The first one is:

"Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side." - Zig Ziglar

It took me longer than it should have to REALLY get that my wife and I were on the same side. I recall some of the strange notions I was operating with:

"I need to win this argument no-matter-what."

"If I persist long enough or sulk loudly enough, she'll give in."

"She just doesn't understand how important this is to ME."

There were other strange notions, but let's just say I finally got the idea my wife was not a member of the opposing team. She and I were (and are) on the same team. Sometimes this idea gets lost or diminished. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons this happens, but one simple solution is to just step back and look at our spouse and say: "Hey, we're on the same side. Let's work this out together."

The next marriage quote is:

"There is no remedy for love but to love more." - Goethe

Wow! That one doesn't seem to give much wiggle-room, does it?

When you feel compelled to reduce your affinity for your spouse, take a different tack and increase your affinity. I realize this sounds awfully easy for me to suggest and not so easy to do, but here is a great tool that will help you accomplish this.

When the going gets tough, Goethe is basically saying use MORE affinity, not less.

And the final marriage quote for this post is:

"I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other's gaps." - Rocky

Okay, I realize this is from the movie, but I think the quote is great!

Each of us has areas that are not quite yet in perfect working order. In a relationship, we have two basic choices on how to deal with these "gaps":

1. We could focus on how these areas are a problem or


2. We could concentrate on what each of us does well

I am not suggesting we ignore the "gaps." They are what they are. Each of us would like to minimize or eventually get rid of these areas where we feel we're not performing well. In the meantime, Spouse A can help Spouse B (and vice-versa) by filling the gaps.

Rocky definitely tried to fill Adrian's gaps and Adrian was intent on returning the favor.

Something to learn there.

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Another version of this is failing to defend your spouse when another criticizes them. For example, let’s say your parents start to criticize your spouse. You have to, at that point, stick up for your spouse. To not do so is to start down a slippery slope. When you said “I do” you agreed to create a team with that person, and you have to defend that person, even if it’s your parents giving them a bad rap. If you don’t, it will begin to drive a wedge between your spouse and your parents.

You have to think of you and your husband or wife as a team. You are working together to create a good measure of survival for the both of you, your kids, and everyone related to the family.

So how do you work well with members of a team? Well, you have to be supportive and positive. This means to consider, think about, and communicate about that person’s best qualities. You want to build them up and make them feel good about themselves.

This doesn’t mean to lie to them and tell them how great they are at something when they aren’t really. And I’m not talking about fake “self-esteem” where you make someone feel great about themselves without any consideration of actual achievement. What I’m saying is that you are supportive of your spouse and make them feel good about the person they are and about the things that they are good at. Protect and defend them against attack.

And they’ll do the same for you. That’s a real team.

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In other words, learn to accept your spouse’s faults or quirks. If she burns dinner, that makes it OK that you lost $300 at the casino. If he or she cheats, well, that makes a good number of the other’s faults OK.

An article on Buzzle.com stated “Marriage is all about compromise. Compromise is hard. With or without marriage counseling, married couples need to learn to solve their problems. Counseling can be a place to learn these skills, but should never be the only thing used to save an unhappy marriage.”

But compromising doesn't really restore the love and passion, does it? To be frank, compromising doesn't even restore the enjoyment to a relationship.

I believe that in order to save a marriage that is in trouble, you have to sit down and take a hard look at what your spouse has done to you that was difficult for you to experience or that broke the agreements of the marriage. But you also have to take a serious look at what you have done to your spouse that was difficult for them to experience or that was against the agreements and commitments of the marriage.

It’s a 2-way street. Everybody knows about the Golden Rule, i.e. not doing something to someone else that you wouldn’t want to have done to you. Well those are the things that can wreck a marriage. If you look at it from both ways, it can really have a healing effect.

In terms of day-to-day living, yes compromise is a healthy tool to use. "We'll go  to my movie tonite and next week, we'll see what you want to see." "Can you pick up the kids today? I'll take care of it tomorrow." But when it comes to major problems in a marriage, it's not compromise that fixes things.

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Let's look at some of the apparent reasons for this:

1. Peer pressure. Kids tend to emulate what the "other" kids are doing so if they observe their friends being disrespectful to their parents, this makes it easier for them to follow suit.


2. Turbulent school environment. If the scene at school is rough and kids are learning not-so-wonderful character traits, this can rub off at home.


3. Parents not around. When both parents work or spend too much time away from home, some children find ways to let their parents know they object to this. Disrespect may certainly be one of these ways.

Each one of the above most certainly can be factors, but let me suggest another possibility:

The parent and the child are OUT of communication with each other.

