Yesterday I was talking with a young woman who describes herself as someone who only has ‘got her L plates in marriage.’ That’s right, the couple hasn’t been married long in terms of years and she feels she is still learning about marriage and that it is a learning curve for them both still, as they find the ideas that work and those that don’t.
As she describes it, their marriage is still ‘a work in progress.’ It occurs to me that each marriage should be a work in progress. None of us should ever think we have all the answers and therefore have arrived and don’t need to work on our marriage any more. There is always something we can learn. Yes we can learn from those who have been married a long time. But we can also learn from those who are starting out on their journey and are filled with love and enthusiasm for their marriage and their spouse.
One of the things this young woman was talking to a friend about, was the different ways of letting someone know you love them and how helpful she had found it to learn about this. According to Dr Gary Chapman these are in no particular order:
1. Quality Time
2. Words of Affirmation
3. Gifts
5. Physical Touch
Another couple who have been in a relationship for a number of years but have now split up, when they actually sat down to talk he said. ‘You never told me anything positive. Or that I looked good. You didn’t tell me often enough that you loved me.’ Whenever you say anything, you criticize or put me down.’ He obviously needed lots of words of affirmation.
She on the other hand had thought she was showing her love by the little things she did for him each day, as Mary Ann mentioned in her blog, so she didn’t need to tell him how special he was to her.
Maybe if they had each realized earlier that they had different ways of love, they might have been still together. Or maybe of they had communicated more in a positive way.
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