In successful relationships, both partners feel emotionally secure, connected, and comfortable being themselves around each other. But for many of us, romantic relationships can bring out our deepest insecurities.

As a Harvard-trained psychologist who works with couples, I often tell people that emotional security in a relationship starts with seeing yourself as worthy of love, and trusting that your partner is accepting, caring, and truly committed — through the highs and the lows.

Couples who truly trust each other use seven phrases every day, and they should be relationship goals for all of us.

Feeling safe in a relationship means never having to hide parts of yourself. You are comfortable being vulnerable when talking about painful or difficult topics because you trust that your partner will respond with compassion, not judgement.

Similar phrases:

• “Thank you for loving me as I am.”
• “I appreciate that I can be myself with you.”

Trust is the foundation of emotional security. You believe that your partner’s words and actions align, whether you’re together or apart. You know who they are and you believe they have your best interest in mind.

Similar phrases:

• “Thank you for being respectful of me and our relationship.”
• “We’re a team, and I trust that you want what’s best for the both of us.”

Even the most emotionally secure couples have conflict. What differentiates them is how they handle it. They don’t panic or threaten to leave during disagreements because they trust that the relationship can weather the storms.

Similar phrases:

• “One tough phase doesn’t mean it’s over for us.”
• “Let’s figure this out together.”

People who trust their partners don’t feel threatened during time apart. Alone time feels natural. They respect each other’s need for independence, knowing that it strengthens the relationship.

Similar phrases:

• “I’m glad you’re making time for yourself.”
• “Thanks for giving me the space when I need it, too.”

Missing someone doesn’t mean you’re clingy — it means you’re connected. Even when you support each other’s personal space, you still look forward to being together.

Similar phrases:

• “Being apart helps me realize how grateful I am for you.”
• “I’m excited to see you when you get home.”

Secure relationships make room for hard conversations. When something feels off, you’re not afraid to speak up because you believe your partner will be nurturing and listen with care.

Similar phrases:

• “There’s something I’d like to check in about.”
• “I’ve been feeling a little off and I want to make sure we’re okay.”

Looking forward to the future, whether it’s date night or a shared life goal, indicates mutual investment in the relationship. You see your partner in your long-term vision, and they see you in theirs.

Similar phrases:

• “Can we go over our schedules?”
• “I’m really looking forward to our trip.”

Sharing intimate information about ourselves with our partners isn’t easy. It makes us vulnerable — and if we aren’t met with empathy, it can really hurt.

But the goal is to be in a relationship where we can be fully seen, fully known, and fully accepted. It doesn’t happen overnight, though. It requires conscious effort, and it means learning to accept yourself first, seeing your partner for who they truly are, and committing to growing together over time.

Dr. Cortney S. Warren, PhD, is a board-certified psychologist and author of the new book “Letting Go of Your Ex.” She specializes in romantic relationships, addictive behavior, and honesty. She received her clinical training at Harvard Medical School after earning her doctorate in clinical psychology from Texas A&M University. Follow her on Instagram @DrCortneyWarren or Twitter @DrCortneyWarren.

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At 66 years old, one Sherman Oaks, California-based mom thought she’d be enjoying an empty nest with her husband. Instead, she’s sharing her home with an unexpected roommate: her 27-year-old daughter.

Since their 27-year-old moved back home in early 2024, the mother, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her daughter’s identity, says she and her husband are spending close to $5,000 a month covering all of her daughter’s living expenses, including food, transportation and health care.

Because of the increased expenses, she says they’re no longer going on vacation this year, and her husband, a radiologist, may have to delay retirement.  

“We were not planning on this kind of expenditure at this point of our lives,” the mother says. “The reason we do it is because we don’t want to see her on the street.”

The couple join a growing number of parents who say their finances have been affected by children aged 18 to 35 moving back home. One survey published in May by financial services provider Thrivent found that nearly 40% of U.S. parents say supporting their adult children has impacted their savings goals — the highest percentage since the survey began four years ago.

The parents from Sherman Oaks say their relationship with their daughter has become so strained that they’ve turned to Kim Muench, a parenting coach who specializes in young adults, for guidance.

Muench says “a good majority” of her clients have been affected financially by their adult children living at home. Many parents aren’t traveling like they typically would, are pushing off retirement and are forgoing other self-care expenses.

“Parents sometimes hesitate to get help for themselves and invest in their health … because they’re already spending more than they would like to support their adult or emerging adult children,” she says.

While using short-term savings to support adult children may mean missing a vacation or not going out to dinner as often, dipping into long-term savings or delaying retirement can lead to financial challenges later in life — especially if health issues or age make it difficult to keep working, experts say.

