL: The first step in helping yourself to feel more loved is to try to make the other person feel more loved, by listening to them, helping them open up, showing curiosity in them, and showing warmth and acceptance. But one thing that surprised us is when we wrote our first draft, we sent it to a few friends and colleagues. Two friends of mine wrote to me: they’re not psychologists, but they’re writers and smart people. They told us that our book led them to break up with their girlfriends. One guy said, “Your book made me realize that she’s not really sharing.” The other guy said, “I realized my girlfriend has stopped showing curiosity about my work,” which was very important to him.

So we created a diagnostic quiz. It’s on howtofeelloved.com, our book website. It will tell you what your strongest mindset is, and what’s the mindset that’s in most need of improvement, and then we give some tips on how to do that.

HR: If both people are committed to the relationship and want to work on it, this can be a powerful stimulus to improving the relationship.

SL: We have this sort of inner chatter. As I’m talking to you, even now, I’m thinking what I’m going to say next. I’m thinking what I’m going to have for lunch. To quiet that inner chatter and truly be present, we all can do that, but we just need practice. All of these mindsets are totally accessible.

KL: Finally, could you talk about the multiplicity mindset, Sonja?

SL: Actually, the word comes from trauma research. The idea is that when you have a trauma, it doesn’t define you. You are a person with many, many, many facets. We contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said. We are like a quilt of both positive and negative qualities.

Sometimes I’m kind, and sometimes I’m selfish, and sometimes I’m loyal, and sometimes I’m narcissistic. We’re all of those things; they’re all a spectrum. Try to recognize that in other people. Sometimes they might reveal something a little bit uncomfortable, or a little bit negative. Try to look at that with this lens of multiplicity. Again, the idea is that one bad action doesn’t define us. We have these messy insides; we have a lot of contradictions. Embracing the multiplicity mindset really helps us feel more loved—not just by others but by ourselves, too.

KL: You are challenging people to grow and be their best selves. Even though many of these steps are simple, at heart, to accept your own self and be comfortable revealing, and then accept others is demanding a lot from folks.

SL: It takes a lot of effort. All of our mindsets take effort, they take intention, and they sometimes are challenging, but so worthwhile.