Here is some relationship advice from the year 1886:

• Let your love be stronger than your hate or anger.
• Learn the wisdom of compromise, for it is better to bend a little than to break.
• Believe the best rather than the worst.
• People have a way of living up or down to your opinion of them.
• Remember that true friendship is the basis for any lasting relationship. The person you choose to marry is deserving of the courtesies & kindnesses you bestow on your friends.
• Please hand this down to your children and your children's children: The more things change the more they are the same.

To say that much has changed in the 119 years since this was first written is a bit of an understatement.

Something as commonplace as the technology that allows the publication of this newsletter or website would have been the subject of far fetched science fiction in 1886.

Yet some things do not change, like the basic emotional needs of men and women. Nor does what I call the couple-attitudes and couple-skills necessary for a vibrant long term relationship.

I bet this will still be true another 119 years from now in the year 2124.

Perhaps by then we