Reddit reviews What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers

Positive reinforcement. Go out of your way to catch him doing stuff correctly and thank him, give him a kiss, whatever. Note that this doesn't work if you're sarcastic or patronizing about it.

For things like the bathroom/laundry incident, where he just evidently has no clue how these things work, try idiot-proofing the cleaning as much as possible: for example, store acceptable cleaning rags right next to the cleaning supplies, with a box next to it labeled "dirty rags." Basically, set up your house like it's a shared office kitchen where people don't necessarily know where things go or what the acceptable practices are. When my parents were first married, my mom had to teach my dad how to do the dishes (as in, "Use soap and hot water, and wipe every surface at least once"), because he honestly didn't know how. These things happen.

Check out this book: What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage. It gets a bad rap sometimes for supposedly encouraging callous manipulation of other people; but I've read it, and it's nothing like that. If everyone had a good grasp of the basics of positive reinforcement, it would go a long way toward bringing about world peace.

Me too! Ol' Chiclet teeth really gives some good life lessons

Also see https://www.amazon.com/What-Shamu-Taught-About-Marriage/dp/0812978080/ref=nodl_

It’s written by a woman who “trained” her husband so obviously not RP but the concept is identical.

A lot of this sounds like worry and love not strictly disapproval.

1. your parents don't want your life made more difficult than necessary, without the clouding of affection that you have for your boyfriend, they worry that his mental illness is going to affect your life negatively long term
   
   
2. probably more what she is afraid of than what she believes will happen
   
   
3. When I quit showing at 15 my sister got my horse to ride so I understand that logic. If the horse has any real money value your parents probably think it would make the most sense to sell him before being out of the arena for too long erodes his value. If keeping him is important, many schools have little equestrian teams, college horse athletics is hardly as competitive as other riding stuff you might be used to, but it might convince your parents that you aren't wasting his value by keeping him around as a trail horse.
   
   4/5) Your mother wants you to be able to attract someone she sees as better (stable/successful) than the boyfriend you already have. She probably sees adhering to conventional beauty standards (long hair, makeup) as the best way to do that.
   
   
4. Just her being annoying, if you get all of your school stuff under control she'll probably butt out of judging your schedule
   
   
5. moms love clean. I didn't find out until I was 25 that the reason my mother always nagged us as children and teens was that she blamed her own messiness in young adulthood on her own mother not being demanding enough in that department. I'm 30 and I've always been really messy, until this year something just clicked where I can derive pleasure from cleaning.
   
   
6. vegetarians are a little difficult and annoying to anyone else trying to eat with them
   
   I don't think anything that you've stated here comes from anything out of love, concern, and natural mom bossiness. Long term, the only thing that will silence it is you finding a happy stable adult life after college. I'd also read "What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage", the parts where she discusses eliminating conversational habits of her mothers that bother her might be of interest to you.
   
   PS. If after six years your parents don't think that your boyfriend is a positive influence in your life, consider that they might be seeing something that you don't.
   
   

Don't hate the man, he wasn't as bad as they make him out to be. The problem was with people who went to extremes with behaviorism and didn't take the wants, needs, and feelings of the subjects into account. If you're dealing with your spouse, you'd damn sure better take them into account! If there's anything I've learned from using Skinner's research on animal training it's this: make sure they know when they've done the right thing. Compliments sustain a relationship, criticism kills it.

[Here's an article about this very subject](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25love.html?
pagewanted=all).

And her book.

Reminds me of http://www.amazon.com/What-Shamu-Taught-About-Marriage/dp/0812978080 it's like "husband training"