For subscribers: The secret to a fight-free relationship

This is The Atlantic’s weekly email to subscribers. As always, you can talk with us by replying directly to this email. This weekend, fall into a few recent stories from across our newsroom, and share them with your friends and family.

The Secret to a Fight-Free Relationship, by Rhaina Cohen

Conventional wisdom says that venting is cathartic and that we should never go to bed angry. But couples who save disagreements for scheduled meetings show the benefits of a more patient approach to conflict.

Liz Cutler and Tom Kreutz at their home in Princeton, New Jersey (Victor Llorente) — Liz Cutler and Tom Kreutz at their home in Princeton, New Jersey. The couple talk about their frustrations only in scheduled meetings—which they held once a year for a time, and later, every three months. It’s a system they’ve adhered to for more than 40 years. (Photograph: Victor Llorente)

Tell Children the Truth, by Caitlin Flanagan

What I learned when I told my 5-year-old boys that I had cancer

A moving illustration made of cutouts, of a woman with cancer in a head wrap, reading to two kids. — (Jim McAuley for *The Atlantic*)

Ebooks Are an Abomination, by Ian Bogost

If you love ebooks, it might be because they are portable, and legible enough, and capable of delivering streams of words, fiction and nonfiction, into your eyes and brain with relative ease. Whether you love or hate ebooks is probably a function of what books mean to you, and why.

An illustration of a red book melting into red and white pixels, all on a solid bright green background — Sean Gallup / Getty

America Has Too Many Managers, by Ed Zitron

The United States, more than anywhere else in the world, is addicted to the concept of management. The pandemic has exposed a fundamental weakness in the system.