Ask anyone what they think keeps a relationship strong, and they will probably tell you it’s love. There’s some truth to that: love is what draws us together in the first place.

But after years of studying couples as a psychologist, and as a husband, I’ve realized something that research keeps confirming: The real factor that keeps couples together, long after the honeymoon phase fades, is compromise.

Psychologists define love as an emotion. And like all emotions, love fluctuates with stress, sleep, health, and the thousand of other factors that shape our daily lives.

So you can love your partner deeply and still get annoyed, frustrated, or angry with them. Love won’t shield you from conflict, nor will it solve your disagreements.

That’s why even the happiest couples argue and have rough patches, regardless of how much love they have for each other. The difference is that strong couples know love can’t fix everything — but compromise can.

Compromise happens when you balance what you want, what your partner wants, and what’s best for the relationship itself.

Every couple brings together a set of habits, values, and experiences. Expecting perfect alignment is unrealistic. Instead, healthy couples learn to negotiate their reality. They turn “my way” and “your way” into “our way.”

But compromise only works when it’s rooted in a strong sense of we.

Research shows that couples who describe their conflicts using “we” language (we decided, we talked, we figured it out) feel more connected and satisfied after disagreements. When both partners see compromise as a shared effort, not a loss, it strengthens the bond between them.

Compromise doesn’t always look romantic. Sometimes it means agreeing to watch a movie you’d never choose yourself. Other times, it means listening to your partner vent about something while resisting your desperate urge to offer solutions.

In my own marriage, I’ve learned that a relationship rarely demands massive sacrifices. Instead, you’ll be presented with the choice of whether or not you’re willing to meet your partner halfway.

Today, it might be who takes on which chores. Tomorrow, it might be about how you spend your evening together. Next month, it might be about how you navigate your family holidays. It might involve finding middle ground, taking turns, or agreeing to something else that neither of you had considered.

What matters is that you’re both heard and respected, and that no one feels that they have to “win” or “be right.” When you consistently make enough space for one another’s needs, you’ll build something that love alone rarely does: reliability.

Mark Travers, PhD, is a psychologist who specializes in relationships. He holds degrees from Cornell University and the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the lead psychologist at Awake Therapy, a telehealth company that provides online psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching. He is also the curator of the popular mental health and wellness website, Therapytips.org.

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If you want to raise successful, resilient kids, help them find activities they actually like, says psychologist Angela Duckworth.

Instead of forcing your children to try a specific sport or instrument, spend time exposing them to a variety of extracurriculars and take note of what they spend the most time thinking about, Duckworth said on an Oct. 13 episode of “The Mel Robbins Podcast.”

Guiding kids to activities they’re interested in can help them find their passions, hobbies and maybe even their future careers, said Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who researches mental and emotional “grit.”

“I think great parenting, a lot of it is noticing what your young people is thinking about,” Duckworth said, adding: “When we begin to notice where our mind lives, when we begin to notice what attracts our attention spontaneously, that is the beginning of discovering the interests that can make us something of a genius about what we do.”

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Kids who learn to stick with their interests, even on difficult days, can develop their confidence and resilience — two traits that can help them find success later in life, said Duckworth. Your child might pick a sport or hobby and then decide they don’t like it, but it’s important for them to finish that athletic season, or keep rehearsing that musical instrument just through their next concert, she added.

Duckworth referenced her own experience as a parent. Her child Lucy “hated doing homework and practicing her viola,” but when Duckworth looked at Lucy’s iPad, she noticed that “all of the tabs were open to baking videos,” she said. Duckworth also saw Lucy reading their family’s cookbooks, she noted.

Lucy ended up “volunteering in restaurants washing dishes, [then] was allowed to assist the pastry chef,” Duckworth tells CNBC Make It. “She was doing pastry literally every weekend and every summer all the way from 8th grade to, I guess, 12th grade … Her lifelong interest in food and cooking is still evident.”

Not every interest has to become a full-fledged career. If you just follow what you like to do, you might not necessarily make much money, bestselling author and New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway told CNBC Make It in 2019.

“Don’t follow your passion,” Galloway said. His advice instead: “Find out what you’re good at and then invest 10,000 hours in it — and become great at it.”

For Duckworth, interest is just one of four building blocks on the path to building grit, which her research shows is the most common characteristic among successful people in any field. The others include hard work, purpose and hope.

