This is the part I am revisiting in that article:
"I use the knowledge I learned from these marriage enriching courses in the marriage that I am in now. We work together as a couple, as a team, what a difference that makes in everything you do."
I did use these techniques and knowledge I had learned and I tried to teach my charm about them to help our own marriage. In the beginning (before marriage) we did have some good communication, but like with many marriages the idea of the "prize" being won and the things we did when we were courting just kind of slips out the door; though I do believe that some of our own circumstances had to do with our stepfamily beginnings as well. I thought for a long time we were effectively communicating, but realized as our therapist and in the book "Hold Me Tight" by Sue Johnson puts it, that I was the one to engage and the more I engaged, the more my charm disengaged and for reason, reason that was discovered in therapy. More than that though, not having both of us having the opportunity to gather this knowledge together, truly understanding it to the "T" together was part in problem as far as effectively using these techniques in our own marriage. I will tell you that I personally did not understand for a long time why my charm could not understand that we could actually talk, resolve issues, disagreements, come to compromising solutions etc without the yelling, the fighting, the I'm-going-to-get-the-last-word-in or prove my point crap, the confrontation. But, we are learning why we do what we do, why we approach the way we do and we are learning to do it better and do it together effectively and learning to pull away from the examples of the past or through our past.
In "Hold Me Tight" by Sue Johnson, she talks about what she calls "demon dialogues" - she gives 3 examples of these dialogues. While reading these dialogues, I realized that we were in two of them. I have also realized that while I can see that the fighting both directions in relationships does no good neither does engaging and disengaging nor does both keeping silent. The scary thing about the 3rd dialogue is that if a relationship gets to the silent part, both partners in essence have pretty much given up and this is generally where a therapist or divorce comes. Divorce has never been an option for me, I'm always willing to work through the issues (unless of course they are abusive situations, then the best thing for everyone is to get out), even if they are serious issues and I will do whatever I can to make it work because it is important to me, it is important for our kids.
Right now in our new adventures, we are learning to really dive into our love languages. And because we now have understood our demon dialogue, we can start to move forward and stop the cycle and become more emotionally secure.
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