Professor James Cordova: Healthy Intimate Relationships

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/11/29

Dr. James Cordova is a Professor of Psychology at Clark University and Director of the Relationship Checkup Program. He created the Relationship Checkup, a preventative relationship healthcare model designed to maintain relationship health through annual assessments. Dr. Cordova has led multiple large-scale studies, including a $1.3 million Department of Defense-funded trial to adapt his checkup for military settings, demonstrating significant improvements in relationship health and reduced depression among airmen and spouses. As president of Arammu, Inc., he continues to expand his work across military and civilian populations, offering relationship interventions and training counselors nationwide. His books and workshops promote relational mindfulness and emotional well-being.

Cordova emphasizes that authenticity, vulnerability, and emotional closeness are key to a thriving relationship, but challenges like the “hedgehog’s dilemma”—balancing closeness and avoiding hurt—remain inevitable. Cordova advocates for relationship checkups, like preventive health care, to strengthen bonds before issues become entrenched. He also highlights evolving societal norms and generational shifts in how relationships are approached and maintained.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We are here to have a little fun with James Cordova. We’re going to be talking about relationships. I believe you are the first in this series on relationships as a professional with the expertise I need because I’m not an expert—especially when expertise isn’t always respected. I know how to ask questions of those who are. To start, how do you define a proper and healthy relationship? 

Professor James Cordova: That’s a great question. Most of the work I do focuses on intimate relationships. Of course, there are many types of relationships, but the ones I specialize in are romantic and intimate.

When I think about an intimate relationship, it’s one where both people are invested in creating a space where they feel safe being their authentic selves with each other. That’s key to my definition of a healthy relationship: both partners feel accepted, flaws and all. I get to be my authentic self, and you accept that and are enthusiastic about it. And vice versa—you get to be your authentic self, and I am not just accepting but excited about that.

Of course, this comes with challenges. Once you move into the realm of authenticity, you also move into the realm of vulnerability. Some parts of ourselves haven’t always been accepted by others, bringing us to the hedgehog’s dilemma.

The hedgehog’s dilemma, as proposed by Schopenhauer, describes the difficulty of human intimacy. It’s the idea that, like hedgehogs, people want to be close to each other for warmth and connection, but because of their “prickles”—their flaws or emotional barriers—being too close can cause pain.

We want to feel safe in any intimate relationship because we are exposing our vulnerabilities. At the same time, we will inevitably hurt each other, often unintentionally. Using the metaphor, we’re going to “poke” each other.

The dilemma is: How do we stay at a comfortable “quill’s distance,” close enough to feel connected but not so close that we hurt each other too much? It’s a vulnerable space, and we will hurt each other, mostly without meaning to. Sometimes, we pull away to protect ourselves, leaving us lonely. So, we continually try to navigate this space; some people are better at it than others.

Schopenhauer’s point is that, no matter what, we will irritate and hurt each other’s feelings, even if we don’t mean to. We’re going to get in each other’s way. We will find things we do that we wish the other would do differently. For example, I suggest you load the dishwasher differently or avoid using that tone when upset.

Our instinctual response to feeling stung is usually some form of fight or flight. We either sting back or withdraw. Neither of these reactions is conducive to feeling safe being our authentic selves.

So, we need to learn how to be close, vulnerable, and sometimes hurt while repairing that hurt and not reacting destructively. It’s a lot to ask of the average person. So, we find that truly intimate relationships come with unavoidable challenges. Most couples resolve the porcupine’s dilemma with a détente—let’s be close, but not too close, not so close that it becomes challenging. As a result, there’s an unfortunate amount of loneliness in many long-term intimate relationships. The porcupine dilemma paints that picture.

Jacobsen: Yet, the time, generation, and society can change the frame. If we lived 300 or 400 years ago, when the average lifespan was half what it is today, the concept of relationships and partnerships would be simpler. When both partners passed, people were probably married for 10, 20, or 30 years.

Nowadays, in advanced industrial economies, we benefit from plumbing, electricity, air conditioning, heating, and various nutritious foods—although not everyone benefits equally from these advancements. These factors, along with medical advancements, expand lifespans. We can stitch people up and improve dental care and overall health spans. These seemingly unrelated factors indirectly benefit relationships by lengthening our lifespans, which changes how we view long-term relationships. So, partnerships and healthy relationships were originally a technology—a social contract built for a certainconception of human life when reaching 50 meant being an elder. 

