Let’s get real for a minute: Humans are really annoying. We are selfish, competitive, and very judgmental. While we can work against our competitive natures, this tendency, which was borne out of the biological drive to survive, can cause all kinds of problems in our relationship.

To understand how this happens, let me walk you through a brain characteristic called the negativity bias, which has been helping us stay alive since we began walking the planet.

Negativity bias is the psychological phenomenon where we give more weight to negative experiences, information, or emotions than to positive ones. This bias influences various aspects of our cognition and behavior, impacting how we perceive and interact with our romantic partners. Seeing the negative more powerfully kept us alive because seeing the flowers was nice, but remembering where the sabertooth tiger was kept us alive.

We no longer need to outrun the tigers; this bias shows up in our relationships every day, and we have to work hard to understand and counteract it. We focus on the negative because it has the potential to hurt us in our relationships. When our partner forgets something, we feel unimportant and hurt. Our........

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