Welcome to my Blog
Thank you for stopping by. This space is where I share research, reflections, and practical tools drawn from my experience as a marriage and family therapist.
Are you a couple looking for clarity? A professional curious about the science of relationships? Or simply someone interested in how love and resilience work? I’m glad you’ve found your way here. I can help with that.
Each post is written with one goal in mind: to help you better understand yourself, your partner, and the hidden dynamics that shape human connection.
Grab a coffee (or a notebook), explore what speaks to you, and take what’s useful back into your life and relationships. And if a post sparks a question, or makes you realize you could use more support, I’d love to hear from you.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
~Daniel
P.S.
Feel free to explore the categories below to find past blog posts on the topics that matter most to you. If you’re curious about attachment, navigating conflict, or strengthening intimacy, these archives are a great way to dive deeper into the research and insights that I’ve been sharing for years.
- Attachment Issues
- Coronavirus
- Couples Therapy
- Extramarital Affairs
- Family Life and Parenting
- How to Fight Fair
- Inlaws and Extended Families
- Intercultural Relationships
- Marriage and Mental Health
- Married Life & Intimate Relationships
- Neurodiverse Couples
- Separation & Divorce
- Signs of Trouble
- Social Media and Relationships
- What Happy Couples Know
Autistic Partner and Social Media Conflict in Marriage: Why It Happens and How to Heal
It’s 10 p.m. Your spouse has just posted what looks — to you — like a press release on your family’s private business.
Or maybe they’re scrolling TikTok while you’re baring your soul. You feel dismissed.
They feel confused. Suddenly, the marital argument isn’t about the dishwasher, the finances, or the in-laws. It’s about Facebook.
If one of you is autistic, the fight isn’t really about the post. It’s about two brains running on different Wi-Fi networks.
Hybristophilia: Why Women Fall for Criminals — From TikTok to Ayn Rand
Ted Bundy got marriage proposals in prison. Richard Ramirez, the “Night Stalker,” had fangirls camping outside the courthouse.
And today? TikTok is the new courtroom balcony, where millions publicly swoon over killers in slick edits set to sad-girl audio.
There’s a word for this: hybristophilia — sexual attraction to criminals. It sounds like a rare orchid, but psychologists use it to describe a very old phenomenon: finding danger desirable.
A recent study confirms TikTok is fueling it, showing that actively engaging with videos that romanticize criminals predicts higher hybristophilia scores among young women.
Personality traits like psychopathy and Machiavellianism were the strongest predictors (Treggia et al., 2024). Simply scrolling past Bundy edits doesn’t count. Clicking “like” does.
Your Heartbeat Knows If You’ll Survive Boot Camp — Or Your Marriage
What if ten seconds of your heartbeat could predict not just who becomes a commando, but who stays married, gets promoted, or survives IKEA?
That’s the claim hovering over new research from the University of Haifa, published in Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.
A quick measure of heart rate variability (HRV)—the subtle rhythm in the milliseconds between beats—may reveal who thrives under stress and who crumbles.
Anti-Natalism: The Bleak Philosophy That Life Isn’t Worth Beginning
David Benatar, the South African philosopher behind Better Never to Have Been (Wikipedia), argues that bringing new people into existence is always wrong.
His case is stark: life inevitably contains suffering, nonexistence contains none, therefore the kindest act is not to procreate.
It’s philosophy as prophylaxis: the only foolproof way to prevent human suffering is to prevent humans. In other words, it has all the nuanced thinking of a Trojan condom.
Love, Sex, and Loneliness: What Really Changes When You Start Dating
For centuries we’ve been told that coupling is the ticket to happiness.
Fairy tales, romantic comedies, your aunt at Thanksgiving—everyone promises that life improves dramatically the moment you find “the one.”
But science, ever the party guest who insists on facts, has a more measured story: yes, relationships help, but mostly in a few predictable areas.
A new study in Social Psychological and Personality Science (Qin, Hoan, Joel, & MacDonald, 2025) suggests that entering a relationship does indeed boost well-being, though not in the miraculous way culture has long promised.
LGBTQ+ Couples Therapy for Infertility: What the Research Really Says
Infertility is rarely kind, but for LGBTQ+ couples, it’s a double bind.
