From the book The Missing System
The EWNS Couple Compass
The distance between you, turned into a number you can both see.
The check-in is free for everyone. The full Compass comes with the book. Your answers never leave your device.
Why a compass?
You review everything. Work gets one-on-ones, money gets statements, your body gets its yearly check-up. The relationship all of it runs on is usually the only thing that never gets reviewed.
And you are both still growing. New roles, new cities, children, losses, ambitions. Nobody drifts apart in a day; couples drift a degree at a time: a conversation postponed, a worry carried alone, a need never said out loud. Up close, a degree is invisible. Over the years, it becomes a distance neither of you chose. The real question of a long relationship is not whether you will change. It is whether you keep growing in the same direction, or just at the same address.
Drift is silent
Most relationships do not break, they drift. Nothing is wrong: no fight, no crisis, just full calendars, conversations that turn logistical, attention that leaks to screens. Drift never announces itself. It accumulates.
Feelings do not compare
You can both feel that something is off and still talk past each other for months. Two honest answers to the same question, placed side by side, turn a vague unease into something you can point at together.
Regular beats deep
One big talk a year cannot catch what a small check on a rhythm will. Reviewed on a rhythm, a gap is a conversation. Discovered by accident, it is a crisis.
The Compass is that review: honest questions, answered alone, read together. What you get out of it is simple. The small drifts caught while they are still conversations. The unsaid finally said. And every second week, ten minutes of proof that you are on the same team, building the same life.
One rhythm, every two weeks
Busy lives do not keep four habits, so the Compass asks for exactly one: every second week, sit down together for one check. Only the depth changes, and the Compass tells you which check is due when you open it. It all begins with the Foundation, a handful of conversations you have once, as your baseline. The check-in is free for everyone; the deeper checks unlock with the reader code printed inside the book.
The check-in
Every two weeks, about ten minutes. A short, honest pulse of how you both really are, and what you each need next. It starts here. Free for everyone.
The monthly check
Every second check goes a level deeper: support, time together, money, and the invisible load one of you may be carrying. Comes with the book.
The quarterly reading
Four times a year, the full picture across all four directions, including the questions most couples avoid the longest. Comes with the book.
The annual summit
Once a year, less looking back and more looking ahead: where are you going, and are you going there together? Comes with the book.
Your reading
When you are both done, the Compass draws the distance between you in each direction: East for connection and intimacy, North for your shared future, West for the outside world. South is about yourself alone; it is never compared, only read.
Then it walks you through the action protocol. Your largest gap names the first conversation. The harder account goes first, and neither of you defends a score. One or two actions per direction, no more, so the plan stays workable, with a pointer back to the chapter of the book worth rereading. It ends with a decision you write down together: what you are working on, the one thing you will do about it, who owns it, and the date you check again.
Private by design. Everything runs in your browser, on your device. No accounts, no cloud. Your answers are never sent anywhere, and readings you choose to save are stored only on your own device, where you can delete them any time.
Ready when you both are
Pick a quiet evening, answer alone, then read your results together. Start with the free check-in; your reader code for the deeper checks is printed inside the book, in the Compass chapter.
Make it a ritual
Subscribe and you will get a nudge when your next check is due, plus the printable Scorecard. Nothing else, and never your answers: those stay on your device.
The full framework behind the Compass, and every conversation it can send you into, is in The Missing System, out 19 September 2026. Pre-order it here.