Aryeh Pamensky wants to help eradicate divorce. He wants to remove misunderstandings between men and women. Pamensky, an Orthodox rabbi, says he knows how to do it.

He is the creator of the marriage seminar "How to Make a Good Marriage Great." For his eight-week seminar, he dispenses his advice on relationships to packed rooms. And they're coming in droves. The seminar has been so popular, that he's offered it in such places as New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Las Vegas, Miami, Baltimore and Washington. Pamensky has also appeared on TV promoting his views.

Today, it seems as though relationship gurus are more and more pervasive. Whole aisles in bookstores are dedicated to the topic. We've got Dr. Ruth, Sex with Sue, Dr. John Gray, and many others. So how is this relationship expert different from all others?

"Everybody has good insight. I have a different road. I'm challenging the model that's out there, with a new way of relating," says the 39-year-old father of six, who has been married for thirteen years. The basic blueprints for the seminar come from the Torah. But he is quick to point out that the good advice he uses from the Good Book is just a springboard. "I'm not saying that Torah is the only source. I've morphed other sources with Torah to give a model for relationships in today's world, subtitled 'A Happy Wife is a Happy Life.' It's a married man's guide to happiness."

Although the vast majority of the attendees at his seminars are not religious, he says his marriage advice applies to pretty much anyone: Jews, Gentiles, religious and non-religious alike. The fact that he's a rabbi hasn't been an issue for his participants. "Most people look at rabbis positively," he asserts. "Within fifteen minutes of my talk, the reticence is gone." People have even called him the "Jewish
Men-are-from-Mars guy."

With one out of two marriages ending in divorce, and the plethora of celebrity relationship experts, it's hard sometimes to determine what's best to do, or whose advice to trust. For many of his participants, trusting in the concepts from a Higher Authority seems to do the trick. "It's an ancient Jewish secret," he jests. While still ancient, those three thousand year-old tried-and-true secrets are made accessible with contemporary examples: writing love notes on post-it notes, for instance.

Lamenting that we enter the most vital partnership of our lives with absolutely no training, Pamensky begins his seminars by talking about how he thinks many American marriages are flawed. A marriage will get better "only when both partners recognize there are fundamental differences between men and women, and how they communicate." The seminar begins with three 'A' principles, which he says a man should follow to make a woman happy: Attention, Affection, and Appreciation.

Then, a paradigm he employs is G.I.R.L., (particularly for men to keep in mind): Gratitude, Important, Respect, Love. Anecdotes are provided in the seminar to elaborate on the practical application of these points. Mostly, they serve to illustrate how men can fulfill their mate's needs, and how the by-product will be his own happiness.

"Because men and women are so different, a relationship can only reflect the needs of the man or the woman. One hundred percent of the time he has to reflect the needs of the woman, whether it's communication, sex or love, or else he's not doing his job right."

Rabbi Pamensky acknowledges what women have been saying about men for a long time. Men, he admits, are clueless. Men are so frequently confused by the mysteries of women's behavior, he likens the attempt to figure women out to the famous scene in the Exorcist, when actress Linda Blair's head frantically spins around. To the possible detriment of the partnership, women often want men to be more relationship based, he says. But women should just let men be men.

"Allow those differences to happen. Women are relationship beings. Men are not. It's that easy."

What men need in a relationship to make it work is a job or a task, because man's nature is inherently task-oriented. "His entire job is to make her happy. How you help a man do his job better is to liberate him from the shackles of 'relationships.' A happy wife is a happy life. He puts in a little, and she'll give back a ton."

Far from being a quid pro quo arrangement, however, there's a caveat: men shouldn't necessarily expect something in return, or give to their wife in order to get something in return. But, if a woman doesn't naturally and eventually give back in a relationship, he thinks it may be a sign of emotional scars and baggage from past relationships. If that's the case, she has to "learn to open up more."

It took a little while for Pamensky to figure this all out.

The genesis for the seminar began around his dining room table discussions and has grown in the past two years to lecturing to more than a thousand participants in twelve cities (and counting). Before his own wedding, he took a marriage course and kept referring to different sources since then, both religious and secular, on how to make a marriage great. Taking a goodly helping of Scripture, mixing it with contemporary sources, and adding a healthy dollop of humor, Pamensky has created a relationship technique that has inspired many participants to return for reunion classes.

For almost a decade, he has been teaching personal development seminars and doing marriage counseling. Raised in Israel and Toronto, the South African-born Pamensky says the "billion-dollar relationship self-help industry," indicates that people are still searching, but aren't finding the answers. "Everyone's working in a fog. Nobody knows what to do."

The initial step for the couple is to identify common relationship mistakes. For example, when a woman shares a problem, most men instinctively try to solve it. That's a no-no. Paradoxically, there is a 'solution', but it's really a non-solution: His efforts should be to do what will make her happy, and not what he thinks makes her happy. That might mean -- most times -- simply listening.

"And how often does this happen: A husband walks in the door after work, and the first thing he says is 'any mail?' After being gone for hours in the day, the man walks in and he wants to read the newspaper or mail, and how does that make her feel?" First thing's first, he says. "Do exactly what your wife needs."

It might sound simple, but in this case, the best answer is the simple one. Pre-empting critics that have said his theories are basic or formulaic, Pamensky debunks what he says is the frequent misnomer that relationship strategies have to be erudite or fill a tome.

"Go find a complex formula then! But try this, first," he says. "Is it the model? Nope. But it is a model. People are complicated. Relationships are complicated. This is a system where you can move within those complicated nuances. This is not a system of working through issues. I'm giving a model with tools."

The model also includes suggestions for pro-active gestures of affection. Romantic surprises are greatly encouraged. "Write her a love-note twice a week. Find a post-it note and write 'I love you.' Leave it on the steering wheel, on the fridge, wherever."

But make no mistake -- that doesn't mean the rules should be different outside the home, either. "No matter where you are at work, take her call. What's the most important thing in your life? Your wife! Make her feel like she's the most important thing in your life."