Some Basic Background 31
- Keep your problems to yourselves. Asking advice from friends,
family or neighbors about a recent argument with your
spouse (although admittedly tempting) is actually a severe
breach of trust. You will never repair a rough patch in your
relationship by taking some sort of a Gallup Poll among
your friends and neighbors as to whether it was you or
your spouse who was right or wrong about a given issue/
incident in your marriage. Never, ever, talk about negative
aspects of your relationship with anyone except your spouse
(and/or a professional counselor, perhaps). It’s extremely
destructive. - Apologize and make up. Just saying “I’m sorry” can change an
angry argument into a constructive discussion. Couples who
are the quickest to instinctively apologize and make up often
have the strongest marriages. I sometimes analogize argumen-
tative communication styles with the “unnecessary rough-
ness” penalty in football. Once uttered, you can never really
take those harsh words back, so be careful what you say in the
first place. Remember that studies have shown that it takes
about five positive interchanges to make up for one negative
interchange, so be careful about those negatives or you’re
going to have to work awfully hard to make up for them. - Be a romantic. There is a worldwide romance shortage today.
I read a recent Valentine’s Day survey in which 49 percent of
those surveyed thought romance was on the decline. Only
19 percent ranked themselves seven or higher on the roman-
tic scale. We should all work to improve on those figures. - Stay out of the Three P Soup... It’s a recipe for disaster. I once
heard a great “Three P” analogy as to just how it is that other-
wise normal communication can progressively deteriorate.
You start off with a base of the Personal: “You’re such a nag,
there’s no pleasing you.” Follow that up with a dollop of the
Pervasive: “You nag about everything.” Add a pinch of the
Permanent: “And you’ve always been that way.” Then bring
to a roiling boil with “I gave up on you a long time ago.”
As I say, I suppose that my little Twelve Point Plan as listed
above could be alternatively titled “A Divorce Lawyer’s Guide to