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I cringed when I saw the title: "Changing your spouse's behavior."

A better title might be, "How doom a marriage" or maybe, "How to drive you
and your spouse crazy in 10 easy steps".

Hey, it's not that I don't have sympathy for those who would like less irritation in their lives. I've often floated off daydreaming that the dog and I have a remote cabin for the two of us and those pesky guys we share a home with are nowhere in sight-without much guilt over excluding them, I might add. My husband, in particular, can raise my blood pressure to near

stroke-level, a talent no one but him possesses-and I have two adolescents and teach high school. It's not like everyone I deal with is the model of rationality, ok?

I could give a laundry list of things that come from the package deal of having this man I love as my partner: he's high stress and high maintenance, he uses the f-word to punctuate everything-no matter where we are or who we're in front of, he's moody and too sensitive, he sleeps too much and wants to talk about a problem or issue way longer than the 1-5 minutes I feel it needs.the list goes on and on.

And there are things he's less than thrilled about with me: I lose my keys daily, I'm a slob and don't always consider his neat-freak needs, I can't cook, I'm slow to stand up for myself, I have to get really mad before I discuss an issue, and I'm too much of a dreamer, just to name a
few of the things he wishes he didn't have to tolerate from me.

We had both been married to other people-him years before we met and me, married but separated when we first met. We both took the same lessons from our first marriage: "It really sucks when the person you share a life with wants to change you" and, "When someone tries to change you there's this tendency to rebel, isn't there?"

Our histories collided in this issue of what I unaffectionately refer to as "project mentality" (this idea of 'changing people')-both our spouses had married people who they thought "had potential" and they saw it as their purpose in life to help us achieve that potential and both of us responded to their efforts by stubbornly refusing to change. In fact, not only were we ingrates, spurning their every attempt to polish us up, but rebels as well-not only did we not make the suggested improvements, we both became worse in our imperfections.

I credit our first spouses for the success of our marriage because when that first desire to say, "You know, why don't you do" or, "Stop doing that" or any other

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