If we consider today’s average life expectancy of 75 to 85 years—slightly longer for women and slightly shorter for men—it drastically changes the concept of a healthy marriage compared to what it meant in what now seems like a prehistoric era.

Cordova: It’s a good point because it changes the lived experience of “till death do us part.” It might have meant we had 5 or 10 years together before one of us passed away, which was very different from what it means today.

Some of the original functions of marriage or long-term intimate relationships were practical—about survival, procreation, and property. These were pragmatic needs at a time when life expectancy was relatively short.

But now, people expect much more from their long-term relationships. Lifespan itself is part of the reason why. It’s no longer just about economic security and someone to help raise kids. People want deeper emotional and personal fulfillment from their long-term intimate relationships.

It’s someone I love, feel close to, can talk to, and with whom we have all the elements piled onto that one relationship—vibrant sex life, economic viability, raising children together. That small subset of goals has expanded quite a bit. Now, most people are looking for a quality of connection in their long-term relationships that wasn’t as expected in previous generations. And other factors, while not minor, are secondary.

Jacobsen: In the past, women had little choice in marriage. So, equality movements—egalitarian movements, feminist activism—how do these changes in gender roles and desires for more egalitarianism in the home affect orientations toward healthy relationships? How are professionals like yourself viewing this as you gather more data across generations?

Cordova: Well, one way to think about it is that there’s a lot more choice about staying in a relationship at any given point. We can think about commitment inside a relationship as having two types: dedication commitment and constraint commitment. Dedication is, “I’m committed to you because I love you and want to be with you.” Constraint commitment is, “I’m with you because the alternative seems unbearable.”

In the past, particularly before women had the rights they have now, constraint commitment was much stronger. Women often needed to stay in marriages because of access to resources, finances, and opportunities. Thankfully, those constraints have lifted significantly, and what holds many of us in long-term relationships now is primarily dedication commitment—the desire to stay because of the quality of the relationship itself.

Because of this shift, the quality of our connection has become the most important part of a relationship for most people. The constraint commitment part has diminished, so we no longer have to endure dissatisfying or unhappy relationships because we have more options.

Jacobsen: What about the idea of the “7-year itch”? Is that real?

Cordova: It’s interesting. My familiar research suggests it’s more of a “3 to 4-year itch.” The most common time people are in a marriage before divorcing is shorter than seven years. It looks more like people discover relatively quickly that they’re incompatible.

So, the “7-year itch” suggests that we get antsy around that time because the newness wears off, and people start thinking about moving on. But we’re discovering that the headiness of early love often leads to marriage or a serious commitment. Then, as people settle into a longer-term relationship, they discover basic incompatibilities. Once that happens, when people realize they’re so incompatible that living in the same house becomes intolerable, they often choose to divorce.

It’s about more than getting bored but about needing to get along better. This points to how important fundamental compatibility is, especially for a long-term intimate relationship. 

Jacobsen: This leads to a question about that point and another: divorce rates are around half for first marriages, and so on. So, if the divorce rate is roughly 50%, that number also includes second, third, or even more remarriages and divorces. It’s skewed higher because some individuals are divorcing multiple times. If people are divorcing again and again, and if the “itch” happens around 3 to 4 years, how do you parse that data? How many of those divorces are second or third marriages, and how many are just first divorces?

Cordova: That’s an interesting question. The way I can answer it is this: the 50% divorce rate—depending on how you calculate it—tends to apply primarily to first marriages. About 50% of first marriages end in divorce, and that percentage increases with each subsequent marriage. So, about 60% of second marriages end in divorce, and roughly 70% of third marriages end in divorce.

One way to think about this is that, with each step, we’re seeing a titration. A higher percentage of folks who, for various reasons, struggle with long-term relationships are overrepresented in these statistics. So, those with personality types and skill sets that lend themselves to long-term intimate relationships are overrepresented in the 50% of first marriages that don’t end in divorce. On the other hand, those who are more prone to divorce are overrepresented in second and third marriages.

