Irina Zhuravleva

Discover how well you know your partner with fun questions, quizzes, and tips to boost connection and nurture your relationship.

Imagine meeting someone genuinely kind, who’s emotionally available and treats you with respect. You’d think that would spark something, right? Yet sometimes you feel nothing...

I’ve made some truly terrible choices in my life—really odd, self-sabotaging moves when it came to relationships, careers, and the ways I reacted in anger....

When someone retreats from you, the instinctive reaction might be to chase after them, to reach out, or to try to close the sudden gap...

This one habit ends every conversation — not occasionally, not just with certain people, but every single time. The worst part is that if you...

If someone repeatedly behaves in ways that hurt you—over and over—this is rarely a fleeting phase; it’s a pattern. If they withdraw when you’re upset,...

It can be incredibly confusing to weigh staying in a secure but uninspiring partnership against ending it to chase something more passionate, unpredictable, and risky—with...

If you’re someone who gives freely, you must set boundaries, because people who take won’t do it for you. It’s admirable to be naturally selfless...

You know that moment when someone you love begins to drift — the messages taper off, the calls fade, silence takes over — and your...

When a friend abruptly cuts you off and you can’t figure out why, the simplest explanation might be that the person wasn’t a suitable friend...

If you train someone over time to manage life without you, don’t be shocked when they eventually walk away. Commitment and fidelity mean far more...

Most people who have been in a relationship know what it’s like to fall in love, and many of us have also experienced the pain...

When disrespect in a relationship comes to mind, many picture explosive fights, slammed doors, or an obvious betrayal. But what if the harm is quiet?...

The hard truth is that roughly one out of every three romantic partnerships will face some form of infidelity — that’s the bleak part. The...

How many times have you asked for something that should have been simple and reasonable, only for it to erupt into another argument where they...

There are everyday behaviors you repeat without noticing that quietly undermine your relationships, your self-esteem, and the life you could have. These aren’t dramatic meltdowns...

If you want to recover from the wounds left by childhood trauma, you will find yourself in a confrontation between forces that feel like good...

Let me explain why the Golden Rule can actually work against your relationship. So what is the Golden Rule? In its simplest form it says:...

The quickest way to undermine a relationship is to ignore what it requires to thrive. When people say, “You shouldn’t have needs in a relationship,”...

My fear of being left in the future led me to abandon my own needs in the here and now. I constantly put everyone else...

You’re having an ordinary conversation and someone drops a small comment — “don’t be so sensitive,” “you’re overreacting,” or the one that lands like a...

About 30% of couples — whether dating or married — report experiencing some form of infidelity, and that number only reflects what’s been disclosed. After...

Growing up with trauma affects each person differently, yet the patterns of symptoms that can surface later in life are strikingly similar for many of...

Believe me from hard-won experience: destroying a marriage is almost always much easier than rebuilding one. It takes far less effort to let a relationship...