The 5 Best New Pieces of Relationship Advice We've Heard

You two need to decide on something big together: Should you buy that house? Should he quit his job? Should you go back to school? Both of you could sit there expressing opinions all night. Or you could borrow a technique suggested by Chris Ertel and Lisa Kay Solomon, who consult with corporations on how to plan strategic meetings. "One powerful way to establish context," write the two in Moments of Impact: How to Design Strategic Conversations That Accelerate Change, "is to create a large visual timeline." A company, for example, might plot key investments over the previous decade. You and your spouse can plot the same things, revealing where you earn or spend your money (versus: how you think you earn or spend it). Other ideas might be to sketch your geographic moves over time or your most important life choices or anything that's relevant to the current discussion. The idea being to create a (literal) picture of the past that illustrates what to do—or not to do—in your future.