[hinkley]

There’s a sort of a chess clock that starts after the first injury. Every move adds a little more time to the clock but slowly runs down goodwill.

It does seem to be that the later the clock starts the better things go.

But analogies aside, it’s also that first incident of “did I make a mistake coming here?” And that can start with dumb logistical things like they knew you were showing up on Wednesday and they didn’t have a desk or maybe a composter ready for you.

The Gottman Institute thinks that the only emotion a relationship cannot endure is contempt. So far I haven’t encountered any meaningful counterexamples.