Here's engaged Robin at HitchDied with, I swear, the next big trend in couples counseling. I'm going to start doing this RIGHT NOW.

You know the "Five Second Rule"? It lets you convince yourself that food you dropped on the ground but rescued within five seconds is not covered in icky floor dirt. But in the larger scheme of things, the Five Second Rule is a sort of a ctrl+z for life. The Rule crafts a lie agreed upon that you didn't actually drop that mouth-watering mega-chocolate cookie on the ground.

My fiancé Collin and I have adapted the Five Second Rule to our relationship to allow a quick "undo" of the unreasonable, offensive, or cruel things we sometimes say to each other. Collin struggles with language and vocabulary, and sometimes connects words without realizing all the nuanced connotations that can interact like baking soda and vinegar. I just have a horrible temper. Both of us say things we don't really mean. So it really helps to have a five-second rewind function built into any conversation.

Here's how it works:

Example 1:

Robin: Hey, babe! How was your day?

Collin: (To cat) Whomycutielittlelittlekitty?!!

Robin: OK, acknowledge the cats before you acknowledge me.

Collin: Rewind! I'm awesome, how are yoooouuuu?

Robin: I'm fine.

Collin: That's great. (To cat) Why you such a CUTIE little Stuart Kitty CUTE LITTLE LITTLE?

Example 2:

Collin: So this one time in undergrad I was hanging out with all these sluts in the bio lab...

Robin: [Look that will, in fact, kill when seen without proper eye protection.]

Collin: Re-phrase! This one time in undergrad I was hanging out with all these young women in the bio lab...

Example 3:

Collin: Robin, we need to talk about your dishwasher loading technique. It's really getting out of hand.

Robin: Well you know what WON'T be "getting out of hand" anytime soon? Your dick!

Collin: Whaaaat are you talking about?

Robin: It was a masturbation joke! As in, "You're going to be jerking off because I am witholding sex until you accept my inability to load a dishwasher to your exacting yet somehow arbitrary standards of 'correctness!'"

Collin: I'm fine with no sex until you learn how to put bowls in on their side so you can fit more than THREE AT ONCE. But are YOU?

Robin: RETRACTION! Ok. Show me how to load this thing.

See how useful this can be? If you want to incorporate the Five Second Rule into your marriage, here are some key guidelines:

Five seconds is five seconds. Sometimes I want to take back something I said yesterday. When that happens, I have to do it the old fashioned way: apologize sincerely. The easy rewind of the Five Second Rule is only available if you realize as soon as it comes out of your mouth that you shouldn't have said that and claim the retraction as soon as you can.

Don't abuse this power. You can't use the Five Second Rule as a way to get out the mean stuff you have brewing inside your brain without any consequences. It survives on the honor system, like take-home exams or U.S. currency. If you're anything like me and Collin, you'll find it so useful to deal with the mean things you DON'T mean to say that you won't feel any temptation to blow the whole deal on the mean stuff you want to say despite its meanness.

Remember that it doesn't always work. Just like the real Five Second Rule, the relationship version isn't actually effective, just suggestive. Sometimes you eat a cookie you dropped on the ground and you get food poisoning. Sometimes you say something too mean to be effecitvely retracted. Be prepared for this. A genuine ability to apologize is probably more beneficial to a marriage than the Five Second Rule anyway.

So there you have it! The HitchDied secret to a happy marriage. If you disagree, I take back everything I just said in this post.