Part of my work focuses on driving that number down by shifting how we think about relationships—from how happy or satisfied we are to viewing relationships as a health domain. Instead of focusing purely on relationship satisfaction, we should consider relationship health care. Just as we think about what makes for a healthy body or good mental health, we should also consider what makes for healthy relationships.

As a culture, we have huge gaps in health care available for this complicated part of our lives. The only “health care” for relationships is typically tertiary—like couples therapy, which people seek only when motivated by pain or distress. The work I’ve been doing over the past couple of decades involves developing and testing protocols for regular relationship checkups or marriage checkups. This approach would mirror other domains of health care, where people receive regular professional care to maintain long-term health instead of waiting for things to go wrong before seeking help.

In dentistry, people used to wait to go to the dentist until their teeth hurt. As you mentioned, before the mid-1950s, most people expected to lose most of their teeth by the time they were elders. Now, with regular dental care, losing teeth is an anomaly. Our work relationship checkups are intended to bring relationship health care into the 21st century similarly.

Jacobsen: So, we’ve been dancing around many important relationship issues—good stuff. How do you set up a checkup or a checklist for a healthy relationship? I imagine this could come from various angles—academic literature, clinical experience, discussions with colleagues, and maybe even a doctoral thesis. How are you integrating all that into a checkup or checklist?

Cordova: The idea for me originated during my PhD work at the University of Washington with Neil Jacobson and John Gottman. At that time, we all had tertiary approaches to couples therapy—the equivalent of attending the dentist when your teeth already hurt.

We were trying to improve these tertiary couples therapies, saving more “painful teeth.” We were helping couples who had been suffering to suffer less. But what we discovered was that, over two years, about 50% of couples either didn’t improve through therapy or improved only to relapse within the next two years. So, for about half of the couples—those who sought therapy, and few do—it was often too little, too late.

It’s similar to dentistry: if you wait to go to the dentist until your tooth hurts, there’s only so much they can do for you—often, it’s just pulling the tooth. I was working on an internship with a modality called the “drinker’s checkup.” The idea was to catch people when their drinking became concerning and offer them a checkup to assess their behaviour and create motivation for change.

This inspired me to think about relationships: What if we had regular checkups for marriages or relationships? Because, as of now, we don’t have anything like that. We could provide professional checkups and early intervention, like dental checkups. In that case, we might improve relationship health, helping couples keep their relationships strong and healthy over time—just like we now expect to keep our teeth longer and healthier through regular dental care.

I began developing a brief, fun, strength-based intervention that couples could do annually to help maintain their relationship health. This would also allow them to intervene early if they started struggling with something. One thing we’ve learned is that even couples who are brave enough to go to therapy often wait until they’ve been distressed for 4 to 6 years. And we know that being in a distressed relationship for that long negatively affects both mental and physical health.

So, with all of those health systems deteriorating over 4 to 6 years, I wanted to create an intervention that couples could engage with much earlier—something less threatening than therapy, quick and simple, and designed to “catch and release,” addressing issues before they become too entrenched.

Come in for one or two sessions. We’ll do an assessment, provide feedback, and then send you on your way to a healthier, happier, more intimate relationship. Our research shows that this brief preventative intervention yields strong results across the full range of couples—from newlyweds who are happy and want to stay that way to couples struggling with certain issues but not enough to seek therapy independently.

The checkup can be beneficial for couples who aren’t quite ready for therapy but would come in for a checkup. We’ve even seen couples who would likely be good candidates for more intensive therapy benefit from this brief, strengths-based relationship checkup, even though they might be reluctant to try therapy for various reasons. Across all types of couples, we can show the value of this approach.

Jacobsen: Why strengths-based? I can understand why a weakness-based frame wouldn’t be effective. Still, it’s more work to see why a neutral-based perspective would be less effective than a strengths-based one.

Cordova: That’s a great question. We deliberately take a strengths-based approach to counteract our natural cognitive tendencies. As a species, we’re more inclined toward threat detection. Our natural perceptual apparatus is designed to scan the environment for threats, so in relationships, we often notice the things that irritate us or are problematic first.

In our relationship checkup approach, we focus on a gratitude mindset. If we can remind couples of what initially attracted them to each other and help them root into the best aspects of their relationship and who they are together, they’ll approach it from a place of gratitude when we discuss the struggles. They’ll better understand that they want to preserve and improve the relationship.

