Vishen LakhianiFounder of Mindvalley | NYT Bestselling Author | Transforming Lives Globally

How to stop arguing in relationships | Dan Savage

5 Apr 2022 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:54

A short excerpt from a YouTube video in which Dan Savage explains the idea of a "price of admission" in relationships: living with a partner requires accepting some compromises and behaviors you won't like, and you must decide which are acceptable trade-offs (and stop repeatedly complaining about them). He illustrates with anecdotes about household habits and an extreme political dealbreaker.

Chapters

If you pay a certain amount to ride a roller coaster and you complain the whole time you're on the roller coaster about how much it f Cking costs to get on the roller coaster, the price of admission wasn't worth it. But if you're with somebody, there's going to be prices of admission. You have to pay to be with this person. You're not going to get everything you want. Settling down requires some settling for. You have to decide for yourself, is that a price of admission I'm willing to pay to be in this relationship? And if it is, you not only pay the price, you shut the f up about how much it costs. My husband eats the sandwich and gets up and leaves the plate on the table and everything on the counter. And for the first 11 years we were together, I would go screaming after him to come downstairs and put all this shit away. And then one day, instead of chasing him after and nagging him, I just put it away. And I stood there thinking to myself, this is the price of admission I'm willing to pay. Or one of them to ride this ride. If he had voted for Donald Trump, not a price of admission I would have been willing to pay.