So you want to know how you can have a better marriage and you're wondering where you should start?

Well, the 3 Day Marriage Experiment is a great way to test the waters and covers the very basics of how to get started in marriage improvement.

While there are many things you can do on a daily basis to improve your marriage, we are convinced that the one single skill that can have the most positive impact on your marriage is learning how to put your spouse's needs before your own in a healthy way.

Now, I'm not talking about being a doormat and I'm certainly not advocating that you "take" whatever bad behavior your partner feels like "dishing" out. What I am talking about is actively thinking about ways you can make your spouse's life happier and then doing them.

I know, it doesn't sound like much, but trust me, it's much easier to say than to do!

In order to accomplish anything, you and your spouse must both make the decision together to make it work. Putting the theory into practice will take some trial and error; but for starters, you and your spouse could consider changing your behavior, individually, to improve each other's day.

Let me give you a recent personal example of how one might achieve this:

I had been asking Lisa for several days to help me with something I was working on that would require a few hours from her. It was something she really didn't want to do at the time, as she had been feeling under the weather for a few days.

We were on the way home from running an errand last weekend, and I asked her again when she could put some time aside to help me....and she gave me an earful of all the reasons why she hadn't felt like it.

From my perspective I had been working around this particular project for days and I was tired of trying to finish it without the input I needed from her. I was fed up and my immediate impulse was to shout, "I've been at this for days without your help already!" I fumed to myself that if she wasn't going to help me, then the heck with it, the heck with her, I would just forget it and not do it!

Pretty much a typical frustrated male reaction.

But that's not what I said to her, although it took serious self-discipline! I rode in silence after her "lecture" for a few minutes and attempted to really understand what she was trying to tell me - that from her perspective she was feeling tired and overwhelmed, that she felt I was endlessly badgering her and I should just back off!

Bearing that in mind, what I did say was that I understood completely, and suggested that when we got home, she should go and lie down for a bit. I told her (still very irritated with me profile) that if she felt better later, maybe we could try to work on it then, and left it at that. Let me say again that keeping an angry retort to myself was NOT easy.

But guess what? It worked! She went in, had a nap, and when she got up, she volunteered to help me with my project. Why? Because I realized that she was tired and feeling overwhelmed, and I put her needs first. What I got in return (for simply listening, not trying to invalidate how she felt, and showing I was concerned for her well-being) was a rejuvenated wife who couldn't wait to help me. I got what I wanted - her help - and she got what she needed - rest.

We then had a much less heated discussion about what had been bothering her and I, in turn, confided how her angry reaction in the car had made me feel. We both apologized for not thinking about each other's needs and went on to have a pleasant weekend. (And before you start to wonder if I'm a "saint", let me just add here that Lisa has been on the receiving end of a few similar outbursts from me, and she, too, has learned to reign-in her negative reactions.)

Big deal! So what? Well actually, it is a big deal. For many couples who might have a similar exchange, how one or both people respond can set off a chain reaction of accusations, attacks and mutual recrimination - just because the initial conversation in the car snowballed into a major argument that continued once they got home!

Self-control and a sense of empathy from both parties is the key to success in our marriage, and can be to yours!