If we jump straight into “tell me why this relationship isn’t working,” it’s much harder to return to a place of connection. It often leads to a vicious cycle of negativity. That’s one of the reasons tertiary couples therapy can bog down quickly—it starts from a place of strong complaint. It tries to lighten the complaints, but often without that crucial reminder of why the relationship was valuable in the first place.

In contrast, the strengths-based approach helps couples focus on what’s best about their relationship, what they want to preserve, and why they’re willing to work hard to cope better with the challenges. So, yes, it’s like the compliment sandwich approach but deeper.

Jacobsen: Yes, I see. And it makes sense. We have a couple of cultural phenomena happening right now, too. I don’t want to put you in the position of being a social psychology or linguistics expert, but we’ve all seen certain ideas filter down from academic circles into public opinion pieces—published in journals, newspapers, and so on. One of those ideas is the concept of “silver divorces,” where divorce rates reportedly increase among boomers and older generations.

Another phenomenon we see is younger generations marrying less or partnering in nontraditional ways—common-law partnership’s, open relationships, or something else outside the traditional framework. There’s a shift in how Gen X and millennials view partnerships, compared to boomers or the Greatest Generation. I’m using those generational labels loosely as placeholders to help demographers, but we are seeing these trends.

Cordova: Absolutely, those trends are becoming more noticeable.

Jacobsen: So, you’ve got this dual generational effect around partnerships. What do you see in research or clinical practice? What’s happening with the older generations and the younger cohort of adults regarding how they view relationships? How do these trends explain some of these phenomena?

Cordova: Yes, it’s a great question. Both generations are grappling with the same underlying problem. The problem is what we touched on earlier—the porcupine’s dilemma. We want to be intimate, emotional closeness, and our vulnerability to be held safely in a relationship. But the challenge is that we will sting each other—an inevitable part of intimate relationships.

When we get stung, most of us react in ways that corrode the quality of our connection with our partner. As a result, many relationships end up lonelier than they want to be. Couples are close enough to raise a family together but not close enough to feel emotionally connected to each other.

Then, when they reach the empty nest phase, they may tolerate it for a while. Still, the emotional distance between them becomes so isolating that they separate. They can’t figure out how to return to each other because they’ve been growing apart for so many years.

Younger generations—emerging adults—have watched this happen with their parents, aunts, uncles, and older relatives. They want the same things: close, intimate relationships. But they’re looking for more flexible ways of achieving that, trying to avoid the pain and loneliness they’ve seen older generations experience.

However, their solutions must address the fundamental problem: How do we stay close while skillfully and responsively taking care of each other’s vulnerabilities so that we can be hurt without hurting?

The skill set we need to focus on is what we now refer to as emotional intelligence or emotional responsiveness versus reactivity. That’s the crucial point. When people in relationships start pulling away from each other because being too close becomes painful, the checkup can help them turn back toward each other instead of continuing to drift apart.

Everyone is trying to solve the challenge of being within “quill’s distance” in a relationship. The variety of solutions people come up with stems from the fact that we don’t have a healthcare framework for thinking about this, nor do we have the tools to thrive in long-term intimate relationships.

We’re left alone, essentially doing “our dentistry.” We’re trying to fix things with a hammer and chisel, doing our best without proper support.

Jacobsen: And the origin—your guy from Cast Away—when he’s first stranded, he’s got a bad tooth and has to smash it with a rock. Tom Hanks, right?

Cordova: Right, exactly. The older generation’s approach is like yanking the tooth, while the younger generation is trying to figure out, “How do we do this? Maybe I need to eat or drink differently—kombucha, maybe? How do I keep my teeth longer?”

We must realize that we’re not treating this as a healthcare issue. If we did, we wouldn’t have to suffer later in life or search for some magic elixir when we’re young. What if it was as simple as getting regular checkups for your relationship, the same way you get annual physicals or semiannual dental exams? What if it’s that simple?

Jacobsen: As I mentioned earlier, marriage is a social technology. Common-law marriage is both a social and legal technology. It can also be part of a religious framework and is considered a ‘transcendent technology.’ From that perspective, people made up these systems, so people can also create new systems or reinvent old ones.

