Relationships underscore every aspect of our lives, influencing the health and well-being of individuals, groups and organizations. One of the fundamental challenges in interpersonal relationships is balancing self-interest with the needs of another person. In this talk, I draw upon social, personality, and health psychology to investigate the factors that shape this self-other tradeoff with the ultimate aim of of identifying effective ways to help people create relationships that are assets rather than impairments. In particular, I discuss research on the benefits of perspective taking, gratitude, and awe for dealing with conflict and creating more cooperative relationships as well as the social costs of sleeping poorly.