My wife said this to me for years. It still comes out everyone in a while. It is very easy to say with a man and woman. We are so different in many ways. If you have not read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, I HIGHLY recommend it. As a couple we tend to concentrate on the bad things in our relationship.

If you watch the news, you will notice most of the content is negative. Just think if all they aired were positive stories. Most of us would turn it of. We look for the negative news. I very rarely watch the news, but when I do, sometimes I watch it to make myself feel better. I see all those negative stories and I try to convince myself that I have it better than those poor soles. It never works. It just depresses me more.

It is the same way in a relationship. We tend to concentrate on the bad things. We notice the uncommon traits we have. What you need to do is change your partner. Yes, you read that correctly, you can do this by changing yourself. I am changing my wife right now by learning how to be a better person. Before, I was very verbose on how I wanted her to change. She just started to resent me. She went polar opposite on the things I wanted her to change.

What is funny now is, there are not many things I want her to change now. What that means to me is I was a big part of the problem. We are different in many ways, but I find those differences complement each other. What I am doing now is working on my attitude. I try to find the positive spins on a situation instead of rolling with just the negative.

It is very easy to see the negative aspect of your spouse's traits and mannerisms. For me, it is getting easier and easier to she all my wife's positive traits and brushing off her negative ones. Here is the great thing about that. She knows what bugs me when she does those things. Now I can see her working on them without me saying a word.

What is sad is most couples do not understand this when they get married. I believe this is the reason for the high divorce rate. Years ago, divorce was not an option. You just worked through it. Today divorce is the norm. Young couples do not give the relationship a chance to grow roots and flourish.

Be slow to speak and quick to listen. When you finally get the concept of giving and not taking, your relationship will start to grow roots. The saying "It is better to give than receive" is so true. Your partner will only want to give back when you are giving to them. The more you give, the more you will receive. Try to look at the things that really matter. Griping about those little things does not for your spouse or you. In fact, most of the time, your mate will retaliate and make it worse on you.