I often talk with couples who are about to marry or have been married less than a year. They come to me eager to avoid becoming yet another divorce statistic. One set or both sets of their parents may have divorced and remember William’s famous parents were divorced too. This is a message to William and Kate and to all you lovers out there.

After the party, the wedding, the showers, and the honeymoon, real life sets in. Now these famous beloveds have known each other for years as is often the case today. They may be thinking,” We have sorted everything out.” Somehow that seldom is true. Upon committing to the legal state of marriage, we all tend to resort to the roles that we saw growing up in our households, regal or not. So best intentions and insight can fly out the window and be replaced by habits and reactions absorbed from our youth.

We ask ourselves, ”Why am I finding his behavior so irritating? Or “What is going on here?” Habits that seemed so minor can now take on gargantuan proportions in our mind. He doesn’t tell me how beautiful I am. She doesn’t notice that I work out. If he leaves a glass on the counter one more time… She takes all the closet space. I think that we should buy… and he thinks we should spend our money on…. Every young couple will have disagreements because no two people are exactly alike. Conflict resolution is a tool that always will be needed.

So here a couple of quick ideas. If you have a difference of opinion, make sure both of you are in a place to calmly discuss options. If not, make a plan to discuss in an hour or so when both of you have quieted yourself and are capable of considering all the options. Second when you have a problem to solve, each of you can think up three solutions for resolution separately. When you come together and compare notes, you will find that one solution on your lists will be similar if not the same. I leave you and William and Kate with the fact that a difference of opinion is a normal part of a relationship. If you don’t make it somehow wrong and use effective tools to resolve those issues, your relationship will become deeper and more rewarding than you ever thought possible. Here is to your wonderful life ahead.