Recently when I have been seeing couples, families or individuals in which an Axis I psychiatric illness (major depression, anxiety, bipolar illness, schizophrenia according to the current psychiatric diagnostic nomenclature that usually requires some sort of medication) is clearly not present I have offered them the following choice.

“Either I can diagnose you as having a sickness or illness and direct you towards treatment with psychotherapy (possibly long term) or medication and refer you to someone else who does much more of both currently than I or…

We can view you as being factually wrong, psychologically flawed and emotionally immature and work with you to correct all of these. By this I mean you are first looking at the world through a filter that is just a filter and not necessarily accurate with regard to the facts of a particular situation. Next you are psychologically processing that misperception in a way to cause you to view and treat your interpretation as an absolute immutable fact. Finally when you feel disappointed, hurt or frustrated in conjunction with that belief instead of pausing momentarily to reflect and then consider your options you immediately act on those feelings in ways that nearly always makes matters worse.”

When I offer this “pick one or the other choice” to many clients, they are at first taken aback, and wonder if I am serious. When they see that I am, they pause and seriously consider the implications of either choice and then choose the second.

What would you choose?

And do you agree or disagree with the following assertion and if so why and if not why not?

Mental dysfunction is an incapacity or inability to realize and accept that your perception, understanding and response to a current event is wrong. 

Mental illness is either a biologic/neurologic or personality disorder that results in the incapacity or a lessened capacity to realize and accept that your perception, understanding and response to a current event is wrong.  

Mental health is the capacity and ability to perceive, understand and respond to a current event based upon the objective — as best can be determined –  facts and reality of it.

After decades of working with married couples, I have realized that there’s not much I can do if peoples’ mindsets are focused on being right instead of  making their relationship better.

As a result I now focus on partners that are motivated to make their marriage a success and are willing to give up having to be right to do so.  Those couples are often the ones where both partners are marrying for the third time or at least one is for the third time (usually the moneyed one) and the other for at least the second.

It doesn’t always hold true, but it seems that a couple in a first marriage often doesn’t know what to do when each person grows in a different direction and apart from the other.  Rather than accepting this as a reality, they launch full bore into making the other person wrong when in fact they are just different and growing into who they are meant to be.

Then the second marriage is about doing the opposite of the first as a reaction to the other person being wrong.  It is not about admitting and actually taking personal responsibility for problems in that first marriage.  In other words, the narcissistic part of each person’s personality is alive and well and entitled.  If they haven’t taken that personal responsibility for problems, they are often just as likely to run into problems –maybe different ones, but problems nevertheless – the second time around.

The third time may be the charm because after being a two time loser, it becomes more difficult to keep blaming the other person entirely.  What’s the saying?  “Have a failed marriage once, shame on them; have a failed marriage twice, shame on you.” And when you get older, just not wanting to fight is a legitimate resolution to arguments, whereas when you are younger that would seem to be too avoidant and there is often an obsessive need to deal with and resolve all the issues. Also by the time you’re on a third marriage, you’ve gone from believing you’re invincible to wanting to make it to the finish line of life with peace of mind.

Now there are many who will not remarry a third time.  For the ones that do, there are usually habits they have learned that will help their third marriage to succeed (and ones that first and second marriages would do well to learn as well).

12 Habits of Healthy and Happy Third Marriages

1. Talking “with” instead of “at” your mate. Let their body language be your guide. When you’re talking “at” your partner, they’ll tense up. When you’re talking “with” them, they’ll most certainly relax.
2. Tuning in — instead of tuning out — to what your mate is saying. When your mind begins to wander, stop and remember that what your partner is saying is important to them whether you’re interested or not.
3. Remembering to thank your mate. Not thanking your spouse for being considerate, thoughtful or kind makes them feel unappreciated and foolish for caring about you.
4. Saying, “I’m sorry,” instead of becoming defensive. When you mess up, the sooner you sincerely apologize the sooner your mate can stop resenting you.
5. When you say, “I’m sorry,” follow through. An apology buys you another chance. However, if you keep making the same mistake, apologies not only seem empty, but annoying as well.
6. Being on time. Frequently keeping your spouse waiting is not only inconsiderate; it’s arrogant.
7. Not Jumping to conclusions. Presuming that you know what your partner feels — and why — without first getting all the facts is only going to push them away.
8. Not playing the victim. This behavior not only accuses your spouse of hurting you, but adds insult to injury by implying that they’re doing it intentionally, when that may not be the case.
9. Not making the other person wrong. Rather than realizing and accepting that it takes two to make a mistake, they always blame problems on the other.
10. Talk well about your spouse behind their back. When you bad mouth your spouse to others, this not only adds to the list of secrets you keep from your mate, but also tells others how little you respect them.
11. Have ground rules for dealing with a difference of opinion – Having ground rules such as agreeing to not use words like “never” and “always” or agreeing that neither person can become abusive and unrelentingly accusatory – a couples’ disagreement will prevent a disagreement from deteriorating and sometimes reaching the point of cruel words or an action that can’t be taken back.
12. Knowing that doing something once is not enough. If you only temporarily do the above — and don’t continue to monitor yourself to keep from slipping back into bad habits — you’re teasing your partner with changing. You’re also kidding yourself that you’re committed to improving your marriage, when really you’re not.

The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There (Perigee, $15.95)

Try to see your partner at their worst before you get married,
because you will certainly see them at it afterwards

In the 1980’s one of my specialties and claims to fame was that I was the creator of “Recoupling Therapy”* where I helped couples that had divorced to remarry their ex- and live happily ever after.

I appeared on Oprah, Today (see mini-videoclips) in the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Rebook, Los Angeles Magazine , the Los Angeles Times to discuss my work along with couples who had “recoupled.”

In actuality it was much easier to recouple a divorced couple than keep a miserable one together.

All that it required was that each partner:

1. had learned how they contributed to the problems in the marriage and took full responsibility for it.
2. had learned what they would to do different to deal with disagreements, disappointments and hurts before they deteriorated into a “scorched earth” War of the Roses and was actively using those approaches.
3. was willing to agree on a set of ground rules for managing disagreements that were more important to each of them than being right or winning.
4. made forgiveness rather than begrudging their default mode even when they couldn’t sort out the issues behind a conflict.
5. routinely expressed gratitude and appreciation to each other.
6. (and pertaining to the “”usable insight” above) realized that during the divorce they had seen and knew the other person at their worst, whereas that was something they had yet to discover in any new relationship.

What can you learn from this if you are going the first time around or even before you get married?

Don’t make a commitment to each other until you have gotten into three full scale arguments where each or both people have felt disappointed or hurt by the other to see how each person handles it. The more quickly either person goes from disappointment or hurt to anger, defensiveness, or emotional withdrawal and remains stuck there, the less that person is capable of having a relationship and the more the other person will have to walk on eggshells. Over time, doing that will have a cumulative effect, suck the vitality out of the relationship and corrode it from the inside out until it caves in on itself and dies. My advice just say “Goodbye” to such a “high maintenance” (easy to upset, difficult to please) person and if that person is you, fix it.

* I didn’t stay with that specialty because at that same time I was also involved intervening with suicidal and violent individuals, which seemed more critical at the time.  I often feel that I may have done more good had I continued with “Recoupling Therapy” given the families it would have saved and future suicides and violence it would have prevented.

ALSO Sign up and heck out the latest “Two Questions to Get Closer to Your Partner” at FREE RESOURCES

AND stayed tuned for the launch of HappierCouples.com, “coming to a relationship near you” in September and where I am thrilled to be the Chief Relationship Officer.