“Anybody who becomes great at what they do, there is a curiosity there, right? Their mind comes to this subject and wants to stay there,” Duckworth said. “When you start talking about something that you really care about, you’re a genius [on it], because that is where your mind lives.”

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

By 2020, Ashley Cleveland needed a break.

In July of that year, the now 41-year-old was laid off from a job at a tech firm. Spending much of her adult life balancing 60-hour workweeks, mostly in marketing, with raising two young children had taken a toll on Cleveland’s mental health, a feeling she hadn’t quite put her finger on until she began speaking with a therapist.

“I was extremely burnt out,” she tells CNBC Make It. “And I wasn’t really aware that I was struggling with anxiety and depression.”

The diagnosis from her therapist allowed Cleveland to make a claim on her long-term disability policy, which, in turn, gave her the financial flexibility to take a step back and evaluate her situation.

“I really checked in with myself and wanted to ask the question, ‘If life ended now, would you really be satisfied with the story?’” she says. “While I had lived a great life, had worked in some of my dream jobs, had all of the cool things, the nice trinkets, there was still that desire to live outside of the U.S., and it was becoming more and more desirable with all of the political unrest and the racial tension.”

After talking with a friend living abroad and doing some research, Cleveland, along with her daughters, packed their bags for Tanzania in October 2020 — a move that Cleveland envisioned as a multi-month sabbatical.

It didn’t take long for her to fall in love with living in Africa. “It really restored my spirit. My physical body was better, I was feeling better, I was sleeping better, I was looking better,” Cleveland says.

These days, Cleveland and her daughters, ages 14 and 7, live in Cape Town, South Africa, where Cleveland runs a number of businesses, all aimed at helping people travel to, live in and invest in the continent she now calls home. Altogether, her ventures bring in around $122,000 a year.

For much of her 20s and 30s, life was a rollercoaster for Cleveland. After graduating from Florida State University in 2006, she spent years in high-energy jobs, working in promotion and marketing at radio stations and record labels, and even putting in a stint at a hedge fund.

In 2007, she tried her hand at being a landlord and flipping houses — a move she says put her deep into debt during the 2008 housing crisis and resulted in her filing for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy.

In 2011, she moved from Atlanta to Miami to take her then-dream job in marketing for Red Bull. Months later, she received news that her sister had been killed, leaving behind a 5-month-old daughter. Cleveland soon left the job and moved back to Atlanta to support her niece, who she officially adopted in 2014.

Three years later, Cleveland was pregnant with a second daughter when she discovered her company did not offer maternity leave.

“It radicalized me,” she says, especially when she learned of fatality rates among Black mothers in her state. A 2019 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights found that Black women in Georgia were 3.3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than were white women.

During her time in Tanzania, Cleveland visited South Africa, and knew immediately she wanted to make a home there.

However, actually moving was easier said than done. To secure residency in South Africa, Cleveland had to travel home in 2021 to file necessary paperwork and make the necessary arrangements to move with her daughters.

A few years later, Cleveland was able to move back to Africa with her daughters, settling in South Africa in 2023 and moving to Cape Town, the country’s second-largest city, earlier this year.

One of the things Cleveland learned was that she could build community around her journey — and monetize it. In 2021, while preparing for her move, Cleveland started a YouTube channel, which now has around 86,000 subscribers.

“It was just a way for me to share … the ways that I was allowed to be a better mother, a better woman, and ultimately just a better person that was now living in alignment with my values,” Cleveland says.

The message resonated with viewers, who soon began asking Cleveland how they could replicate her journey. So she started charging for 1-on-1 consultations and selling digital guides for people interested in traveling to or living in Africa.

She has since expanded the business to include digital and in-person community events, brand partnerships and consultations for those looking to relocate to Africa or invest in local businesses. In 2022, her first year, Cleveland’s businesses brought in roughly $6,000, she says. This year, she’s on track to top $122,000 — enough to live a comfortable lifestyle in a place where she feels truly fulfilled, she says.

“I feel a sense of freedom. I feel a sense of empowerment. I feel a sense of internal joy that I had to fight for daily living in the U.S.,” she says.

Here’s how Cleveland spent her money in August 2025.

