Ralph Hogan, along with his wife of 30 years, Janet, is the co-founder of Botanica Weddings. He is as passionate about the institution of marriage as he is about creating the venues that celebrate it. When he’s not sitting on top of his beloved backhoe carving out mountains, he can be found with his trusty Mac tapping out his latest insight on what it means to live happily ever after, from his uniquely male, take no prisoners, perspective.

The first bit of wisdom we stumbled upon as a couple, and quite by accident, was the classic ‘Never go to sleep on an argument’ rule. We’d only been together for a few months and at the first sign of a disagreement, Janet, my adorable but conflict-phobic new girlfriend would simply flick the lights off, turn her back on me and go to sleep in sullen silence.

My great insight in jumping out of bed and turning the lights back on was driven not so much by any great marital insight, as sheer terror; what if she spent all night ruminating about the argument we'd had, and woke up out of love with me!

Fortunately, if there’s one thing Janet hates more than conflict, it’s sleeping with the lights on.

Fortunately, if there’s one thing Janet hates more than conflict, it’s sleeping with the lights on.

Even at the best of times, like after a great night out at a restaurant in hot, steamy, equatorial Bali, when we get home and go to bed Janet manages to bundle herself up, like a kid rolling down a grassy slope, in the doona, until she is so swaddled in layers of material, she looks like a giant case moth pupae, suspended precariously over the edge of the bed. Her head is nowhere to be seen.

How we ever managed to make three kids remains a complete mystery to me.

How we ever managed to make three kids remains a complete mystery to me.

So although she hated it, we never ever went to sleep without resolving a problem, at least up to the point when we were either more understanding of each other’s hurt or fears, or simply too exhausted to find anything more to argue about.

After a few months we realized that it was much less tiring to sort things out before bedtime, leaving evenings for more pleasurable pursuits, like trying to extricate her exquisite body from the doona pupae.

After a few months we realized that it was much less tiring to sort things out before bedtime, leaving evenings for more pleasurable pursuits, like trying to extricate her exquisite body from the doona pupae.

Most argument and disagreement, anything short of violence, (at one stage I dodged so many hurled Chinese takeaway dinners I’m surprised that we didn’t both die of malnutrition) is essential for any healthy love affair, because it’s only in the resolution of conflict that we find out what we need to know about each other and ourselves, to progress to the next level.

(And there’s another important lesson here for younger guys too: Never overestimate the accuracy of a woman when she starts throwing things at you, there’s a reason no one watches women’s cricket;- just stand perfectly still and you will be completely safe.)