Here are some
Frank Pittman marriage tips from an
article in the Marin Independent
Journal, in California:
"For those who
stay married for a lifetime, divorce
would be unthinkable,"
said Dr. Frank
S. Pittman III, an Atlanta
psychiatrist and author of several
books about marriage, including
Grow Up!: How Taking Responsibility
Can
Make You A
Happy Adult.
"We don't talk
about it, we don't think about it,
and it's never threatened.
It's really
strange, the difference between
those people who come in talking
about divorce
and those people who come in talking
about some problem or
some
decision."
Divorces run
in families. If you didn't know
marriages when you were growing
up, find
people who are married and find out
how they do it.
Common
courtesy plays a big role in happy
marriages. People who are
permanently
married are polite to one another.
They don't want to hurt one
another's
feelings, and they don't try to make
the other one feel
humiliated.
People who are married for life are
extremely kind to one
another.
Arguments are
a natural part of any relationship,
but cruelty is not. Above
all, happily
married partners see each other as
allies, not as adversaries.
You can't be
right and married at the same time.
If you're trying to be
right and
prove your partner wrong, you've
stepped outside the marriage.
To go without
sex is to endanger the relationship.
It's very easy to build
up an incest
taboo in a marriage. If you go
without sex, your instincts
recognize this
person as part of the family but
cease to recognize the
person as a
sex partner. The response can kick
in surprisingly quickly - in
as little as
six weeks. People make a terrible
mistake in being angry with
their marriage
partner and cutting them off
sexually as a way of arousing
great passion.
It used to work in the ninth grade.
But it doesn't work in
the ninth
decade.
Caressing and
contact is always a good thing. The
great thing about sex at
this age is it
ceases to be great, and it becomes
funny. It feels good, but
you never know
what's going to work and what's not.
Which brings up another
trait that
long-lasting marriage partners often
share: a sense of humor.
Humor is
vital, but it is vital to be happy,
too. A happy marriage is a
marriage
between two happy people.
You're not
going to be in love all the time,
but if you want to recapture
that magic
from when you were in love, be
loving. Being loving to your
partner makes
you feel so good about yourself, it
doesn't matter if you're
in love or
not. The marriage is making you feel
good if you are loving in
it.
There's no
point battling age in yourself or in
your partner. No one has
ever won.
