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Article snippet: After studying thousands of couples, the psychologist Eli Finkel has an explanation for the decline in people’s satisfaction with their marriages over the past four decades: It’s a matter of emotional supply and demand. Many people are looking to their partners to replace the companionship and emotional support once provided by extended families and local institutions like churches, bowling leagues, bridge groups, fraternal lodges and garden clubs. Meanwhile, though, many couples are so busy with their jobs and parenting that they’re actually spending less time together by themselves. What to do? Unless you’re willing to reduce your demands, the only solution is to increase the supply. You can devote a lot more effort to satisfying your partner, and Dr. Finkel tells you how to do that in his new book, “The All-or-Nothing Marriage.” But if that sounds like too much work, he also offers a few shortcuts that he calls “love hacks.” If your schedule doesn’t allow a weekly date night, if you don’t want to take long walks on the beach or go on joint self-actualization vacations, you can use some quick fixes that have been tested successfully in Dr. Finkel’s relationships laboratory at Northwestern and elsewhere. A love hack, as Dr. Finkel defines it, is a proven technique that takes little time or effort and doesn’t even require cooperation from your partner. “It’s a quick-and-dirty option that can take just a few minutes a month,” he says. “It’s not going to give you a... Link to the full article to read more