Blog | Relationship Resources for Couples & Individuals

How to Write Wedding Vows That Set Your Marriage Up For Success

Vows that set a marriage up for success trade promises to do it all for intentions to do our best—especially in the hard times. Anyone who’s been married can tell you that, for all of the joy and love, there’s just as many fights and betrayals. The question is: how will we repair and grow stronger each time? Vows are an opportunity to address this very question. And, when done well, vows can be a compass to return to every time we lose our way. Read more on how to trade promises for intentions and a beautiful writing exercise for wedding vow drafts or as an ongoing activity do to throughout your marriage.

Letters From Esther #33: Making and Breaking Wedding Traditions

My monthly newsletter and workshop is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Making and Breaking Wedding Traditions.

The Myth of Unconditional Love in Romantic Relationships

“Relational Ambivalence” is the experience of contradictory thoughts and feelings—of love and hate, attraction and disgust, excitement and fear, contempt and envy—toward someone with whom we are in a relationship. It exists in every relational configuration, but we put a lot of pressure on romantic love, in particular, to rise above it. Read more on how ambivalence shows up in your romantic relationships and the common responses to it.

Letters from Esther #32: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Our Comfort with Intimacy Has A Lot to do with These 7 Verbs

Love is an active verb. It’s imbued with intention and meaning and contains an implicit call to action. In the language of intimacy, basic fluency comes down to just seven verbs. The experiences that revolve around these shape our beliefs about ourselves and our expectations of others. Read more on the seven verbs of intimacy and how they help us to understand not just how we learned to love and be loved—but how we want to now.

Letters from Esther #31: Inviting Vulnerability

My monthly newsletter and workshop are meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Inviting Vulnerability.

In Long-Term Relationships, When Do You Find Yourself Most Drawn to Your Partner?

Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act in long-term relationships. It requires knowing your partner while recognizing their persistent mystery. Read more on the one simple question that reminds us to appreciate our partner’s otherness and what the four most common responses tell us.

Letters From Esther #30: Appreciating Otherness in Relationships

Letters from Esther #25: Eroticism in Hard Times

Letters From Esther #24: What Does “Single” Mean For You?

Letters from Esther #23: Stories

My monthly newsletter and workshop are meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Stories.

Letters from Esther #22: Small Talk

My monthly newsletter and workshop is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Small Talk.

Letters from Esther #21: Risk

My monthly newsletter and workshop is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Risk.

Letter's from Esther #20: Play

My monthly newsletter and workshop are meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Play.

Letters From Esther #19: Routines and Rituals

Letters from Esther #18: Questions That Meet People Where They Are Now

Finding "The One"

Does "the One" exist? And what does this phrase mean in the context of a new dating reality, with all of the choice and lack of certainty it presents?

How to Engage in Social Connection While Socially Distancing

How do our communities remain emotionally and socially connected when we must be physically apart? Read more on how to stay connected in a time of uncertainty.

Comprehensive Sex Education: Sexual and Relational Health Resources for All Ages

How do you talk to children about sex, relationships, and their body? Here is a resources list to help you start and continue these conversations with all ages.

7 Verbs That Shape the Way You Love

It’s essential to understand and practice the basic verbs when learning a new language. The same goes for practicing how we love in our daily lives. Read more about the seven verbs that shape how you learned to love.

5 Ways Comprehensive Sex Education Makes a Difference

Read more about how comprehensive sex education makes a difference in our lives, the lives of our children, and our society as a whole.

Let Go of Being the "Perfect Partner"

There is no such thing as the perfect partner. It’s time to give up the hope that you can be fault-free, put-together all the time, and just the right amount of independent in a relationship.

Unsent Love Letters - An Introduction

Welcome! Unsent Love Letters is a six-part series of real unsent love letters from people who wrote to a loved one, but in the end kept their words to themselves. Each article includes the original letter, a playful video discussion, and an exercise for those who resonate. Read more to get started.

Unsent Love Letters - Fantasy and Unrequited Love

In this Unsent Love Letter, a woman writes about a future she'll never have with a man she'll never be with. We discuss the themes of fantasy and unrequited love and the ritual of closure. Read more to hear what the letter holds.

Articles

Letters from Esther #65: Is love worth it?

Letters from Esther