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There's a farce we did in High School called "If a Man Answers" which had as a central theme the idea of a mother giving her newly wed daughter a book on dog training as a way to keep her husband in line. When the daughter asked if that seemed a little demeaning her mother replied, "Darling how many women do you know whose husbands have left them? How many women do you know whose dogs have left them?"
It’s simple, it’s silly, and yes it’s retro, but it does work. Among other things, what you have at the center of this notion is communication. When your spouse (it does work for both men and women) does something good, you let them know and reward them accordingly. When they do something bad, you let them know and with hold the reward accordingly.
Men, and women, are not idiots, but people often dance around the idea of what they can and can not say to their significant other. They are your significant other, if you can't speak your mind to them, to whom can you?
