Meet Joe Blacklist

My girlfriend's father is a famous actor, and I'm on my way up. I worry that if things go wrong in our relationship, he could put a big kibosh on my career. I guess because of this, I find myself putting up with more stuff than I might normally. I wonder whether our relationship will suffer because of my secret worries about her dad.

--Marked Man

There's doing the right thing, and then there's doing the right thing for the right reasons. Ideally, you refrain from shoplifting because it's wrong to steal, not because they show videos of shoplifters on the news sometimes and your nose always looks so big on security camera footage. It turns out that there are two fundamental motivations for all life-forms -- from microbes to men. They are "approach" (going toward good, helpful, survival-promoting things) and "avoidance" (moving away from bad, dangerous, deadly things). Research by social psychologist Shelly Gable suggests that romantic relationships are happier when they're driven by approach rather than avoidance motives. So, say your girlfriend asks that you put food-encrusted plates in the dishwasher instead of leaving them out for the archeologists to find. An approach motivation means doing as she asks because you're striving for a positive outcome -- like making her feel loved -- instead of trying to avoid a negative one, like having your fate in showbiz patterned after that first guy in a horror movie who gets curious about the weird growling in the basement. The research suggests that you can happy up your relationship by reframing why you do things -- shifting to an "I just wanna make her happy" motivation. To do that, set aside your career fears and just try to be fair -- to both of you. The relationship may fizzle out. Even so, if you don't do anything horrible to Daddy's little girl, there'll be no reason for him to see to it that you look back on a lifetime of iconic roles -- like "White Guy With Umbrella" and "Bystander #5."