Some decisions, however, aren’t always driven by a lack of money: “I would say 80% is emotional, 20% is financial from the parents,” Muench says.

Many of her clients forgo vacations because they don’t trust their kids to stay home alone, Muench says.

The father from Sherman Oaks says that retirement wouldn’t just mean a loss of income, it would also mean losing access to his employer-sponsored health care — which currently costs the couple close to $600 a month for their daughter.

“At this point, I was hoping to do a lot more travelling … we’ve really put that on the back burner,” the mother says. “I thought my husband and I would have the house to ourselves with the dogs, and we wouldn’t be worried sick about her all the time.”

While many parents are happy to care for their adult children when they first move back home, there’s usually an expectation that the move will be temporary, Muench says. However, a lack of communication between parents and children, especially around finances, can often leave parents feeling stuck in a long-term living arrangement.

“When their son or daughter is not taking [financial responsibility] on incrementally, they actually get very worried that they will be financially providing for the rest of their lives,” Muench says.

Muench says parents can work with their adult children by having open, calm conversations to define financial boundaries together.

Instead of taking drastic measures, Muench suggests parents introduce gradual financial boundaries to help young adults build responsibility with support. Ask them to start small, she says, such as taking over their phone bills or putting a weekly portion of money away in a separate savings account to mimic paying rent.

“It takes consistent conversations, because it’s probably not going to happen in the first conversation,” Muench says. “And it takes an emotional maturity level on both the parents and the emerging adult side to figure out how they can work together.”

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Venture capitalist Harry Stebbings faced a wave of backlash in June after urging European startup founders to increase their work hours — but he now admits there’s some room for nuance when applying his mantra.

Stebbings, founder of 20VC, a firm managing $650 million in funds, advised founders on LinkedIn last month that “7 days a week is the required velocity to win right now,” to compete with startups in Silicon Valley and China.

The post went viral, to Stebbings’ surprise, and sparked a debate on whether China’s brutal “996” work culture — which means working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week — is needed in Europe.

The conversation is rooted in a persistent stereotype that Europe’s tech and startup scene is lagging behind the U.S. and China, which have produced trillion-dollar tech giants and are known for implementing long working hours.

The U.S. is home to the biggest tech firms in the world, such as Meta, Google, Amazon, and Apple. China meanwhile houses giants like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent.

Seven founders and VCs shared why they’re resisting the 996 push with CNBC Make It at the time.

“What Europe really needs isn’t more hustle-porn, it’s more aggressive funding,” Sarah Wernér, co-founder of Husmus, said back then.

Speaking to CNBC Make It about the fallout, Stebbings said that he wasn’t prepared for the criticism he received, and that his original post didn’t apply to the vast majority of people who responded.

“I think it’s everything that’s wrong with Europe, that backlash,” Stebbings said. “We are fighting against companies being built in Silicon Valley, and speed and the ability to move fast, really determines success, in AI especially.”

He added: “When you go to the Valley now, and when you go to China now, they are working seven days a week in the fastest-growing companies. It’s that simple. So, if you want to be a $10 billion company in Europe, competing against them, you can’t do it on a nine-to-five, Monday to Friday.”

As companies build more important products, Stebbings said the bar is higher than it used to be.

“We should be working harder than ever because we’re working to solve more important problems than ever,” he said.

But European startups are struggling to access funding at the growth stage. Atomico’s State of European Tech report of 2024 showed that, since 2015, Europe’s tech startups have missed out on nearly $375 billion in growth-stage funding, with founders losing out on a potential $300 billion in European investments.

Husmus’ Wernér said that the right level of capital is needed for European startups to work intensely without breaking themselves. “If a team of 10 is burning out to keep up with a 50-person U.S. VC or Chinese government-backed startup, the problem isn’t their stamina, it’s their cap table.”

However, Stebbings pinned this down to poor marketing and said Europeans aren’t great fundraisers compared to their American counterparts. “I don’t think it’s a lack of access to cash at all, and in terms of the work ethic there, if you think that you can build a $10 billion business and work five days a week, then I’m sorry to say, you’re deluding yourself.”

Some founders have even been “badly” advised to include exit slides in their pitches, he added. “That makes me feel sick, like I’m planning my divorce when I get married.”

In stark contrast, Americans are much better at telling exciting stories when they promote their businesses. “I think, often in the U.K., we downsize in ambitions.”

Ultimately, Stebbings admitted that he jokes with the “marketing facade” of 996, but that it’s a more nuanced picture than working all the time.

“I think that’s [996] very ignorant to do,” he said. “if you don’t allow people breaks in there and a gym workout, it’s just moronic.”

Stebbings said that 100% dedication is essential in the first five years — but that doesn’t mean abandoning health, wellness, and family.