Could health care and legal framework exist for healthier partnerships where we don’t assume “till death do us part”? Perhaps we could create something like a longer-term contract—lasting for the healthy years of the children if kids are involved—and then opt for renewal. This isn’t a new idea or a new idea to me. Maybe it’s a five-year, six-year, or ten-year contract, after which the couple can decide whether to renew for another five or three years, depending on how they feel. The partnership can adapt to realistic terms if assets, health, sentiments, or life paths change. It could be more practical and appealing, especially given our longer lifespans. It might even appeal to women since they tend to live longer.

Cordova: Yes, we’re coming full circle to your earlier point about longer lifespans. One of the fundamental truths about being human, especially in relationships, is that we are constantly changing. The person you’re in a relationship with now isn’t the same person you started with—even if it’s only been a week, let alone 50 years. And you’re not the same person you were when you entered the relationship, either.

Accounting for that continuous change is a good idea. Five years from now, we’re both going to be different people. That’s one thing when you might only have expected to live five or ten more years together. It’s entirely different when looking at another 50, 60, or 70 years.

So, the question you’re raising is: how do we account for that change? One way, as you’re suggesting, could be through shorter contracts. Another way might be to become more thoughtful, mindful, and deliberate about adapting to each other as we change over time.

That’s where regular checkups can play a role. They can help partners assess how they’ve both changed over the year—what’s new—and then figure out how to adapt to those changes in a healthier way. If we’re doing this regularly, instead of waking up 20 years later and not recognizing the person across the dinner table, there is a higher probability that we’ll change together rather than drift apart.

Jacobsen: Should there be any upper limit on how often someone can get married? If, as you said, there’s a filtering effect where marriage doesn’t work for some people, maybe they’re genuinely trying or being socially coerced into continuing. They keep trying until they get it right.

Cordova: Yes, it’s possible that a more solo lifestyle, not necessarily alone but solo, might suit some people’s psychological structure better. I don’t know if we’d want to impose a limit on how many times someone can marry, but it’s worth considering when people reach a point where they realize, “Maybe it’s me. Maybe I need to work on myself before I have the attitudes or skill sets required for a successful intimate relationship.”

The challenge is our tendency toward attribution error. When someone else does something that makes us mad, we think it’s about them—their personality. But when we do something that upsets someone else, we think it’s circumstantial—”I didn’t mean it,” or “It was external factors.” This can lead people to believe each failed relationship is the other person’s fault. At some point, though, you might need to stop and say, “I might be the issue here. Maybe I have my work to do.”

Jacobsen: What else can we explore? Let me check my notes. Ah! Do you want to plug your books? Would that help?

Cordova: Sure! Yes.

Jacobsen: What’s your short sales pitch for the books? 

1. The Marriage Checkup: A Scientific Program for Sustaining and Strengthening Marital Health – Published May 16, 2009​; Rowman & Littlefield
2. The Story of Mu – Published April 26, 2016​; Simon & Schuster
3. The Mindful Path to Intimacy – Set to be published January 27, 2025​; Guilford Press

Cordova: All those are awesome books, and everyone should buy them! The new book that’s coming out—let me pull up the title—is called The Mindful Path to Intimacy. It’s coming out from Guilford Press in January.

It’s at this intersection between the relationship checkup concept—that there’s this naturally occurring corrosive process in relationships, where we pull away from each other because it’s difficult to be skillfully vulnerable—and mindfulness practices, which help us learn how to be skillfully vulnerable. This upcoming book aims to provide couples with the tools, practices, and insights to navigate that “quill’s distance” space with skill, grace, and compassion. The Mindful Path to Intimacy is about thinking of relationships as a practice rather than “work” or something you’re lucky to have if you are perfectly compatible. It’s about treating relationships as a regular practice, much like a spiritual practice.

A colleague says, “A true spiritual practice plays rough with the ego.”

Jacobsen: Be humble, yes. I understand.

Cordova: Yes, nothing plays rougher with the ego than trying to live in that vulnerable space with another human being. How we learn to be skillfully vulnerable is deeply tied to how we tolerate our vulnerability and respond to each other’s. That is as close to a spiritual practice as you can get. How might you approach your relationship as a practice?

