ACT with Love

1. Unmasking the Myths: Love is an Action, Not a Feeling

So in view of all this, I’d like to suggest a more helpful way to think about love. Instead of a feeling, think of love as an action.

Shatter illusions. Many relationships are sabotaged by unrealistic expectations, fueled by popular culture and ancient myths. These myths suggest a perfect partner exists, that they will "complete" you, that love should be effortless, and that it will last forever as a blissful feeling. Believing these sets you up for disappointment and frustration when reality inevitably clashes with fantasy.

Feelings are fleeting. Emotions, like the weather, constantly change. The intense "honeymoon phase" feelings of love are temporary, lasting an average of six to eighteen months. When these feelings fade, many mistakenly conclude the relationship is over. However, this is precisely when the opportunity arises to build an authentic, deeper connection based on reality, not drug-induced fantasy.

Love as action. True, lasting love is not a static emotional state but a dynamic, ongoing process of action. You can choose to act with love even when the feeling of love is absent, such as reaching out after an argument despite still feeling angry. This empowers you, as you can control your actions, unlike fleeting emotions.

2. Recognize the DRAIN: What Saps Life from Your Relationship

No matter what your specific problems are, you will find there are five basic processes underlying it—five processes that are guaranteed to drain all the intimacy and vitality out of a relationship.

Identify the DRAIN. Relationships often suffer from five core processes that deplete intimacy and vitality. Recognizing these patterns in yourself first, then in your partner, is crucial for initiating positive change. These processes are:

• Disconnection: Withdrawing, being cold, or caught up in your own thoughts.
• Reactivity: Acting impulsively, mindlessly, or automatically, driven by emotions.
• Avoidance: Trying to escape unpleasant feelings through distraction, opting out, or substances.
• Inside your mind: Getting lost in unhelpful thoughts, judgments, and grievances.
• Neglecting values: Failing to act in alignment with who you truly want to be as a partner.

Vicious cycles. When one partner disconnects, the other often retaliates, creating a downward spiral. Reactivity leads to self-defeating behaviors, while avoidance prevents addressing challenging issues, leading to stagnation. Getting lost inside your mind obscures your partner and hinders effective action.

Impact on vitality. These DRAIN processes collectively suffocate a relationship, replacing warmth and intimacy with emptiness and stress. Understanding them is the first step toward reversing their effects and consciously choosing behaviors that breathe life back into your connection.

3. Embrace Your Power: Focus on What You Can Control

Our aim in ACT is to help you make the most of your life—and the more you learn to focus on what is in your control, the more empowerment and fulfillment you will experience.

Control your actions. While many relationship books focus on influencing your partner or understanding differences, ACT emphasizes focusing on what is within your direct control: your own actions. You cannot force your partner to change, cooperate, or respond as you wish, but you can always control how you behave.

Four options for relationships. When facing a problematic relationship, you have four fundamental choices:

• Leave the relationship.
• Stay and change what can be changed (primarily your own actions).
• Stay and accept what cannot be changed.
• Stay, give up, and do things that make it worse.
  Choosing to focus on your own actions (options 2 and 3) leads to empowerment, while option 4 guarantees increased suffering.

The paradox of control. By shifting your focus to your own behavior and values, you often find your partner spontaneously makes positive changes. When you become easier to be around—more open, warm, and less demanding—your partner is more receptive and likely to respond in kind. This doesn't mean letting your partner walk all over you, but rather taking responsibility for your side of the street.

4. The LOVE Framework: Your Path to Psychological Flexibility

LOVE is not just an acronym: it is a useful way of thinking about “love” itself. If you think of love as an ongoing process of letting go, opening up, valuing, and engaging, then it is always available to you—even when the feelings of love are absent.

Cultivate flexibility. The core of ACT for relationships is developing "psychological flexibility," which means being present, open, and doing what matters. This is encapsulated in the acronym LOVE:

• Letting go: Releasing unhelpful thoughts, judgments, and past grievances.
• Opening up: Making space for painful feelings instead of avoiding them.
• Valuing: Taking action guided by your deepest desires for who you want to be.
• Engaging: Being psychologically present and focused on your partner with genuine interest.

Interconnected elements. These four elements are deeply interconnected. When you let go of blame, it's easier to open up to feelings. When you open up, you can better connect with your values. When you act on your values, you engage more fully. This holistic approach helps you navigate challenges and deepen your bond.

Everlasting love. By viewing love as an ongoing process of LOVE, it becomes something you can actively do at any time, regardless of your emotional state. This empowers you to build a resilient, meaningful relationship that can withstand the inevitable ups and downs of life, fostering connection, caring, and contribution.

