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Trouble shared is trouble halved. Tell her your joys and sorrows. Tell her the little things.
Giving comfort softens and comforts both the giver and the receiver. It is a form of bonding that can only result from loving kindness bestowed with generosity in a time of need. A little comfort when it is needed goes a long way.
Help given grudgingly or resentfully is worse than no help at all. Be cheerful and quick to render help when help is needed. If you are inconvenienced by so doing, remember all the times that you have been helped yourself and how good it made you feel that someone loved you enough to be inconvenienced without complaining. The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.
Listen to her troubles and sorrows. Give her a shoulder to cry on. Do not become annoyed if she complains about work or problems with friends.
The sharing of intimate thoughts and important experiences is a demonstration of trust, and as such builds trust between you. You may err by being too open, but not as much as you may by being too closed.
It is a courteous and friendly part to excuse a man's fault, even in that very thing wherein you know how to blame him. And withal, it doth well, to make the proper and peculiar fault of your friend, indifferent and common to you both, and first, to take one piece to yourself, and then after to blame and reprove him for it. 'We were deceived and failed much: we forgot ourselves yesterday to do so.' Although such negligence and error or whatsoever it be is altogether his fault and not yours.
-- Il Galateo
When something has gone wrong, accept whatever blame may be yours with a good grace.
Do not attempt to place the blame on her for things she may not have done, or which were the responsibility of the both of you, or which may have been your fault entirely. In any event, accept your share of responsibility and blame, no matter whose fault you may think it is.
Do not whine.
Do not accuse her of whining.
Respect her physical and intellectual accomplishments.
Accord her public respect and admiration.
. . . some . . . will never seem astonished at what others accomplish because they assume they can do far better themselves, and they do this as if to suggest that there is no one their equal let alone capable of appreciating the profundity of their knowledge. Our courtier must avoid this hateful kind of behavior and praise the achievements of others with great kindness and goodwill . . .
-- The Courtier, Book Two
Do not upstage her. If she has done something which gains her praise, join in the praise and do not give the impression that you are jealous or resentful of her accomplishments.
Acknowledge her vital contribution to anything that may gain you public acclaim.
Women are perfectly glad to do something that they don't like in return for something they want. If you don't reciprocate, taking it as only your due, or if you feel that is no more than her responsibility, you will be in trouble deep.
Women often have a hidden agenda, and a softly-worded comment may actually be an ultimatum. Let us imagine, for example, that she is pressured into something that she does not enjoy, which she does for the sake of the relationship. What she wants in return is something that shows that you appreciate her sacrifice. This may be to do something with her that she wants to do, or just do something with her that does not involve others. It needn't be a big thing. If she suggests something more than once, or in connection with something that she clearly only does because you want her to do it, PAY ATTENTION.
Example: On holidays, special occasions and frequent Sundays she goes to family dinners and get-togethers with you. She and your family get along well enough, you think, but in fact there is a considerable undercurrent of tension generated when she is in your mother's house or around your siblings, their ill-mannered children and lunatic significant others. She feels that they are judging her, sizing her up, and that she can never really be comfortable around them. She actually dislikes some of them, who also dislike her.
You know nothing about this, because you're a congenitally insensitive moron. Nonetheless, she goes and behaves herself. In return, she believes that you should take some time to be just with her. She suggests that you go together to the movies, or to the museum, or a play. You do not reciprocate, or do it grudgingly and infrequently. At some point, she says to herself, "If he doesn't take me out to the movies at least once in the next two months, I'm never going to go to one of those family things again." You don't and she doesn't.
Trouble ensues, and it's all her fault, right? Wrong. If she stops doing something that you think she should, or if she finds more and more excuses for not doing those things until imperceptibly she is not doing them, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. She is now looking for a stranger on a train, and may dance out of your life.
The thing she may want you to do may be something that you find every bit as unpleasant as the thing she does for you that she finds unpleasant. The family dinners are torture for her, but she goes. So, she looks around for something that she knows you don't like, say, a rock 'n' roll concert featuring a performer whose voice you have often compared to dental floss between the ears, and makes it clear that she both wants to go and has a spare ticket. You don't go because you don't like the performer. Bingo, you have just failed an important test.
Things to think about and do:
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