What does that mean: "out" of communication? It means simply there may be talking going back and forth, but communicating isn't really happening. The child has things on his mind that s/he doesn't want the parents to know or is too embarrassed to tell them. The parents observe conduct that they consider non-optimum and instead of sitting down with the child and discussing this, they get backed off or consider they just don't have the time to do so.

The child may be struggling to understand something about life or upset about something that happened with a friend. The parent who gets in there and finds out these things and is there to gently help the child resolve these concerns is a parent who is instilling respect into the relationship. And this respect goes both ways: from the child to the parent and from the parent to the child.

A vital ingredient in helping your child grow is communication. It cannot be brushed off. To the degree that your conversations with your child are superficial, to that degree your child will go out of harmony with you. You, the parent, are in control of how much harmony and respect there is in your home.

Each of the three factors given above (peer pressure, etc.) may be present in your child's life. But if you and your child are in superb communication, these factors just do not have the same impact they would otherwise.

It is never too late to get into better and better communication with your child. Every step in that direction is a major step in the right direction.

In future posts, we'll discuss ways to bring about this superb communication with your child.

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1. You could continue fighting.


2. You could stop fighting and let the upset simmer for awhile (maybe days or weeks).


3. You could both take a walk around the block (each in the opposite direction) until the two of you are extroverted from the upset.

I'm going to recommend Option Number 3.

When two people are very upset, it's difficult to resolve things from that very upset state of mind. If the two of you take a walk around the block, the idea is to walk long enough until you are "extroverted" from the upset. In other words, you've popped out of the upset and you no longer want to strangle your spouse. While on this walk, each of you needs to put your attention on things in your external environment: look at plants, trees, houses, other people, clouds, etc. Put your attention on things outside of you and this will produce an extroversion from the upset. And, as mentioned, each of you goes a different direction on this walk.

When the two of you have successfully completed this walk, you can then sit down and take a fresh look at what's upsetting both of you.

Do not underestimate the effectiveness of this "walk." I can absolutely assure you it will put the two of you in a better position to resolve the upset before it gets too far out of hand (or goes onto the backburner where both of you stay upset for awhile).

In my book, When the Thrill Is Gone, additional procedures are given to resolve marital upsets. There is also an entire chapter to help people get over the loss and upset of a previous relationship that didn't end well.

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Now, having said that, if two people with very little in common, who have spent very little time together race off to Vegas and get married, the chances of their marriage succeeding are not as great as the couple that has taken the time to know each other and who share many things in common.

I'm not against people meeting and having such a compassionate first week that they are absolutely compelled to tie the knot right away. I find that exceptionally adventurous. And I would never say such a couple is "doomed" to fail. With the right tools, every marriage can succeed.

How much should one know about a possible spouse-to-be prior to getting married? That depends on what each person considers important. Religion is extremely important to some and completely insignificant to others. Some consider opposing political beliefs a deal-breaker. How about each person's ambition? Does the wife-to-be wish to have a full-fledged career and perhaps a child 15 years down the road? Does the husband-to-be want to continue in his current job that takes him out of town two weeks of every month?

It's probably a good idea to talk over the main issues. The more things you share in common, the more points of agreement (and strength) you'll have going in.

What if you're married and you didn't take the time to really sort these things out? Not to worry. It's never too late to communicate. There is an earlier post on married couples setting goals. That will help.

A successful marriage is based on a few very key fundamentals. One of these is communication. The answer is always going to be in the area of more communication, not less.

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From Lao Tzu to Tolstoy, from Homer to John Lennon.

You'll find some great quotes from Thoreau, L. Ron Hubbard and Pearl S. Buck. And many others.

Read them over and see if they give you some new insights. The very last one was a big hit with several of my friends.

Note: I included a "Great Marriage Quotes" link on the left column of this blog (under the section "Marriage Success Resources"). I'll be adding more quotes as time goes by. Feel free to use the bookmark link below to assist your return here.

Well, today I received one of those emails and it was about a very grumpy father (in his 60s) and his daughter's attempt to bring some joy and peace of mind to her dad. And as the title of this post suggests, it was about a pet.

Now, I realize not everyone is a pet lover. And I certainly respect that. I grew up without any pets in the house and I always felt I missed out on something. So when I got my own place (a beat-up apartment above a restaurant that had fabulous French Fries), one of the first things I did was get a dog. It wasn't a pure bred, but he sure didn't know it, and he and I had a fabulous relationship.

Some years later, my fiance and I were sitting outside chatting away when a stray dog came by and befriended us. We gave the little fella a bit to eat and she decided right there on the spot that we were an acceptable couple for her new home. (Yes, we tried to find her owners but were not successful.)

My wife and I have been married now for 28 years and during that entire time, we have almost always had a wonderful pet, sometimes two. Our daughter was thrilled whenever there were puppies and/or kittens to take care of.

