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according to my watch, i still have a couple of hours left in my tuesday, so here goes…
i’m not going to offer a money-back guarantee on this one, but i can come pretty close. of all the marriages that i have ever been around, the really good ones…i mean really good ones…share one thing in common. they may share more than one thing, but i know they share this one in common:
they talk with each other. about important stuff. they talk about their money and their kids and their jobs and the house and their vacation. they also talk about their dreams and goals and fears and failures. and not just those things, but they also talk about their beliefs and their sins and their pasts and their futures.
they speak openly and candidly about things they want to hide. they trust each other with the darkness of their souls and the craziness of their faith and the complexity of god. they use their words to communicate love and passion and loyalty and commitment and forgiveness and hope.
i’m all for the importance of showing our love. words with no action to back them up are empty and without veracity…just like faith without deeds. nobody wants just words. but they still want…and need…them! desperately.
if you and your spouse are not talking with each other…heart to heart…openly and honestly…about the things in life that really matter…and not just about things and other people (including your kids)…you are running a serious risk of your marriage disintegrating into mere co-existence…two people who are connected because of children and bank accounts and routine. or worse yet, the death of the relationship.
so talk. everyday. about everything. and listen. carefully and intently. speak about what you are hearing each other say and give room for differences of opinion and mistakes and overstatements and the risky business of being willing to be hurt. if you don’t, there’s not much hope.
so while i’m at it, let me give you an idea that i’ve learned from my friends brandon and raeshel. if you follow this blog, you probably know that brandon and raeshel (who are married, for those of you readers that are not part of the north family) carry on some pretty open conversations in the comment section of the blog. so i got to thinking…
if you’re married and having a little trouble with this communication thing, learn a little lesson from brandon and raeshel’s marriage playbook…get creative in your talking. you can call, text, tweet, blog, chat, or even use hand signals. anything to get the conversation ball rolling.
take it from me, good conversation can lead to a lot of other good things!
what are some communication tools you have in your marriage playbook you could pass on to others?
let the talking begin…
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