When a couple gets to the last stage, one or both partners may have an affair. But an affair is usually a symptom of a dying marriage, not the cause. The end of that marriage could have been predicted long before either spouse strayed.

I liken an affair to the shattering of a Waterford crystal vase. You can glue it back together, but it will never be the same again.

Bid for connection: Each of our daily interactions with another person.

We move in response to our conversation partner’s face, and our brain also fires as we move those muscles and stirs the passions. Paralyzing the face is idiotic.

Marriages are much more likely to succeed when the couple experiences a 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions whereas when the ratio approaches 1 to 1, marriages are more likely to end in divorce.

In a good relationship, people get angry, but in a very different way. The Marriage Masters see a problem a bit like a soccer ball. They kick it around. It's 'our' problem.

Thus, the critical dimension in understanding whether a marriage will work or not, becomes the extent to which the male can accept the influence of the woman he loves and become socialized in emotional communication.