The Mindful Path to Intimacy is designed to help couples do just that. If unskillful vulnerability corrodes connections, learning to be more mindful and skillfully vulnerable can strengthen those connections. Many psychologists today focus on genuineness or authenticity. This is a major point you brought up at the start—defining not only a relationship but a healthy one.

Jacobsen: Right. Regarding authenticity, we’ve had these evolving roles, including gender roles. We have traditional ideas—women as homemakers, men as breadwinners—and more progressive ones, like the “sensitive guy” or the “boss girl.” Even though these roles may seem more progressive, they are still social constructs defined within political and social contexts. I find the more progressive stance healthier, but I acknowledge that it’s based on my biases.

Cordova: Yes. When we talk about authenticity in relationships, for both individuals and the relationship itself, we mean finding who we are outside of the ideologies—political, social, religious—that we’ve been told we’re supposed to live by.

In an intimate relationship, I can learn more about myself. If I discover I can be true to myself, even if it’s a little countercultural, I can explore that more deeply. But if I find that my partner expects me to conform to some cultural ideal, my message is that I can’t be who I truly am. I have to play the role I’ve been told I ought to play. This creates loneliness, which we often try to solve through distractions—social media or other forms of escapism.

Jacobsen: Yes, in a way, we’re outsourcing that part of ourselves instead of looping it back in and integrating those feelings.

Cordova: Exactly, we’re not processing those feelings fully. And that ties into what you were saying about gender roles. In North America, especially among younger generations, there’s this image of a traditional religious family structure—the nuclear family—and even though it’s no longer as dominant, it still influences people. 

Jacobsen: Yet, I see the same dynamic with people in more non-religious, progressive circles. They’re still trying to live up to certain ideals in a different framework. So, in both cases, whether religious or non-religious, traditional or progressive, people are still grappling with predefined roles and the challenge of authenticity within those structures. So, in the traditional conservative example, you’ve got the mom who’s expected to embody the Martha’s Vineyard ideal, and the man is—well, I’ll need to look up an example, maybe someone like the character from Suits or something similar. On the progressive side, you have men labelled as “male feminists.” From a conservative viewpoint, that might be interpreted as someone emotional and sensitive to an extreme, performative degree.

But most people aren’t like that—it takes work to get things done. There are overlapping but distinct bell curves between the sexes and genders regarding how people express emotion and sensitivity. Then, with the “Boss Girl” idea, comedian Michelle Wolf had a sketch about this. It was around the time she became more prominent after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. In the sketch, she’s a busy businesswoman, always on the phone, always “busy,” and it’s funny because it’s such a caricature.

That, too, is an image—a kind of ideological portrait that can be critiqued or parodied, just like we often do with the traditional nuclear family image. So, the point you’re making about doing countercultural things is subtle. It doesn’t have to be about mainstream culture—it could be countercultural, even within a subculture or a family system, if you’re discovering things about yourself that don’t fit the mould.

For some people, it might be obscure, like a mix of Kabbalah and niche linguistic hermeneutic. For others, it might be challenging homeopaths online. The range of things people explore as they evolve is wide. This touches on the idea of authenticity being highly individual and idiosyncratic.

Now, in the last five minutes, what would be your biggest tips for those who want to find someone compatible for a healthy relationship? And what are your tips for people in relationships to do their “dental checkups”?

Cordova: Great questions. There are two main tips. First, find a provider who can give you regular relationship health checkups. We’ve been working hard on this. We even created a company called Aramu.com.

Interestingly, “Arammu” is one of the oldest words for love we could find. The company aims to train as many mental health care providers as possible to offer regular relationship health checkups. So, the first recommendation is early and often—start healthy and stay healthy. Like they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The second tip is more on the “do it yourself” side. It’s about learning how to be hurt without being hurtful, how to tolerate your emotional reactivity without letting it take control of the moment, and how to be angry without acting destructively. Can I still behave skillfully and relationally if I’m hurt and angry? Can I be angry without acting destructively? That’s a huge challenge for all of us in intimate relationships.

Some people can learn those skills independently with good guidance, and others might need a bit of coaching. But the ability to be angry and still be relationally skillful is crucial—without it, we do much damage that’s hard to recover from.

Jacobsen: Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it.

Cordova: Absolutely. Thank you, Scott. Take care.

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