I am no counselor or relationship expert. However, I do run into relationship issues while I coach business executives.

What I have noticed is that the biggest lament for women in a relationship (marriage, common law) is lack of expression, appreciation, and priority.

Women find men to be misers in expressing their love and appreciation and give priority to other things (business, sports) compared to the relationship.

Men, on the other hand, are confused. No matter what they do, women can find fault with them.

If men started to take every opportunity to express their love and appreciation and assign priority to their relationship and women started to pick their battles, things can improve. It would be good to do a weekly checkpoint of how this is working out as follows:

⁃       what worked well last week?
⁃       what could have been done better?
⁃       what are the goals for the coming week?

I believe when an important relationship is rock solid in terms of communication, respect and understanding the rest of the challenges are far easier to handle. When the foundation of an important relationship is shaky, the rest of your life gets impacted!