Thanks for the support, Deauxlie. I am not a trained professional in counseling. I am a student of human nature, and I enjoy people watching. I draw from my own experience, but I believe every person is an expert in their own situation. And while I tell people what I think I would do in their shoes, it is their free choice as to how to handle their lives. I hope people don't think I am telling them what to do. The only time I get insistent is when I think they can solve their problem by going to Retrouvaille, and instead they are shutting down communication. Communication saved my marriage. And that is the tale I am trying to tell.
I, I guess you can see, am a talker. My husband by contrast is a non-talker. For years I allowed his style to set the tone in our house. He always said, "We'll talk about it later", meaning never. And I felt muffled and frustrated. Retrouvaille opened the floodgates of conversation in this marriage. It taught us how to communicate equally with each other. Taking equal time answering a question. We often go back to the notebooks at home, the dialogue method is a written method. And we agree on a question and write our answers and then share them and discuss them. It is such a different experience, even for the touchiest of subjects, than arguing. We end up feeling closer, and happier. Maybe tomorrow I will post about the dialogue method.
