How to stay married the A-List way

Terry Real is a big deal.

The veteran marriage counsellor, who boasts A-list disciples from Bruce Springsteen to Gwyneth Paltrow, has spent 25 years pulling Hollywood marriages back from the brink.

In the UK, where a dispiriting 42 per cent of nuptials end up in the bin, we could take a leaf out of his book.

Happily, he's got one: Us, a practical how-to guide to stepping back from the bickering and getting real about your relationship.

Can he fix us? If it's good enough for Gwynnie…

The veteran marriage counsellor, who boasts A-list disciples from Bruce Springsteen to Gwyneth Paltrow (pictured with Brad Falchuk last month), has spent 25 years pulling Hollywood marriages back from the brink

HOW TO ARGUE LESS 

People have two faces they show to their partners, says Real: 'adult protective services mode' and 'child mode'.

Everything is sunshine and rainbows in 'wise adult protective services mode' - we are rational, reasonable and Streaming can express ourselves confidently. It's when we argue that 'adaptive child' mode kicks in, Lifestyle and the strategies we learned to defend ourselves under stress as nippers come screaming back.
The first step? Recognise your go-to argument style…

• Always right You believe 'we will solve this when we determine which of us is right and which of us is wrong'. You're the sort of person who makes a virtue of being 'the logical one', hammering home hard facts, often ignoring your partner's feelings and winding them up further.
• Assuming control This behaviour can be either overt ('shut up and do what I tell you') or covert, in the form of manipulation designed to make your partner feel weak and uncertain.
• Unbridled self-expression Or, streaming video essentially, a tirade.
  
  Instead of focusing on the matter in hand, you escalate and pursue a demolition of your partner's character, using phrases such as 'you never', 'you always' and 'you are'. Ironically this disempowers your partner's ability to change, because it suggests that they have a fixed, failed personality rather than behaviours that they can work on.
• Retaliation You hit back, tit for adult tat.
  Hurting your partner the same way they hurt you is an 'understandable human impulse', Manga says Real. However, 'it's flawed, because you're never going to get someone to be more accountable or empathetic this way'.
• Withdrawal This is 'huge for men', says Real.
  
  It's saying: 'I'm not interested, we're shutting this down' and retreating from the conversation (this can happen emotionally, as well as physically).