Having served both personally and professionally in the “marital trenches” for over four and a half decades, I've become a seasoned veteran of couple conflict. Certainly, for most of us, conflict is an unwelcome but expected part of the often emotionally craggy topography of close, meaningful partnerships. It's tightly woven into the very textured, complicated fabric of all our relationships but it's especially odds-on within our most intimate ones.

Predictably, individual partner differences can be, on occasion, troublingly abrasive. Sparks can fly like a downed power line when discordant desires, needs, feelings, and values inevitably flare. What's more, partners come from differing families of origin which predispose “culture clashes” that fan the fires of conflict by arousing disparities and divisiveness in partner preferences and values.

Like home ownership, despite its broad range of advantages, the deeply enriching benefits of our most consequential relationships keep close company with the often-burdensome emotional costs of periodic maintenance and repair.

The word “deconfliction” is a military term referring to procedures designed to prevent “friendly fire” attacks on soldiers within the same fighting unit. Similarly, partners in close relationships are perpetually within the "range of fire" and too frequently are the hapless victims of unnecessary and emotionally injurious, "friendly fire.”

Of necessity, for optimal relationship hygiene and health, preventative strategies ought to be in place to eliminate or at least mitigate the painful, and most often, non-productive arguing, fighting and the avoidable frustrations and despair of partner "warfare."

A typical viral infection takes roughly two to twelve days to incubate before its victim becomes symptomatic. However, a disgruntled partner's foul or combative mood can be transmitted in a millisecond as the emotional contagion instantly "infects" their significant other who can, in turn, become........

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