Pausing to make sure that what I’m about to say doesn’t qualify as one of “The Three C’s” could be one of the most valuable lessons Milly taught me.

I have a dear friend by the name of Milly. She’s 88 years old and still a hottie — seriously! She has great legs, dresses to the nines and has her “hair done” on a regular basis. She lost her third husband several years ago after a long illness. They’d been married for 54 years.

Milly, in just about any other society on Earth, would be the village elder, the one all the women would go to for advice — and maybe she’s that now from her Encino apartment. I know there are 50 or so women who call her on a regular basis — not so they can help her, but so she can help them with their life problems: husbands, boyfriends, bosses, family members and kids.

It seems Milly has an answer for everything, and one of my favorites is something she calls “The Three C’s – don’t criticize, don’t condemn, don’t complain.”

You see, a lot of the time when we are angry at and resentful toward someone, our first response is to give them a good shot of The Three C’s — especially those significant others, the people we are closest to. It seems it’s gloves off when it comes to the ones we love the most. Any restraint of the tongue and pen disappears when “they” do something “we” don’t like.

Knowing about The Three C’s and remembering them in those moments when you just want to let them have it, is probably the greatest relationship advice that Milly has in her tool kit. And it’s one that I find myself turning to over and over again in my own relationships, with a great deal of reflective gratitude.

Before I open my mouth to let someone know how I feel with all that “justifiable anger,” I ask myself, “Is there anything that I’m about to say that qualifies as one of The Three C’s?”

Thankfully, if there is, what I’m saying in my head is not what comes out of my mouth — and at the end of the day, it’s made for a happier me, a happier them and a happier us.