Nearly 60% of marriages in the United States end in divorce, and of the marriages that survive more than 50% say they would split up if it weren’t for issues like money or children. Moreover, these numbers don’t reflect the fact that increasingly couples are choosing simply not to get married at all.

What is the cause of the conflicts that are causing so much unhappiness in these marriages? The answer should be obvious: On the whole, people don’t understand the cause of the conflicts in their marriages, or they wouldn’t continue to get divorced at such horrifying rates, they wouldn’t continue to inflict such awful pain on themselves and their children, and they wouldn’t continue to feel so desperately confused and alone.

Fortunately, the cause of conflict in marriage is not a mystery. Couples all over the world are applying the principles of Real Love and discovering a level of happiness they had never before thought possible. Understanding the problems in relationships begins with understanding what all human beings need most, and intuitively we all know what that need is. In order to be happy, what we all want more than anything else is to feel loved. We prove that every day with the songs we sing, the movies we watch, the books we read, and the conversations we have. Love is the strongest theme uniting all those activities, but it’s not just any kind of love we’re looking for.

What we all want most is unconditional love, or Real Love. Real Love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. It’s not Real Love when you do what I want and I like you. That’s relatively worthless; that’s earning or buying love. It’s Real Love when you make mistakes and inconvenience me, but I’m not disappointed or angry.

Sadly, few of us have sufficiently received or given that kind of love—not just during our marriages but for our entire lives. From the time we were small children, we observed that when we didn’t fight with our sisters, didn’t make too much noise in the car, got good grades, and were otherwise obedient and cooperative, our parents and others smiled at us, patted our heads, and spoke kindly. With their words and behavior, they told us what good boys and girls we were.

But what happened when we did fight with our sisters, made too much noise, got bad grades, and dragged mud across the clean living room carpet? Did people smile at us or speak gentle, loving words? No—they frowned, sighed with disappointment, and often spoke in harsh tones. Just as the positive behaviors of other people communicated to us that we were loved, the withdrawal of those behaviors could only mean that we were not being loved. Although it was unintentional, our parents and others taught us this terrible message: “When you’re good, I love you, but when you’re not, I don’t—or certainly I love you a great deal less.”

This conditional love can give us brief moments of satisfaction, but we’re still left with a huge hole in our souls, because only Real Love can make us genuinely happy. Without sufficient Real Love, we can only feel empty and alone, which is the greatest ongoing pain in our lives. In any given negative interaction with your spouse, it is the longstanding lack of Real Love in your life that determines how you feel and respond, not the behavior of your spouse in that moment. In any given moment, you react to the amount of love you feel from everyone, past and present, not just from the person you’re interacting with.