Do you treat your spouse with the same courtesy and tenderness that you treat your pets? In a light-hearted “feel-good” article from the New York Times, we are instructed in ways to improve our marriage by mirroring the way that most people deal with their pets.
Psychologist Suzanne Phillips offers some suggestions:
Greetings: Even on bad days, we greet our pets with a happy, animated hello, and usually a pat on the head or a hug. Do you greet your spouse that way?
Holding grudges: Even when our pets annoy us by wrecking the furniture or soiling the floor, we don’t stay mad at them.
Assuming the best: When our pets make mistakes, we don’t take it personally and are quick to forgive. We give them the benefit of the doubt. Yet when our spouse does something wrong, we often react with anger and blame.
Never thought of marriage quite like that before!