Sarasota Herald Tribune
By Art Levy, Staff Writer

Jeffrey Kaplan has a disease.  Everywhere he goes, he has to arrive five minutes early.  “I may be crazy, but, for me, being late is unacceptable.”  His wife, Basha, has a disease, too, but to a lesser extent.  Time doesn’t mean much to her, so she’s almost always 15 minutes late wherever she goes.  Such is the stuff of a classic power struggle, so common among couples.  But Basha and Jeffrey don’t let that happen.  So, rather than fight about it, they talked about it.  Careful to not make one partner seem right and the other wrong, they found a way to diffuse the situation, so both of them are happy.

In the end, Basha agreed to be more aware of time, and respect Jeffrey’s over whelming desire to never be late.  And in return, Jeffrey lets Basha leave stuff all over the house. That’s her disease.  “Five minutes in a room, and she has piles all over the place,” Jeffrey said.  This drives Jeffrey nutty, but not as nutty as he’d be if she was late all the time.  So they reached a compromise … and they think such compromise would work for you, too.  Of course, they also think that we’d all fight less if we’d just find the right mate in the first place, which is pretty much the idea behind their work.

“Most people look out there to find a soul mate, but I believe you should look inside first and touch your own soul,” Basha said.  “Value the intimacy with yourself and then you can be intimate with another person.  “It’s not about getting married,” she said.  It’s about meeting the right person so you can be happy married.”