For me personally, I really enjoy the friendship that can exist between a dog and a person. And I'm sure for others a cat or even a bird can bring a great friendship into being.

But I also observed a very interesting effect a pet had on my marriage. My wife and I love dogs and this was a strong point of agreement between us. There have been times when my wife and I were upset with each other and our dog would come between us and do one of two things: 1) she'd bark at us with this commanding intention that we stop fighting or 2) she'd come right into the middle of us if we were in bed or on the couch and snuggle up next to both of us. Invariably my wife and I would step back and start laughing, realizing that our dog was doing what she could do to end the upset.

Beyond the "marriage counselor" role that our dogs have played, they have always been considered a part of the family. And this bond had a very positive effect on the bond that existed between my wife and I and between us and our daughter. Anything that increases reality and agreement between people will also increase the affinity and communication. This principle (of the effect Affinity, Reality and Communication have on each other) is discussed in greater detail in this article.

Anyway, this is a much longer post than I had envisioned, so I'll wrap it up here. If you carry on further into this post, you can read the email that I received earlier today that I found very touching and every pet lover will enjoy...

(here is the content of the email I received today):

The Old Man and the Dog
by Catherine Moore

"Watch out! You nearly broadsided that car!" My father yelled at me. "Can't you do anything right?"

Those words hurt worse than blows. I turned my head toward the elderly man in the seat beside me, daring me to challenge him. A lump rose in my throat as I averted my eyes. I wasn't prepared for another battle.

"I saw the car, Dad. Please don't yell at me when I'm driving." My voice was measured and steady, sounding far calmer than I really felt.

Dad glared at me, then turned away and settled back. At home I left Dad in front of the television and went outside to collect my thoughts. Dark, heavy clouds hung in the air with a promise of rain. The rumble of distant thunder seemed to echo my inner turmoil.

What could I do about him?

Dad had been a lumberjack in Washington and Oregon. He had enjoyed being outdoors and had reveled in pitting his strength against the forces of nature. He had entered grueling lumberjack competitions, and had placed often. The shelves in his house were filled with trophies that attested to his prowess.

The years marched on relentlessly. The first time he couldn't lift a heavy log, he joked about it; but later that same day I saw him outside alone, straining to lift it. He became irritable whenever anyone teased him about his advancing age, or when he couldn't do something he had done as a younger man.

Four days after his sixty-seventh birthday, he had a heart attack. An ambulance sped him to the hospital while a paramedic administered CPR to keep blood and oxygen flowing. At the hospital, Dad was rushed into an operating room. He was lucky; he survived.

But something inside Dad died. His zest for life was gone. He obstinately refused to follow doctor's orders . Suggestions and offers of help were turned aside with sarcasm and insults. The number of visitors thinned, then finally stopped altogether. Dad was left alone.

My husband, Dick, and I asked Dad to come live with us on our small farm. We hoped the fresh air and rustic atmosphere would help him adjust. Within a week after he moved in, I regretted the invitation. It seemed nothing was satisfactory. He criticized everything I did. I became frustrated and moody. Soon I was taking my pent-up anger out on Dick. We began to bicker and argue. Alarmed, Dick sought out our pastor and explained the situation. The clergyman set up weekly counseling appointments for us. At the close of each session he prayed, asking God to soothe Dad's troubled mind. But the months wore on and God was silent. Something had to be done and it was up to me to do it.

The next day I sat down with the phone book and methodically called each of the mental health clinics listed in the Yellow Pages. I explained my problem to each of the sympathetic voices that answered. In vain. Just when I was giving up hope, one of the voices suddenly exclaimed, "I just read something that might help you! Let me go get the article." I listened as she read. The article described a remarkable study done at a nursing home. All of the patients were under treatment for chronic depression. Yet their attitudes had improved dramatically when they were given responsibility for a dog.

I drove to the animal shelter that afternoon. After I filled out a questionnaire, a uniformed officer led me to the kennels. The odor of disinfectant stung my nostrils as I moved down the row of pens. Each contained five to seven dogs. Long-haired dogs, curly-haired dogs, black dogs, spotted dogs, all jumped up, trying to reach me. I studied each one but rejected one after the other for various reasons, too big, too small, too much hair. As I neared the last pen a dog in the shadows of the far corner struggled to his feet, walked to the front of the run and sat down. It was a pointer, one of the dog world's aristocrats. But this was a caricature of the breed. Years had etched his face and muzzle with shades of gray.   His hipbones jutted out in lopsided triangles. But it was his eyes that caught and held my attention. Calm and clear, they beheld me unwaveringly.

I pointed to the dog. "Can you tell me about him?" The officer looked, then shook his head in puzzlement.