• Business expenses: $2,754 on employee pay, online business solutions, supplies
• Housing and utilities: $1,914 on rent, Wi-Fi and power
• Discretionary: $1,802 on apparel, beauty, entertainment and other miscellaneous expenses
• Food: $1,209 on dining and groceries
• Household: $1,063 on a housekeeper and goods for the home
• Kids: $970 on homeschooling for her daughters and children’s items
• Life insurance: $500
• Phone: $115
• Subscriptions and memberships: $84 on a gym membership and a credit monitoring service
• Rideshares: $82

Cleveland and her daughters live in a 3-bedroom apartment in the Sea Point neighborhood in Cape Town, which rents for about $1,750 a month.

For Cleveland, whose work is location independent, finding balance between work and family life is key. On a light day, she might work five hours. On a busier day, such as when she hosts community events, it might look more like 10.

“I am very intentional about not hustling. I used to work a lot of hours. It was very common for me to work 60-hour work weeks,” she says. “But I definitely found a way to enjoy what I’m doing and the time that I spend on my work, as well as the time that I spend with myself and my family.”

Cleveland is able to afford a full-time housekeeper, which runs her about $450 a month. It’s well worth it, she says, since it takes many of the daily tasks which would eat up her time off her plate. A tutor helps with her daughters’ homeschooling — a necessity until both can enroll in local schools at the start of term in January.

As a result, Cleveland’s time with her family is richer and more abundant, and she’s able to be a more present mother, she says.

Cleveland says she’s trying rebuild her investment portfolio, much of which she liquidated during the process of moving to South Africa. While she has around $54,000 sitting in retirement accounts, she’s betting on a different path to build her long-term wealth.

“In this stage of my life, after going through all that I went through, I realized my No. 1 is my ability to earn an income,” she says.

To that end, she’s retained the services of a business scaling coach with the goal of cracking $1 million in revenue in 2026. Cleveland says plans are on track, “and I don’t see things going anywhere but up from there.”

One consistent personal investment she makes is about $500 a month in life insurance premiums to policies which benefit her children if something happens to her.

Cleveland plans to file for permanent residency in South Africa, which she sees as a forever home for her and her daughters. While she acknowledges that moving around in recent years has caused some upheaval, Cleveland says it was well worth it to be able to live and raise her children somewhere they can feel free and empowered to pursue the things they want.

“I hope that they remember from this time that I moved to make a life better for all of us, where we could feel safe, where we could feel seen and where we could feel secure in our future and not have to fight for freedom, but to get to experience that every day.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that Cleveland’s income is paid in U.S. dollars.

All amounts are in U.S. dollars. Any amounts converted from South African rands used the OANDA exchange rate of 17.68 ZAR to 1 USD on Aug. 31, 2025.

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The earlier you invest, the more time your money has to grow. But figuring out the exact accounts to use can feel overwhelming.

After setting aside money to cover daily expenses in a checking account and three to 12 months of expenses in a savings account, you should start looking into putting any additional income into three different investment “buckets,” says Jaime Bosse, a certified financial planner and senior advisor at CGN Advisors in Manhattan, Kansas.

“If you have too much in cash, you’re actually losing money to inflation,” Bosse says. “Any extra dollars you have should be invested in growing for the future.”

With three investment accounts, you’ll have more flexibility to tap your money when you need it and more control over your tax bill now and later because each “bucket” offers different benefits, Bosse says.

How to best allocate your money across the different types of accounts will vary based on your income and situation, she says, but the bottom line is you should be using them to your advantage. Be sure to speak with a trusted financial professional for individualized advice.

Here are the three buckets she suggests and how they work.

1. Tax-deferred bucket

Examples: Traditional IRA, 401(k), 403(b)

Tax-deferred accounts, like a traditional 401(k) or individual retirement account, let you contribute pre-tax money from your paycheck into an investment account. This lowers your taxable income for the year you contributed, and your investments grow tax-deferred until retirement.

Withdrawals are taxed as income and usually penalty-free starting at age 59½. Taking money out earlier may trigger taxes and a 10% early withdrawal penalty.

2. Tax-free bucket

Examples: Roth IRA, Roth 401(k), Roth 403(b)

You contribute money you’ve already paid taxes on to Roth accounts. Your investments then grow tax-free, and once you reach 59½, qualified withdrawals aren’t taxed or penalized. Roth IRAs, in particular, also add flexibility by allowing you to withdraw money you’ve contributed at any time without penalty.

These accounts are ideal if you expect to be in a higher tax bracket in the future or want tax-free income later on, Bosse says.

