Recognising and basking in the brilliance of our beloved is a beautiful thing.
But.
They say (well, F. Scott Fitzgerald said) that the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function is the sign of first-rate intelligence.
It may also be the sign of first-rate love.
This is because the one word that can make a difference to your relationship is not 'sorry' (although this is important too) nor, oddly, 'ouch' or 'oops'.
Instead the word is 'but'.
And the 'but' is what separates, and simultaneously holds together in one thought two opposing things, our lover's faults from their brilliance.
In a series of experiments in the 90s, psychologists Sandra Murray and John Holmes explored what separated happy 'successful' couples from unhappy 'unsuccessful' couples (and those who separated completely). In one of their studies, they interviewed the couples on their partner's positive and negative qualities and noted the language used by the couples during the interview.
"Perhaps the most important difference came down to just one word – 'but'," explained psychologist Richard Wiseman of the experiment in his book, 59 Seconds.
"When talking about their partner's greatest faults, those in successful relationships tended to qualify any criticism.
"Her husband was lazy, but that gave the two of them reason to laugh. His wife was a terrible cook, but as a result they ate out a lot. He was introverted, but he expressed his love in other ways. She was sometimes thoughtless, but that was due to a rather difficult childhood.
"That one simple word was able to help reduce the negative effect of their partner's alleged faults and keep the relationship on an even keel."
More recent research by John and Julie Gottman has also found the ability to remember our partner's virtues even while considering their faults is an imperative quality.
In their 40 years of research, they have found that contempt is the number one predictor of divorce.
"People who have this negative habit of mind miss 50 per cent of the positivity that outside objective observers see," Gottman, a psychologist who has spent four decades studying relationships, recently said.
"So the positive habit of mind is actually more accurate. If you have a negative habit of mind, you actually distort toward the negative and you don't see the positive. People with the positive habit of mind, it's not that they don't see the negative – they do, they see it – but they really emphasise the positive in terms of the impact on them. That's the difference."
As Gottman touched on, if someone sees only the negative, it tends to be more about them than their partner.
"Individuals more secure in their own sense of self were more generous in their depictions of their partners, overlooking faults and embellishing virtues," Murray and Holmes said in a separate study.
The catch here is of course that, despite our efforts to see the positive, some people aren't good partners and, in reality, the negative really does outweigh the positive.
"Dealing with negativity may prove to be one of the greatest challenges in sustaining romantic relationships," they wrote in one paper.
"Positive convictions may begin to waver if negativity is recurrent and exceeds their capacity to assimilate it into positive stories."
Assuming this is not the case, we can stay steady with feelings of ambivalence, so long as we stay focused on and committed to the positive.
In this sense, 'but' is not only the most important word, having some kind of 'but' may also be the most important part of our relationship conversations.
Ninety-six percent of the time John Gottman can predict the outcome of a conversation within the first three minutes, he told The Observer earlier this year.
"Negativity feeds on itself and makes the conversation stay negative.
"We also did seven years of research on how Masters [of love] repair that negativity. One of the most powerful things is to say 'Hey, this isn't all your fault, I know that part of this is me. Let's talk about what's me and what's you.' Accepting responsibility is huge for repair."
Not buts.
