" He’d discovered that successful marriages boiled down to kindness. Not necessarily the obvious kindness, like bringing someone a cup of coffee in bed, although that was a lovely sort of gesture, and important. But what he pointed to was the kindness of attention. When one partner asked a question of the other, or asked for an opinion, or wanted to talk about a problem, in a successful relationship the other partner always stopped to offer their full attention. By doing so, they met their partner’s most fundamental emotional needs. "