5. Acknowledge Mutual Pain: The Foundation of Compassion

So if you’re hurting, it’s guaranteed that your partner is hurting too. And as you start to recognize that you are both in the same boat, both hurting from a relationship that has turned out very differently from the way you would have liked, there comes a possibility of responding differently: with kindness and caring rather than resentment or rejection.

Shared suffering. In any intimate relationship, conflict and disappointment are inevitable, leading to pain for both partners. It's easy to get caught up in your own suffering and forget that your partner, too, experiences hurt, fear, or sadness, even if they express it as anger or withdrawal. Recognizing this shared humanity is a crucial step towards healing.

Cultivate compassion. Compassion, meaning "suffering together," involves noticing another's pain with kindness and a genuine desire to help. When you acknowledge your partner's pain, even if it's hidden beneath anger or defensiveness, you create an opportunity for a different response—one of caring rather than further conflict. This shift can break vicious cycles of blame and resentment.

Non-judgmental description. To foster compassion, practice describing issues factually rather than with harsh judgments. Instead of "He's a lazy slob," try "He doesn't often help with housework." This helps you see your partner as a person, not a problem, and allows for mindful listening, creating a safe space for both to open up about their deeper, more vulnerable feelings.

6. Defuse from Psychological Smog: Don't Get Trapped by Your Thoughts

It is not your thoughts themselves that create the smog. They only turn into smog if you hold on to them!

The smog of the mind. Your mind constantly generates "psychological smog"—a toxic blend of unhelpful thoughts, scary predictions, rigid attitudes, harsh judgments, and painful memories. This smog obscures your vision of your partner and prevents you from living by your values. Common layers include:

• "Should" statements (e.g., "He should know what I want")
• "No point trying" beliefs (e.g., "It's too late to change")
• "If only" fantasies (e.g., "If only he would get his act together")
• Painful past memories and scary future predictions
• Reason-giving excuses and harsh judgments about your partner

Fusion vs. defusion. The problem isn't having these thoughts; it's fusing with them—getting caught up and believing them as absolute truth. Defusion is the process of separating from your thoughts, seeing them as mere words or pictures in your mind, rather than letting them control you. Techniques like "I'm having the thought that..." or "naming the story" help create this distance.

Regain clarity. When you hold thoughts tightly, the smog thickens, blinding you to your partner's true self and your own values. By loosening your grip, the smog disperses, allowing you to see clearly and act effectively. This doesn't eliminate the thoughts, but it reduces their impact, freeing you to choose responses aligned with your desired partner identity.

7. Anchor in Mindfulness: Navigate Strong Emotions with Grace

When the life is draining out of you, when you’re suffocating in painful thoughts and feelings, then all you need to do is breathe mindfully.

Feelings are not "good" or "bad." Emotions are simply pleasant or painful experiences, not moral judgments. Judging feelings as "bad" leads to struggle, intensifying their impact. To live a full human life means experiencing the full range of emotions, and mindfulness provides a way to handle them without being overwhelmed.

Avoidance vs. awareness. When strong feelings arise, people often resort to avoidance (distraction, opting out, thinking strategies, substances) or automatic pilot (mindless, impulsive reactions). These strategies offer short-term relief but are unworkable long-term, draining vitality. The alternative is acceptance and awareness, allowing feelings to be present without controlling your actions.

NAME your feelings. A powerful mindfulness technique for handling emotions is NAME:

• Notice: Observe the feeling in your body, its location, temperature, and movement.
• Acknowledge: Label the feeling (e.g., "Here's a feeling of anger") to create distance.
• Make space: Breathe into the feeling, imagining space opening around it, allowing it to be.
• Expand awareness: Broaden your focus to the world around you, engaging with the present moment while the feeling remains.
  Mindful breathing acts as an anchor, grounding you in the present and helping you respond effectively, even in emotional storms.

8. Engage Fully: The Gift of Your Presence

One of the greatest compliments you can pay another human being is to give them your full attention.

The antidote to disconnection. In the early stages of a relationship, partners are captivated by each other, giving full attention. Over time, this often fades as the mind creates a "static portrait" of the partner, leading to boredom and criticism. Engaging is the conscious act of giving your partner your full, mindful attention, seeing them anew each moment.

Mindful engagement practices:

• Be mindful of expression: Observe facial cues for emotions.
• Be mindful of body language: Notice movements, posture, and gestures.
• Be mindful of speech: Pay attention to tone, rhythm, words, and emotional overtones.
• Cultivate curiosity and openness: Ask questions, listen with genuine interest, and let go of distracting thoughts.

Beyond the painting. Engaging means separating the person from the mind's "painting" or caricature. It's about being genuinely curious, open, and present, treating your partner as someone you're still discovering. This deepens connection, combats boredom, and sends a powerful message of respect and care, fostering intimacy.

