First, what is Relish?
Relish is the first-ever truly customized relationship training app that helps build a happy, healthy, more connected relationship with your partner. Relish teaches active mindfulness to help individuals or couples become more conscious of how they approach their relationship, discovering improved communication, deeper connection and more intimacy. It offers unlimited one-on-one access to a qualified relationship coach and uses machine learning to create a customized, scientifically-backed relationship plan in the form of interactive lessons. I mention every feature of the app in this blog post, in case you want to know more!
Why did you decide to create Relish?
“After leaving Fan Duel, I was looking up and smelling the roses for the first time in a very long time. It was great and I learned how to just breathe again. I have three children and I had recently moved to New York with my family, and I truly started to live and enjoy life again. During the startup, it was so busy that we forgot to look up most of the time. When I was ready for a new idea, I wanted it to align with who I am and what my values are.
After a bad business deal occurred, the founders of Fan Duel and I were left with nothing. This was hard to swallow, as you can imagine. There was a lot of reflecting in the months after. After I thought about it for awhile, I realized what I was truly grateful for, All that really mattered throughout the entire experience was the strength of our relationships. When it was all said and done, what we had was what truly mattered. Who your friends are, who you can count on, who you have relationships with, how much love is in your house, who’s going to be there when you’re sick… That’s what matters. When you’re laying in your death bed, it doesn’t matter how much money is in your bank account. What matters is the relationships we have in our lives. That was really inspiring to me. This led me to think about how truly important it is to preserve them. I asked myself, how can I use technology to help people form and maintain strong connections?
What did you do before Relish to improve your relationships?
Me and Nigel went through our fair share of ups and downs when starting Fan Duel. We used self help books for certain problems we were having, but it was pretty generic. I started to wonder if I could use technology to customize this self help advice for people to help them with their relationships. I wanted to find a way to use technology to make that process easier, better and affordable. I wanted to use technology for good – to bring people together, help them build deeper connections with each other and ultimately get more affection and intimacy.
What’s different with Relish than other relationship apps?
Relish values human connection, so the app includes unlimited messaging with highly experienced coaches, interactive quizzes, journaling, and a supportive and thriving community. Relish stands out amongst competitors with its one-on-one support and customized relationship plans.
What’s the difference between couples therapy and Relish?
I am a huge advocate of Relish but I want to be very clear, Relish is not the same as couples therapy. In fact, Relish encourages couples therapists to compliment therapy, not replace it. “Relish is the world’s first relationship training app – it’s designed as a companion app for clients in therapy to use between sessions (or after they leave therapy) to keep them on track. Its customized program of content is backed by science and supported by a panel of advisors and psychology professors specializing in relationships” (Relish, 2020). Relish states that they have no legal responsibility for your care/outcome and that it does not substitute for professional and medical advice. Therapists do take that responsibility. Things like impaired daily functioning, negative beliefs+behaviors developed in childhood, anxiety. mental illness, trauma, poor emotion regulation skills, problematic coping mechanisms, or other related issues should be monitored by a professional counselor/therapist to ensure the health, wellbeing, and functioning of the couple.
“Downloading a couples app has the potential to enrich your relationship, improve communication, and enhance intimacy, but it is not for everyone. Before downloading one of these apps, take an honest look at your motivation. If you are wishing to “correct” your partner, seeing a counselor or therapist face to face might be a much better option. That said, since so many apps currently focus on finding the right person, or specific issues such as birth control or infertility, it’s exciting to see apps that focus on maintaining those relationships over the long run.” Marni Feuerman, 2020 you can find more on this article here!