I was reading another story on here by a nice gentleman named Bradley11. He went over a conversation he had with his wife that went downhill slowly. Now as Jack pointed out, Bradley was far from friendly in a dim'ish type way...when he had an opportunity to shine. I think we all need to be keenly aware of our conversation style....there is a time to be dim and a time to shine. The decision can only be made during a conversation...not before or after....that is when we all need to remember to shine.
Now one thing that really caught my attention was his reply to a statement his wife made being "OK, Fine". What I have learned through the years is that there are certain words that should just never be used. In the contracts I prepare, the word "all" will never be used because it meaning can be misconstrued and used against me. Personally my bad word has been "yep" for a long time. In hindsight "yep" is really quite demonstrative in that it doesn't show the person I am talking to respect or even that I am being attention to what they are saying. So I have basically wiped the word from my vocabulary.
Now back to "fine".....what type of word is fine? When I hear fine, I think of my kids stomping off to their bedroom to clean it with a lot of anger and hostility saying "Fine...I will do what you want". Or conversely something that isn't good enough or is bad. I think we all need to remember, whether talking to a wayward spouse, friend, or colleague that talking our conversation to the next level may be more respectful. Just a simple statement like "Have fun" or "that sounds good" might be received better than "fine".
On to me...things are going along well. Hopefully for all of us this cruddy economy changes soon. With my marriage....well everyday is work, but there are more reasons for smiles than there are for frowns.
That is the tempo....but yes slow and steady. There is just so much going on that affects our lives, yet is really out of control. So I am still focused on trying to deal with those issues, yet at the same time we as a couple are much closer to the same page.
