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Let Go of the Anchor and See Change in Your Relationship · Doing Marriage Well

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  Doing Marriage Well for May 20, 2026 Let go of the anchor to see change in your relationship.
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  Today, our cognitive biases are the availability heuristic and anchoring bias.
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  Availability heuristic is overestimating the importance of easily recalled information.
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  This can be things which have happened a few times recently,
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  or things given more weight than they should.
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  For example, plane crashes are rare, but they get a lot of news time.
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  Car accidents, which happen all the time, get far less attention from the media,
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  so we might think flying is more dangerous than driving, or fail to understand
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  how much safer flying is.
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  In marriage, we're better at recalling what we do than what our spouse does,
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  so we give what we do too much weight.
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  Or, if our spouse made a mistake once or twice recently, we see that rather
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  than the many, many times they did it right before that.
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  This one also tags our past. If a previous partner did something hurtful many
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  times, that carries more weight than our new spouse doing it right every time,
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  but fewer times than our ex did it wrong.
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  I have suggested in the past that a good way to track change is to mentally plot the high points.
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  Doing that will help you overcome the availability heuristic.
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  Anchoring bias is allowing an initial, strong impression to disproportionately
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  influence current perceptions, ignoring more recent performance.
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  The first time something happens anchors our understanding, belief, or expectation.
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  This could be the first time we experience something, or the first time we experience
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  it with a certain person, such as our spouse.
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  In marriage, this is one more block to seeing growth and change in our spouse.
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  Or, we see the change, but we fear they will return to what they did first,
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  even if there is no evidence to support that. Or perhaps we want it done well
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  as many times as it was done wrong before we accept the change as real.
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  If we thought this through, we would realize that's neither fair nor realistic.
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  But the anchoring bias makes it feel right if we don't work through it mentally.
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  Not seeing or acknowledging change leads to frustration. If your spouse works
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  hard to improve and you ignore it, they'll wonder why they bothered.
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  If they did it wrong for years, odds are they will not spend years doing it
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  right without any change on your part.
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  Another way this plays out is unrealistic initial promises or expectations.
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  If these become anchors, it can be difficult to come to a more reasonable agreement.
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  If you want to fight this bias, challenge your assumptions.
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  When you think, he always does that, or she never does such and such,
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  stop and ask if that is really true.
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  Was it once true, but is not now?
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  Does it still happen, but not as often or as bad?
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  This is Paul, and acknowledging change is doing marriage well.