3. Taxable bucket

Example: brokerage accounts

Taxable brokerage accounts let you invest money after taxes and withdraw at any time without penalty. While you’ll generally owe taxes on any realized gains, these accounts offer maximum flexibility for expenses outside of retirement, like a down payment on a house or a vacation, because you can access your money whenever you need it, Bosse says.

You don’t have to open all three accounts at once, says Patrick Huey, certified financial planner and owner of Victory Independent Planning in Portland, Oregon.

Start by checking to see if your employer has a company match program where they will contribute an additional amount to your retirement accounts that matches your own contributions.

Early in your career, Huey suggests contributing to a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b) instead of a tax-deferred 401(k) because you’ll likely earn a higher salary as you get older — making it smarter to pay taxes now when you’re in a lower tax bracket.

However, even if it is through a tax-deferred account, “if there’s a match available, you should do what it takes to get it,” because it’s free money from your employer that boosts your retirement savings, Huey says.

Generally, experts recommend saving around 15% of your annual income before taxes for retirement, including any company match.

Bosse says the purpose of splitting your money into three accounts is to give yourself options, whether it’s to make big purchases, lower your current tax bill or reduce what you’ll owe in the future.

“I would think of it in terms of not investing for your retirement, but investing for your future flexibility,” Bosse says. When you have money in your three buckets, “You can be working because you want to, not because you need to. You can travel the world. You can do other things.”

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“My child won’t tell me anything about their day!” It’s a common concern I hear from parents in my psychotherapy office. They’re hoping to gain a glimpse into their child’s world. But asking “How was school today?” usually leads to a one-word answer.

As a therapist and the author of “13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do,” I encourage parents to ask questions that are thoughtful and spark meaningful conversations. When kids reflect on their experiences, they practice skills like emotional awareness, problem-solving, and empathy, and develop a growth mindset.

Here are seven questions that lead to productive conversations while also helping kids grow mentally stronger:

This question encourages kids to scan their brains for positives. For children who dislike school or tend to focus on what went wrong, answering this question helps them build optimism and gratitude — which are both protective factors for mental health.

Frame the question with your own experience, saying, “The best part of my day was going for a walk during my lunch break. What about you?” Your child might share a highlight, like, “I played kickball at recess.”

This one normalizes errors and celebrates healthy risk-taking. Talking openly about mistakes reduces shame and helps kids see them as opportunities for growth.

Ask with a tone of curiosity, not judgment: “Did anything happen today that you’d do differently next time?” This might prompt them to say, “I forgot my library book so I’m going to pack it tonight so I don’t forget.”

It works because it turns their attention to others and cultivates empathy. You will also gain insight into your child’s relationships and what they value.

Make the question more specific by asking, for example, “Did you see anyone try really hard at something today?” Your child may talk about a friend who was brave or might give themselves a pat on the back and say, “My friend forgot her snack so I shared mine.”

This question helps kids identify feelings like frustration and disappointment without dwelling on those experiences. It naturally opens the door to problem-solving and planning.

You can ask in a fun way, such as, “If you had a magic wand to change one thing about today, what would it be?” This can lead to creative ideas, like, “I wish there was more time for my art project so maybe I’ll bring it home to finish it.” 

You can empower kids to engage in prosocial behavior with questions like this. When you ask regularly, kids begin to look for opportunities to be helpful and acts of kindness become second nature.  

Ask about small acts of contribution: “How were you a helper today?” They might remember something simple, like, “I helped the teacher pass out papers.”

It emphasizes curiosity over academic performance. Showing interest in the learning process itself fuels lifelong learning.

Encourage kids to talk about what they learned aside from just their subjects. They may share a fun fact, like, “I learned that my teacher knows how to play the violin.” Show interest and ask follow-up questions to keep the conversation going.

This nudges kids to look outside their comfort zone and encourages them to be courageous. They don’t have to be good at something in order to try something new — it’s a learning experience. 

If your child hesitates to try new things, encourage an experiment by asking, “Is there a club or activity you’re curious about just trying once?” They may be more likely to explore if they know they don’t have to stick with it forever.

Amy Morin is a psychotherapist, clinical social worker and instructor at Northeastern University. She is the author of several books including “13 Things Strong Kids Do: Think Big, Feel Good, Act Brave” and ”13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do.” Her TEDx talk “The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong” is one of the most viewed talks of all time. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

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