Nothing in EquiPair is a hunch. Every reading you get is tagged with the approach it leaned on, drawn from a fixed list the app cannot add to. If a reading can't be grounded in one of these, it isn't given.
Marshall Rosenberg
Separate what actually happened from the story about it, then name the feeling, the need underneath, and one clear request.
Center for Nonviolent CommunicationJohn & Julie Gottman
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling are the four habits that predict trouble — and each has a gentler replacement.
The Gottman InstituteJohn Gottman
Small offers of connection, and the small moves that break a spiral, matter more than never arguing. What counts is whether they get received.
The Gottman InstituteBowlby, Ainsworth, Hazan & Shaver
Under stress some people move closer to feel safe and others need distance first. Neither is the wrong reaction; the clash is the problem.
American Psychological AssociationSue Johnson, Emotionally Focused Therapy
One person presses for contact, the other pulls back to calm down, and each move makes the other's stronger. The cycle is the enemy, not either person.
International Centre for Excellence in EFTEquity theory research
Satisfaction tracks whether both people feel the exchange is fair over time — not whether every single act is split down the middle.
Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyArlie Hochschild, Allison Daminger
Noticing, planning and remembering are real work. They are usually uncounted, and usually carried by one person.
American Sociological ReviewAaron Beck, David Burns
Mind-reading, catastrophising, scorekeeping and all-or-nothing wording turn one bad evening into proof about the whole relationship.
Beck InstituteBodenmann, dyadic coping research
Outside pressure — work, sleep, money, health — lands inside the couple and gets mistaken for a problem between the two people.
Journal of Family PsychologyThe gauge is never nudged up or down by a single entry. Every time it is shown, it is rebuilt from scratch out of everything both of you have fed in over the last 30 days.
Each thing you feed in becomes a claim about who carried the load in that moment, and every claim carries a weight based on how well it is backed: who-did-what ledger entries and kept agreements weigh most, a moment where both of you gave your side comes next, then daily check-ins, and a solo reflection with no other side weighs least.
Claims are averaged per person, not added up, so writing twenty entries can never outvote your partner's one. The fifth entry about the same topic in a week counts a fraction of the first. If only one of you has fed anything in, the gauge is marked provisional and cannot tilt far. Thank-yous, repair gestures and kept agreements pull the needle back toward the middle, and the needle drifts back on its own when nothing new happens.
The number is the difference between the two load indexes — not a score of who is right, and not a verdict.
EquiPair is a reflection tool, not therapy, not a diagnosis, and not a judge. It has no way of knowing what really happened between you — it only reads what you tell it.
It is not for relationships where there is abuse, coercion or fear. If any of that is present, please reach out to a domestic abuse service or a professional in your country rather than an app.