![]() Even when Cutler walked on campus by herself, people would call out, “Hi, LizandTom!” The new couple became known for their inseparability. Kreutz even took it upon himself to learn things that she cared about, like teaching himself Hebrew while working on a factory line one summer. It was hard to find something Kreutz couldn’t do: One day, she’d learn that he knew how to scuba dive another, she’d discover that he put his climbing skills to use by scaling the side of Duke’s chapel. He marveled at all that Cutler had done: ballet, karate, camping, canoeing, climbing. “I remember sitting in that tree and just falling in love right there,” Kreutz told me. A few days later, they continued that debate for five hours while perched in the branches of a camellia tree. (She would later realize that the true offender was a Kreutz look-alike.) Over dinner, this argument shifted into a debate about the opposing moral principles of Cutler’s Judaism and Kreutz’s Catholicism. Cutler was convinced that Kreutz was the guy with whom she’d spent an entire night dancing-and who sometimes acted as if he didn’t know her when she saw him on campus. The two walked through the cafeteria, trays in hand, arguing. Taken aback, Kreutz said, “I don’t even know you.” She tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Hey, how come sometimes you’re so nice, and sometimes you’re such a jerk?” T he first time Cutler and Kreutz spoke, she was standing behind him in a cafeteria at Duke University in 1974. Researchers and clinicians have also come to discover what Cutler and Kreutz figured out on their own-that when tackling challenges in relationships, having a little distance and a recurring calendar invite can help. Partners are then able to focus on solving problems and to do so cooperatively and creatively-sometimes even finding delight in the process. For them, preplanned meetings in which both parties are prepared for difficult discussions drain some of the most painful emotions from conflict. Read: The secret to love is just kindnessĬutler and Kreutz, and other partners who have systems of scheduled disagreement, have discovered that delaying hard conversations has the potential to fortify, not corrode, relationships. Stockpiling grievances, many therapists warn, invites resentment and sets the stage for partners to erupt. ![]() We’re told not to “bottle up” hard feelings, let annoyance fester, or go to bed angry. The challenge-which can make the difference between a lasting, satisfying partnership and one that combusts-is figuring out how to manage conflict constructively.Ĭonventional wisdom treats the passage of time as an adversary. It’s a system they’ve adhered to for more than 40 years.Īny psychologist will tell you that conflict is both an inevitable and a vital part of a close relationship. ![]() They would talk about their frustrations only in scheduled meetings-which they held once a year for a time, and later, every three months. ![]() The list was Cutler’s way of honoring a promise she and her husband had made. On it she would scribble down her grievances: maybe Kreutz had stayed late at work without giving her a heads-up, or maybe he’d allowed their kids to do something she considered risky. F or decades, when Liz Cutler’s husband, Tom Kreutz, did something that bothered her, Cutler would sometimes pull out a scrap of paper from the back of her desk drawer. ![]()
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