You face not only the grief of cycles that don’t work but also the absurdity of some clinics that don’t recognize your family.
Queer infertility therapy isn’t a luxury—it’s how couples keep from drowning in both the science and the silence.
Infertility never arrives as a polite guest. It doesn’t knock, it doesn’t call ahead.
It barges in, drops its bags in the middle of your living room, and declares it’s staying for an indefinite period of time.
For most couples, infertility brings grief, financial strain, and awkward silences at dinner parties.
For LGBTQ+ couples, infertility drags along a second, less visible shadow: decades of systemic exclusion, medical erasure, and cultural suspicion of queer families.
The 7 Most Dangerous Marital Argument Dynamics
Every couple fights. Some quarrels are trivial — the thermostat set to “monk’s cell” vs. “Miami Beach.”
Others are theatrical enough to scare the dog.
But the most toxic fights?
They’re the ones that corrode trust, hollow intimacy, and, according to the latest APA-cited research, even raise your inflammation levels.
Yes, the wrong argument can change your biology. Marriage: the only romance that doubles as a stress study.
If you’ve ever walked away from a fight feeling like it took more than it gave, this list is for you.
Here are the seven most dangerous marital arguments — the ones most likely to sabotage your health and your relationship.
The 2025 Best Practices for Fighting Fair
Fighting is inevitable. The only couples who “never fight” are lying, repressed, or heavily sedated.
The rest of us fight about money, dishes, politics, sex, in-laws, phones, and whether the thermostat is set by science or sorcery.
In 2025, fights don’t happen in private. They happen in group chats, over family dinners, in multigenerational households, and sometimes with your AI scheduling assistant chiming in: “Would you like me to resolve this conflict for you?” No thanks, Siri.
This is not a call to avoid fighting. It’s a manifesto for fighting fair.
How Attachment Styles Shape the Way Couples Fight (and Make Up)
Every couple fights. The question isn’t whether you’ll fight, it’s how.
Some couples argue like trial lawyers, stacking exhibits and cross-examining witnesses.
Others retreat into silence like diplomats waiting for their visas.
Some cry, some slam doors, some negotiate like grown-ups at the U.N. And, infuriatingly, some laugh and make up before you’ve even finished your sentence.
Why the difference?
Often it’s not about the topic of the fight (“you left the dishes again”), but the attachment styles each partner brings into the relationship.
Attachment isn’t just about childhood wounds and therapy jargon. It’s the emotional blueprint that determines whether you lean in, pull away, or regulate together when the tension rises.
The Silent Treatment vs. Healthy Pauses: Knowing the Difference
We’ve all heard it: “silence speaks volumes.”
In relationships, silence can indeed say everything — but sometimes it says the wrong thing entirely.
There’s the silence that soothes, that gives each partner space to breathe and self-regulate.
And then there’s the silence that burns: the stonewalling, the deliberate freeze-out, the “you’re dead to me until further notice.”
The first is a pause. The second is punishment.
One strengthens intimacy; the other corrodes it. And confusing the two is how couples slip from conflict into cold war.
Why “Never Go to Bed Angry” Is the Worst Relationship Advice
Everyone’s heard it: “Never go to bed angry.”
It’s passed around at weddings, stitched on throw pillows, and quoted as if embroidered clichés can save a marriage.
The fantasy is tidy: hash it out, kiss, and drift off in blissful peace.
But reality—and neuroscience—say otherwise.
Midnight is not when love triumphs. It’s when your brain is cranky, your patience is frayed, and your words are more destructive than healing.
Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do for your relationship is to go to bed angry—and wake up with your brain restored.
Have We Passed Peak Social Media?
Social media once felt like the mall on a Saturday — crowded, noisy, fluorescent, alive.
Today it feels like a mall in decline: the lights buzz, the escalator groans, and the only kiosk left is an AI screen trying to sell you sunglasses no one wants.
In 2025, Meta and OpenAI doubled down on this ghost mall.
Meta launched Vibes, an AI-powered short-video feed. OpenAI rolled out Sora, a TikTok-style platform where every single clip is synthetic.
If that sounds less like “social media” and more like a novelty conveyor belt, you’re catching on.
And just as they flooded the feed with auto-generated spectacle, people started slipping quietly out the side door.