3 Ways to Deal When You’re Married to an Aries

He believes in himself (to put it mildly). He’s a natural born leader who knows how to take charge. He’s stubborn as, well, a ram. He’s reluctant to ask for help (or directions) because he’s intensely competitive. See also: impatient and quick to anger. All these alpha qualities can be hot at first—they don’t call it a fire sign for nothing—especially if your last few partners were somewhat directionless or lackluster in the confidence department. But your goal is to be one half of a power couple, not support staff or roadkill. “Depression can emerge when you feel smaller and less powerful than the person you’re interacting with,” writes relationship expert and psychologist Dr. Susan Heitler. “In love relationships between two adults, shared power is healthier.” The quickest path to rebalancing said power is keeping calm during conflict. “The first rule of thumb in the face of a difficult person is to keep your cool,” writes one life coach. “The less reactive you are to provocations, the more you can use your better judgment to handle the challenge.”

He’s good and decent to his core, loyal as a Labrador and quietly sensitive (you can just feel it). But if he buried his emotions any deeper, you’d need a PhD in geology to excavate them. The good news, astrologers say, is he’s “all in” when it comes to love. You just need to help draw him out. How? By staying positive, open and consistent. “He may try to push you away or tell you he’s fine or doesn’t need your help, but I implore you to keep on keepin’ on,” writes relationship expert Kristen Brown on the topic of repressed men. “After all you are dealing with a societal norm. This doesn’t mean become pushy or smothering to him. It means teach him over time that you have his back. That he can trust you like no other person on this planet. That you see both his strengths and his weaknesses and you love him just the same.”

You love that he is fearless, extroverted, generous and spontaneous. He always looks on the bright side (your mom says it’s because he puts blinders on). But he breaks you out of your comfort zone and inspires you to do things like skydive, scuba dive or dive into an Airbnb agreement without checking multiple references. Of course, there’s a fine line between healthy risk taking and recklessness. When your future—financial, professional, familial—is entwined with someone playing a dangerous game, it’s up to you to enact safety measures. Or, you could try to be more like him. “If we want more love, we must conquer fear,” writes social scientist Arthur C. Brooks in The New York Times. “We must take personal risks for big potential romantic rewards. Forget test-driving a relationship for tennew years, or searching for someone so perfectly matched as to resemble a sibling. Love is supposed to be a little scary because it is uncertain... Courage means feeling the fear of rejection and loss but pursuing love anyway.”