Mistake #3: You Do The Dishes. Again
Making sacrifices for your partner (i.e. things you may not have wanted to do)—running out to get the dry cleaning when he needs it, dropping the kids off at school when it's his turn—typically brings couples closer. Those acts of kindness tend to reinforce your commitment to one another, but that only holds true after you've had a good day,
research in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships suggests. After stressful ones, relationships didn't benefit when one partner did favors for the other. It could be because when one person has a bad day, both partners suffer—and that frazzled feeling ups the chances of snapping at one another. If you've had a terrible day, consider this a free pass to catch up on the novel that's been sitting on your nightstand and let him deal with resolving that cable bill by waiting on hold forever. (And give him the same pass the next time his day goes south.)
