For the two of you, whoever you are to each other

What you'd say if you weren't this angry.

Partners. Sisters. A dad and his grown-up daughter. Two flatmates and one sink. Everyone who matters to you is somebody you will, at some point, want to throttle. To Be Fair is the small thing you open in that moment, and it is on your side. Both of your sides.

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Free · iPhone · Works in a basement · Made in the UK

The moment, in four frames

It is twenty to midnight. Somebody has said the thing. Here is what the next ninety seconds look like with the app in your pocket.

  1. Somebody said the thing.

    Your whole body agrees with the worst possible reading of it. Everything you know about this person has gone somewhere you cannot reach.

  2. One button. It asks you nothing.

    No form, no mood diary, no sign-in wall at midnight. It just starts, whether or not you have signal.

  3. One true sentence at a time.

    Things the other one of you wrote about you, or you wrote about them, on a day when you were both fine. Each one settles in at the speed of a long breath out. You do not have to do anything but read.

  4. Still angry, but less. What now?

    Three doors and the app holds all of them open. That is the whole trick, and you have to see it on a phone to believe how well it works.

Not just for couples. For anyone worth arguing with.

Most relationships do not end with a bang. They end with two people who stopped being able to hear each other on the bad days. This is for the bad days, between any two people who would rather stay.

  • Partners

    To be fair,you apologised within the hour. You always do.

  • Sisters, brothers

    To be fair,you sat with me in the hospital car park until four.

  • A parent, a grown-up child

    To be fair,you learned to text just so you could hear from me.

  • Flatmates

    To be fair,you have never once let the bins win.

  • Best friends

    To be fair,you got on a train the night it all fell apart.

  • Co-founders

    To be fair,you took no salary for a year so I could.

Two people, one link, six digits to confirm on both phones. That is the whole set-up. The app shows you the rest.

Why it works, in words you can feel

Nothing in the app is a hunch. Each part of it stands on a study, and the study is quoted underneath so you can check us. Here is what the research says, and what we did about it.

Seven minutes, three times a year.

That is less time than you spend choosing a film. In the app it is the Write it out door: seven minutes as somebody fond of you both.

Writing about a fight from the view of a neutral outsider who wants the best for you both, seven minutes three times a year, stopped the usual decline in marital quality in a two-year study.

Finkel et al. 2013 · Psychological Science

You hear the next sentence through the last feeling.

So the app changes the feeling first, before either of you says another word. That is why it hands you the good things before it offers you anything to do.

Couples who keep more positive than negative moments during disagreements stay together more often.

Gottman · sentiment override

Say what it is, and it gets smaller.

One optional tap before the cards: angry, hurt, ashamed, scared. Never a form.

Naming what you feel lowers the brain's alarm response.

Lieberman et al. · affect labelling

Talk to yourself like a friend would.

The cards are written to you, in the second person, by somebody who likes you. There is a whole mode for the person whose anger points inward.

Talking to yourself by name, or as "you", helps you step back from anger.

Kross and Ayduk · self-distancing

A pause you both agreed to is a plan. "We'll talk later" is a door slam.

You agree the words and the time while nobody is cross. On the night, one tap sends exactly that and nothing else.

A pre-agreed "if we get heated we pause and come back at a set time" plan makes the pause far more likely to happen.

Gollwitzer · implementation intentions

Thank-yous compound.

Writing one is a small act. The other person sees that you did. Over a year it adds up to a record neither of you can argue with.

Noticing what your partner does for you predicts feeling closer the next day, for both of you.

Algoe et al. · gratitude in couples

Being hard on yourself is not the same as being honest.

The "I'm a terrible person" spiral has its own door, and its own cards.

Being harsh on yourself fuels rumination; self-kindness measurably reduces it.

Ferrari et al. 2019 · meta-analysis

Out longer than in.

Every card settles at the pace of a long exhale. You breathe with it without being told to.

Slow exhales, practised daily, improve mood and lower breathing rate.

Paced exhale · vagal tone

And the things we will not tell you: not five good things to one bad, not twenty minutes for your heart rate, not clinically proven, not a substitute for therapy, and not for a relationship where you are frightened.

Things it will never do to you

  • No streaks. Nobody needs "you have argued three days in a row".
  • No badges, no scores, no confetti. You are not being trained.
  • No paywall, no sign-in wall and no rating prompt in front of a card, ever.
  • Nothing goes to the other person that they did not agree to first.
  • No pause that one of you can set alone.
The honest bit

Your sentences are kept by us, on Amazon Web Services in London, encrypted on the way and at rest, with a copy on each of your two phones. Export the lot as a PDF whenever you like. Delete everything does exactly that, immediately, and shows you a receipt.

The privacy notice says the uncomfortable half too.

Questions people ask

Is it only for couples?
No. It is for any two people who matter to each other and sometimes fall out: partners, siblings, a parent and a grown-up child, flatmates, old friends. Each pair is its own tin.
Is To Be Fair free?
Yes. The first version is fully free. No plan, no trial, no purchase inside the app.
Does it work without a signal?
Yes. Once you have signed in on a phone, the fair hearing runs from the copy on that phone with no signal at all, and with nothing to sign into in front of it.
Is it a therapy app?
No. It is one small thing done well in the ten minutes after somebody has said something they regret. It is not a substitute for a therapist, and it is not clinically proven. If you are frightened of the other person, it is not the tool, and the app says where to get help instead.
Can the other person read what I write on the Write it out page?
No. What you write there stays on your phone. It is not sent to us or to their phone, and it only leaves your phone inside your own PDF export.
Is there an Android version?
Not yet. It is built for iPhone first, and nothing about how it is made stops an Android version later.

See how, on your own phone.

Two minutes to set up. One button when it counts. The first three sentences are the hardest, and you write those together.

Get it on the App Store

If you feel unsafe, this is not the tool. Where to get help