In his book, “How to Love,” bestselling author and psychiatrist Gordon Livingston offers 37 chapters of advice for a happy marriage. Having myself compiled stories, excerpts, and insights from hundreds of couples—famous and not—in my book with co-editor Mike Leach, “I Like Being Married,” I recognized the wisdom in his simple suggestions. I chose four...

Some sobering statistics:Depression has a much greater impact on marital life than rheumatoid arthritis or cardiac disease. Ninety percent of marriages where one person isbipolar ends in divorce. Persons diagnosed with bipolar disorder have three times the rate of divorce as the general public, which is about 50 percent. This is all to communicate this message: marriages...