Your Turn: Chapter 1

This chapter ends with the challange "Complete the following: " There would be fewer divorces if only people ______"

There would be fewer divorces if only people communicated.

A marriage cannot last without communication, honesty and the ability to listen closely to the words your spouse or significant other (S.O.) are telling you.
When I come to AJ with a problem, I continue to appreciate that he listens. Sometimes I have to ask, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but once I request his full attention, he gives it. He sits, stares into my eyes and truely listens to what I have to say.

It's a lot more difficult to jump into the he said she said side of things if you truely listen. It also opens the door for communication in the style of repeating. "What I hear you saying is that I don't give you the attention that you need, right?" By repeating what the other person is saying, you're letting them know how their words are coming off.

Sometimes I'll say something to AJ, and he'll repeat what I've said and I realize that my choice of words has come across angry, sarcastic, or asking him something that is not at all what I wanted.

Other times, he'll repeat something and I realize that my undertone was giving way to a much larger problem that I hadn't even personally addressed with myself.

I truely believe that the core of every healthy relationship is communication and that there would be fewer divorces if people would just communicate.

The Introduction

My mother had just begun reading "The 5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman when she brought it up to me.

She told me that it had already begun changing her life. She was facinated by the research presented by Chapman, and the way that it enabled her to analyze her own love language, and the languages of those around her.

This is why I began to read this book.

I had finally found the love of my life, the man that I can comfortably imagine spending every single day with. In fact, thinking about marrying him, holding his hand for decades to come, spending holidays going back and forth between his family and mine, and perhaps eventually creating a family, makes me extatic with excitement and an eagarness to begin my journey with him.

I want this love to last, I want to take challanges to make our love stronger every single day, and so it begins.

I began reading the first chapter of the book not realizing that there was "homework" at the end of each chapter.

This is the blog where I will complete my homework. Track my progress and hopefully cultivate a true and everlasting love along the way.