9. Fight Fairly, Repair Swiftly: Transforming Conflict into Connection

His research clearly shows that what makes a relationship healthy is not the amount of fighting but the manner in which you do it.

Conflict is inevitable. All couples fight; the key is how they fight. Destructive fighting involves harsh criticism, contempt, and resentment, causing deep wounds. Healthy fighting, however, is characterized by warmth, openness, and lightness, leading to mild wounds that heal quickly. The goal isn't to eliminate conflict, but to transform it into an opportunity for growth and connection.

Letting go during conflict. To fight fairly, you must let go of unhelpful stories and tactics. This includes:

• Naming recurrent arguments: Giving playful names to "pet arguments" (e.g., "The Housework Story") to defuse tension.
• Using humor: Agreeing on humorous signals to lighten the mood and remind each other to let go.
• Revisiting "I'm right, you're wrong": Recognizing this pervasive story and choosing to prioritize relationship building over winning.
• Letting go of the last word: Ending the cycle of escalation by consciously choosing not to prolong the argument.

Repair attempts. John Gottman's research highlights the critical role of "repair attempts"—any words, actions, or gestures aimed at de-escalating conflict and reconnecting. Both sending and receiving these attempts mindfully are vital. This means dropping your armor, revealing your pain, asking for a cease-fire, or offering a sincere apology, and being open to your partner's efforts.

10. The Power of Appreciation and Asking Nicely

When others show appreciation, we feel valued; we feel as if our efforts are noticed and that we make a difference.

Appreciation fuels connection. Humans universally desire to be acknowledged and appreciated. When you genuinely appreciate your partner, they feel valued, which strengthens your bond and motivates positive behavior. Conversely, taking them for granted leads to feelings of irritation, disappointment, or loneliness. Mindfulness helps you notice and value the countless contributions your partner makes, big or small.

Cultivate appreciation:

• Daily notice: Identify at least three things you appreciate about your partner each day.
• Contemplate contributions: Reflect on how your partner enriches your life.
• Recognize strengths: Acknowledge their personal qualities and strengths.
• Express gratitude: Verbally communicate your appreciation, even for small actions.

Ask nicely, not demand. When seeking to get your needs met, asking politely and respectfully is far more effective than demanding, threatening, or sulking. While your mind may protest with "shoulds" (e.g., "I shouldn't have to ask"), focusing on workability reveals that a friendly request is more likely to yield cooperation and preserve goodwill. If a request is denied, mindfulness allows you to respond flexibly: persist calmly, explain importance, negotiate, compromise, or accept for now.

11. Accept the Reality Gap: You Can't Always Get What You Want

The larger the gap is between what you want and what you’ve got, the more it hurts.

The reality gap. In any relationship, there will be a gap between what you want from your partner and what you actually get. This gap inevitably causes painful feelings like disappointment, frustration, anxiety, or sadness. Your mind can exacerbate this by telling unhelpful stories (e.g., "It's not fair," "He should be different"), intensifying your suffering.

Mindful response to unmet needs. You cannot stop these feelings from arising, but you can choose how you respond. Instead of getting caught in the gap, practice mindfulness:

• Get present, breathe deeply, and acknowledge the feeling.
• Notice and name the unhelpful stories your mind tells.
• Ask yourself: "Is there some other way to meet this need?" or "Can I satisfy this need myself or through other relationships?"

Values over needs. Distinguish between your values (what you want to do or be) and your needs (what you want to get). While it's important to express needs, you have ultimate control over acting on your values. If a need remains unmet despite your best efforts, you can choose to accept this reality, make room for the discomfort, and continue living by your values, finding vitality within the pain.

12. Build Trust and Intimacy: Willingness and Vulnerability

Allowing someone to “see the real you” is commonly called “intimacy.”

Intimacy as "making known." Intimacy is a deep connection where you willingly allow your partner to truly know you—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. This involves vulnerability and risk, as opening up exposes you to potential criticism, judgment, or rejection. However, without this willingness, relationships inevitably lack depth.

Building trust and safety:

• Take baby steps: Share small feelings or opinions, observing your partner's response.
• Validate feelings: Acknowledge and accept your partner's unique thoughts and feelings, even if different from your own. This creates a "safe space" for them to open up.
• Mindful trust: After betrayal, trust must be mindfully rebuilt through consistent, observable actions of honesty, reliability, responsibility, and competence over time. This is not blind trust, but earned trust.

Sex and connection. A healthy sex life is often a reflection of the overall relationship. Reversing the DRAIN in other areas paves the way for better sexual intimacy. Apply LOVE to sex: let go of unhelpful expectations (e.g., orgasm as the sole goal), open up to new experiences, value connection and sensuality over performance, and engage mindfully in physical touch. This fosters a deeper, more pleasurable bond.

Last updated: October 3, 2025