“There is nuance. I’m not saying miss dinner with friends or family or just sit at your desk all day, and I’m some horrible person, absolutely not. It’s really important to turn off and have a couple of hours away from your computer and just be with friends.”

Stebbings himself tries to spend as much time as possible with his sickly mother, who has multiple sclerosis (MS), including walking a marathon with her every Sunday. He jumps straight back to work after.

But it’s unrealistic to expect employees to adopt the same attitude, he acknowledged.

“One of the hardest things about running a company is you will never find someone who cares about it as much as you do, the founder… I think it’s unreasonable to ever expect that they will work as hard as you.”

Suranga Chandratillake, general partner at Balderton Capital, previously told CNBC Make It in June that the focus on hustle culture in the tech industry is about “a fetishization of overwork rather than smart work…it’s a myth.”

He said: “California is very good at telling stories, and there’s a lot of mythmaking around the concept of what startups look like.”

Stebbings now agrees with this view and said hustle culture is “over-glamorized” in the States.

“If you go into a WeWork in San Francisco at 7 p.m., they’re not all working like we see on social media… they overly pronounce it when it’s not really true, but for the 0.01% in the Valley, it’s so true, and they are there and working harder than ever.”

For many Black Americans, moving abroad has been the key to an easier way of life — one where their skin color isn’t cause for concern.

″[Black expats] really see a kind of oasis for them to really create the life that they dreamed of in a way that’s financially feasible, safe and a bit more inclusive than what they found in the United States,” says Darcel Duncan, senior brand manager at Travel Noire, a website dedicated to Black travel experiences.

While racism still exists in other countries, many of the Black expats CNBC Make It has spoken to report fewer experiences with discrimination while living abroad.

“I think I have found and ultimately achieved the American dream outside the U.S.,” Adalia Aborisade, who moved to Mexico City in 2017, said in 2023.

While the U.S. has made progress toward racial equality since periods like the Jim Crow era, Black Americans still routinely experience racism in social interactions, financial transactions and work environments. But when living abroad, some Black expats say they’re seen as simply American, rather than being defined by their skin color.

“As I’ve traveled around the world, I’m typically an American first,” Jamal Robinson, who lives in Dubai, said in January 2025. “Quite often people are not as used to Black people traveling and being in whatever the space is. So it’s almost like you’re celebrated, and people will come up to you and they want to talk and engage with you.”

In the U.S., Cara West experienced common forms of discrimination, like store owners or associates following her around or keeping a watchful eye as she shopped. But she says that hasn’t happened since she left the country. West and her family lived in several different countries before moving to Greece in 2024.

“I’m not worried about someone following me around at the store or treating me differently because of my skin color,” she told Make It in 2024. “I’m just seen as an American here.”

Like Robinson, some Black expats also report celebrations of their diversity.

“In Costa Rica, I feel that people are treated as humans first, because that’s not always been my experience in the United States,” Kema Ward-Hopper, who left the U.S. in 2018, said in 2024. “I feel like I’m seen as a Black woman first [in the U.S.] and that doesn’t have the positive connotation that it does here in Costa Rica.”

Many Black expats are also taking advantage of better economic opportunities and work-life balance.

“In the U.S., we are thinking that everything is due right now. Everything is urgent. Everything is kind of a house on fire,” says Wanida Lewis, who lives in Accra, Ghana. “Here in Ghana it’s like, ‘OK, you know what? Yes it’s important, but also I need to take care of myself and figure out what’s more important before I get there.’”

Nicholas Hopper, Ward-Hopper’s husband, agrees their family is “definitely happier” living in Costa Rica. He owns a logistics business and Ward-Hopper works several part-time jobs, including as an author. They quit their corporate jobs in the States to pursue a life in Costa Rica.

Working for themselves has given the couple more flexibility to choose how they spend their time. While they’re earning less money, they’re “still living pretty comfortably … our money definitely goes further here than in the U.S.,” Ward-Hopper said. 

“I’ve gained my family back,” Hopper said. “I’ve gained the opportunity to spend time with them and create more freedom in myself, but also freedom within our family to explore our dreams and our passions.”

In addition to having more time and money, some expats appreciate the ease with which they can see even more of the world.

“It is truly such a more fulfilling, richer life abroad,” West said. “The experiences that we’ve been able to have as a family abroad, just being able to see the world, to meet new people, to experience a new language, cultures, traditions, it’s just so special and something that we aren’t really exposed to enough in the United States.”

Are you ready to buy a house? Take Smarter by CNBC Make It’s new online course How to Buy Your First Home. Expert instructors will help you weigh the cost of renting vs. buying, financially prepare, and confidently navigate every step of the process—from mortgage basics to closing the deal. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through July 15, 2025.

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