Recipe for relationships

Came across the following on relationships. Reflecting back on my experiences with people, I see the truth in the following researched conclusions by a bunch of psychologists. (source: http://thesnapper.com/2009/09/30/happiness-misery-and-relationships/)

Recipe for relationships:

(1) Love maps - getting to know your partner very well.

(a) Invest in understanding - One has to be attune, or emotionally dialed in, listening and remembering every aspect of their partner.
(b) nurture fondness and admiration. Both partners should be fond of the other’s traits, abilities, and accomplishments, admiring them as good things.
(c) triangulation. When the going gets tough, turn toward each other instead of away from each other.
(d) let your partner influence you. Do what your partner tells you to do.
(e) solving the solvable conflicts. Out of all the conflicts a relationship endures, one-third (33 percent) is solvable while two-thirds (67 percent) are unresolvable, also known as perpetual. It is commonly seen in strong well-functioning relationships.

(2) the “Four Horsemen of the Marital Apocalypse,” or what makes relationships miserable, ultimately ending them.

(a)criticism, attacking the spouse personally about their work and the like.
(b) contempt, becoming aloof from the spouse and demanding superiority.
(c) defensiveness, which prevents the spouse from having a word in matters or allowing them a voice of opinion.
(d) stonewalling, as the name states, building an invisible, and metaphorical stone wall between each other that keeps situations unsettled.

Confession to make

For long, I've been a self-proclaimed rice eater for whom chappati will not make the cut. Recent discovery of amazing phulka chappatis at Haveli changed the whole story. Small fluffy thin rotlis in combination with the famous Gujarati dish "Undhiyu" has got me really addicted. If there is one dish I will dare not try making is, Undhiyu. Really tasty dish and apparently very time consuming to make.. I am happy to satiate my cravings with Haveli's Undhiyu with their amazing rotis for months to come :).

Kolbe Index

I picked Oprah's guide to life( some book named like that) which looked like a perfect coffee table book from my friend's place. It had very interesting articles compiled together. One of the articles talked about a woman having difficulty understanding why her brilliant/smart daughter was having a hard time in school all of a sudden. Any amount of effort to help her daughter failed. She and her daughter finally figured the root cause with help of an woman called Cathy Kolbe. The narration of the incident of how her diagnosis was spot-on pushed me to check this out. I went to Kolbe's website which promises to measure your "conative" index and tell you how instinctly you behave on 4 spectrums( fact finder, implementor, follow-through and Quick Start). Her basic principle is to find/understand how you innately react/behave and leverage the upside of that behavior.

In a nutshell, you will lead a happier/healthier/successful life if you play up your strengths and not put yourself in situations unsuitable to your innate characteristics.

I went ahead and took the test. It gave an analysis report, and how I could do better and what to watch out for. Definitely worth checking out.

The definition of the 4 spectrums from the website:

Fact Finder - the instinctive way we gather and share information.
Follow Thru - the instinctive way we arrange and design.
Quick Start - the instinctive way we deal with risk and uncertainty.
Implementor - the instinctive way we handle space and tangibles