Today marks 18 years of marriage for my wife and I.

It has been a wonderful, challenging, complicated, hilarious journey thus far and I wanted to share something I’ve learned in the past year that I hope will help you.

It’s embarrassing that it took me more than 17 years to pick up on the following pattern, but most of my schtick revolves around me telling you what I learned from doing things the wrong way, so a certain amount of embarrassment is to be expected.

Here’s the thing: my wife and I get along a lot better when we choose to thank each other for all the little things we do for each other. Things like putting the dishes away, making lunches for our daughter, and cooking dinner are all relatively small things, but things tend to work best for us when we are each generous with our gratitude.

Everyone likes to feel appreciated and celebrating one another’s contributions is a great way to demonstrate how much you value the other person.

It’s a tiny tweak that you can apply to any kind of relationship, and I’d love to hear how it works for you.

In the interest of full disclosure: we also argue about a lot of dumb things. 🙂