Yep, wife and I just celebrated our 19th last night. Brought home a bouquet of roses in one of her favorite colors (a surprise), and then took her to dinner and got her favorite (seared Ahi Tuna Mignon). Her birthday is tomorrow, so I am sending her to see her daughters in Spokane, then to visit with friends in Denver.

Here's the rules I follow: Give her whatever she asks for. Be willing to spend money on her anytime, for any reason, or for no reason. Make her more important than anything else in the world. Don't criticize her. Let her win any debate (we don't argue about anything, if we disagree, then I give in). Demonstrate my attraction for her anytime we are together. Give her her space.

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had the right formula. They said that a successful marriage is an 80/20 relationship. You give 80% and get 20% back. Don't look for equity, you will never find it. Also, marriage is a one way path; once you start down it you should never turn back. A lot of folks these days seem to think that it is okay when things don't go your way or they are unhappy with the choice they made to just quit and start over. Well, that sort of thinking doesn't work, and it's persistance is going to wreck this civilization quicker than any terrorist action, if it hasn't already. I can think of damned few reasons where divorce is truly justified, and even then it's because one or both sides would rather quit than work to get past whatever problem exists.

In any case, it may not be that all women act emotionally and mildly hysterically in the face of every emergency. But I can say that, without exception, every woman I ever knew will do it sooner or later, and with enough frequency that a guy is better off just learning and accepting that his first response needs to be to acknowledge the woman's emontional needs before taking one more step, lest he walk into the minefield unaware.