"He's a funny one. Appeared out of nowhere and sat in front of the gate. We brought him in, figuring someone would be right down to claim him. That was two weeks ago and we've heard nothing. His time is up tomorrow." He gestured helplessly.

As the words sank in I turned to the man in horror. "You mean you're going to kill him?"

"Ma'am," he said gently, "that's our policy. We don't have room for every unclaimed dog."

I looked at the pointer again. The calm brown eyes awaited my decision. "I'll take him," I said.

I drove home with the dog on the front seat beside me. When I reached the house I honked the horn twice. I was helping my prize out of the car when Dad shuffled onto the front porch.

"Ta-da! Look what I got for you, Dad!" I said excitedly.

Dad looked, then wrinkled his face in disgust. "If I had wanted a dog I would have gotten one. And I would have picked out a better specimen than that bag of bones. Keep it! I don't want it" Dad waved his arm scornfully and turned back toward the house.

Anger rose inside me. It squeezed together my throat muscles and pounded into my temples.

"You'd better get used to him, Dad. He's staying!" Dad ignored me. "Did you hear me, Dad?" I screamed. At those words Dad whirled angrily, his hands clenched at his sides, his eyes narrowed and blazing with hate.

We stood glaring at each other like duelists, when suddenly the pointer pulled free from my grasp. He wobbled toward my dad and sat down in front of him. Then slowly, carefully, he raised his paw.

Dad's lower jaw trembled as he stared at the uplifted paw. Confusion replaced the anger in his eyes. The pointer waited patiently. Then Dad was on his knees hugging the animal.

It was the beginning of a warm and intimate friendship. Dad named the pointer Cheyenne. Together he and Cheyenne explored the community. They spent long hours walking down dusty lanes. They spent reflective moments on the banks of streams, angling for tasty trout. They even started to attend Sunday services together, Dad sitting in a pew and Cheyenne lying quietly at his feet.

Dad and Cheyenne were inseparable throughout the next three years. Dad's bitterness faded, and he and Cheyenne made many friends.

Then late one night I was startled to feel Cheyenne's cold nose burrowing through our bed covers. He had never before come into our bedroom at night. I woke Dick, put on my robe and ran into my father's room. Dad lay in his bed, his face serene. But his spirit had left quietly sometime during the night.

Two days later my shock and grief deepened when I discovered Cheyenne lying dead beside Dad's bed. I wrapped his still form in the rag rug he had slept on. As Dick and I buried him near a favorite fishing hole, I silently thanked the dog for the help he had given me in restoring Dad's peace of mind.

The morning of Dad's funeral dawned overcast and dreary. This day looks like the way I feel, I thought, as I walked down the aisle to the pews reserved for family. I was surprised to see the many friends Dad and Cheyenne had made filling the church. The pastor  began his eulogy. It was a tribute to both Dad and the dog who had changed his life. And then the pastor turned to Hebrews 13:2. ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers.’ "I've often thanked God for sending that angel," he said.

For me, the past dropped into place, completing a puzzle that I had not seen before: the sympathetic voice that had just read the right article...

Cheyenne's unexpected appearance at the animal shelter . . . his calm acceptance and complete devotion to my father . . . and the proximity of their deaths. And suddenly I understood. I knew that God had answered my prayers after all.

Life is too short for drama & petty things, so laugh hard, love truly and forgive quickly.

Live While You Are Alive.

Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

(This is the end of the email)

I did a search on Google for Catherine Moore who authored this story. Initially I found the story on a Louisiana SPCA web site and then on a number of other sites. I kept looking around and found it was excerpted from Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul: Stories About Pets as Teachers, Healers, Heroes and Friends. Looking inside of the Chicken Soup book, I found the story was reprinted from Guideposts Magazine. Thank you, Catherine, Guideposts Magazine and Chicken Soup for the Soul for a wonderful story.

(Make sure your speakers are turned on)

I think you know why I included this video on a blog called "Marriage Success." A fast kiss on the cheek or the lips is certainly a show of affection. But take a few seconds more and give your spouse a nice, deep hug. The affinity you deliver with a great hug is worth its weight in gold. And don't wait for the "right moment" to give your husband or wife a fabulous hug. Give them freely. They'll work wonders!

Additional info on the above video: After watching it, I found out about another Free Hugs "campaign" that was carried out in Santa Monica and one in South Korea, Amsterdam, Hollywood, Israel, China and on and on.

One guy, Juan Mann, started this phenomenon of simply giving out "free hugs." If you head over to YouTube and type in "free hugs," you'll find a ton of videos on this incredible wave of friendship and affinity.

Juan Mann decided to brighten up the lives of passerbys in Sydney, Australia by giving them free hugs. As a result hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of "free" hugs have been dispensed by complete strangers!