Marital advice - Time to give your marriage an audit

DEAR married, male friends, can you imagine a more irritating task?

You have to rake over the hot coals of a recent row with your wife. You have to take the perspective of a neutral onlooker, and write down the thoughts that spring into mind from the “significant disagreement” in an essay, “focusing on behaviour, not on thoughts or feelings”.

The job isn’t supposed to take much time, about seven minutes. Do it with your wife three times a year, though, and it promises to be good for your marriage, according to the findings of a two-year study led by Eli J Finkel, a psychology professor from Northwestern University, Illinois.