Nothing could be further from the truth. There is not some etched-in-stone right way to be in a relationship. There is not a right way to show support or affection. There is not a right way to raise children, relate to your in-laws, handle disputes, or any other challenges involved in a complex relationship.

What is important is that you find ways of being together that work for you. Whether or not it meets some standard that you find in a book or conforms to what your mother and father think you ought to be doing should not be the standard you use in defining your relationship. The litmus test for you should be whether or not what you and your partner are doing is generating the results that you want. It's important that the two of you are comfortable with the principles that work and then you write your own rules.

Trying to force a couple into some arbitrary mind-set of rightness and wrongness is incredibly artificial and truly impossible. There can be as many different ways to successfully relate as there are different couples. There are different styles of communicating, showing affection, arguing, or problem-solving. One is not better that the other.

Don't get hung up on trying to conform to some made-up set of behavior concocted by people who have never even met you or your partner. Focus on what works.

RED ALERT: In addition to avoiding rigidity about your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. There is, for example, not a right way or a wrong way for your partner to love you. If he or she shows love in a way that is different from the way you think it should be displayed, that does not mean that you are right and your partner is wrong. More important, it does not mean that the quality of what your partner is giving you is less than it would be if he or she were thinking, feeling, or behaving in the way that you have arbitrarily decided is right.

Gary, my best friend, outside of my wife, has been many things to me in my life, including a spiritual mentor who has helped me greatly to mature in my personal relationship with God. I was lamenting to him one day how frustrated and cheated I felt when I heard credible people telling me that God had spoken to them on some critical issue. I was talking about ordinary, credible, legitimate people who seemed to enjoy this great connection. I was helping Gary with something one night, and I paused and said. "How come God doesn't talk to me?" Gary said, "I guess the real question is, why won't you hear him?"

He was right. It wasn't that God wouldn't speak to me; it was that I wouldn't hear him because I had some predetermined notion of exactly how he was supposed to speak to me. I had rigidly decided that there was a right way for God to communicate with me, and had failed to accept or recognize any other mode of communication.

The incident with Gary also gave me new understanding about my relationships with others - to make sure I didn't sabotage those relationships by living with some preconceived notion of how those people should relate to me.

Resist being rigid in your own modes of relating, and resist being judgmental about your partner's modes of relating. Do what works.