This was a good article. But, I might point out, relationships are one thing, marriage is another. The article started with one topic and then wandered off int

This was a good article. But, I might point out, relationships are one thing, marriage is another. The article started with one topic and then wandered off into the other. I highly doubt people stayed together 70 years ago because they paid more attention to each other. I think it was just socially and economically harder to divorce. In addition, the recommendations are good, however it takes two people to follow them. Having had a number of short term and long term girlfriends (the current one for over 8 years, she may be the last, who knows....), I have found there is such a thing as an attention vampire. People who have no respect for your space or focus. People who think your entire existence is to pay attention to them. And, I have found that there is no satisfying these people and they will move right on to someone else as you inevitabley become exhausted. So, I would speculate, in addition to the excellent points in the article, that successful couples have reasonable, respectful, and most importantly, compatible attention requirements. Also, paradoxically, I found that paying too much attention to __some__ people causes them to place less value on your attention. When they no longer value your attention, they lose respect, and this causes a downhill slide in the relationship as well. The article is, I believe, written from a female point of view (can I say that? does it make me a bad sexist person?). It is a valuable and beautiful point of view. But like most things in life, balance and measure comes into play, and failing to recognize this leads to disaster as surely as ignoring your partners needs does. Just my thoughts. I didn't do a study.