Combing through interviews with wise elder psychoanalysts who had achieved long-term relationships, some very salient points are clear. Psychoanalyst Theodore Reik long ago suggested that the person we marry is our “ego ideal,” the person who embodies what we desire yet lack. Research shows that wisdom is related to how people achieve long-term relationships. The wise person has the capacity for “affect optimization,” an ability to hold positive and negative feelings about something or someone while emphasizing the positive over the negative. The surprising one word that wise elders used more than any other when describing successful long-term relationships was tolerance.