A Time-Tested Relationship Tip

A few weeks ago I signed up for a newsletter that delivers one time-tested relationship tip to your inbox every Monday morning. Every tip comes from couples married 50 years or more. I liked today's tip.

"In many ways marriage is like a tender plant. It requires constant nourishment and care if it is to prosper and bloom. It means that the marriage partnership requires daily care. The partner needs to be told daily how my love for her is constant. It is well to give thanks...on a daily basis."
- George, married to Ruthanna on January 25, 1936

Would love to hear all the ways my readers give thanks to their loved ones on a daily basis. Is it through words, gestures, or gifts, for instance?

Do you listen to the tone or hear the lyrics of conversation?

When Adriano and I were traveling in central Chile last May we met a Romanian in the remote local of the Andes Mountains. With nothing to do past dark and the three of us being the only people at the Refugio Lodge for the night, we enjoyed a bottle of wine and hours of talking once the sun went down.

At some point the conversation turned to the topic of marriage. Our Romanian friend pondered, "How do you communicate if one of you listens to the tone of a conversation when the other hears the lyrics?" I've found myself coming back to that question many times in the last year.

I'm definitely a person that hears the lyrics of a conversation. I'll analyze every word spoken to death, if given the chance...imagining what the hidden meaning might be. Seriously, I could be a call out in a Glamour article, "When he says 'x,' he really means 'y.'" Adriano, on the other hand, is a lyrics man. The tone of the conversation predicates whether it will be a good one versus a bad one.

When you think of conversations as a song, comprised of lyrics and tone, it makes you think of speech a bit differently.

I came across an article in the Houston Chronicle this morning about an international couple celebrating their 38th wedding anniversary. When they met (she an American, he a Brazilian), they didn't speak the same language. For them, tone was all a conversation could be about. I smiled when I read the wife's take on the "lyrics" of conversation with her husband in the early years.

“I decided that, since he didn't speak English well, I would assume that if he said something that didn't sound right, he didn't mean it the way it sounded and we would talk about it instead of getting mad. He was the same way with me.”

She attributes the success of their marriage to cutting each other some slack when it came to the "lyrics" being a bit off.

In the last few years, I've tried to talk with Adriano about key words/topics that set me off. I think it's helped. I hope it's helped. But regardless, I guess I can take some pointers from Karen's advise.

Talking Money

I recently started getting a newsletter called Daily Worth. It targets women and provides a new financial tip to your email inbox each day.

Yesterday's tip is relevant for all married (or seriously involved) couples. It shares tips for how to talk about money, without getting into a brawl with your significant other at the same time.

Here's a pict of Daily Worth's three-step method for talking money, allowing a conversation to ideally begin and end in peace. Enjoy!


And if you think of ways to expand on these probing questions, please share.

Sweet Valentine idea

Over at Discovery Education you can make a Valentine's Day puzzle for your loved one. You can create word searches, cross-word puzzles, hidden message puzzles and more. You upload the words you want to be included in the puzzle and the software does the rest. And the best part...it's 100% free.

Just think of all the sweet messages you could include in one of those...

A big thanks to Heidi for passing this idea along!

The purpose of marriage?

Adriano and I saw "Up in the Air" with George Clooney this past weekend, which we thoroughly enjoyed. It deserves the nominations it's getting for the Oscars. If you haven't seen, it's well worth the ticket price.

There are multiple themes of note intertwined through the story line, one of which is marriage. George Clooney's character is a forever bachelor, favoring his "road warrior" lifestyle to the idea of "settling down." When he's challenged with defining why he's against marriage he references all the reasons people often give for being marriage. Not wanting to go through life alone, not wanting to die alone, wanting to have more security...these being only a few.

Even as his character starts to come around on realizing why someone might want a "co-pilot" (as he puts it) through life, never is the real reason to marry someone, in my opinion, mentioned.
I think you should only marry someone when you can honestly say that being with that person makes you a better you than you can be by yourself. That's how I feel about Adriano. I do love that I have a "co-pilot," someone that I can count on to be there and share these things with. But, I only appreciate him as the lovely "co-pilot" that he is because I cherish how much he helps and encourages all the good in me to come out on a daily basis.

2010 is a new year

After a long hiatus, I'm back...or at least I'm going to try to be.

I've missed this blog. Apparently others have too, as several people have reached out in the last few months to say, "Are you going to continue to write?," "When will you post again?," or "I miss your posts." It's really touching to know that my thoughts on marriage are engaging enough to be missed!

2009 was a trying year for me. The first half of the year was really spent trying to cope with the recession, business-wise. And the second half was spent working my butt off trying to make up for work that wasn't around for the first 6 months.

Well, I'm happy to say 2010 is starting out on a much better note. Finally, I think I have the extra mental space to direct towards this. I hope I do. Just by writing this blog, I think I give more thought to my marriage, making it front and center and myself more conscious of it's main objectives, which are to:

• Make tangible the advice "Don't take you partner for granted;" and
• Live by the mantra "If it doesn't work, fix it."

Consider me back. Another post will follow in the coming days.

We have a new baby...

...and her name is Tao. Isn't she beautiful?

She found us last week. I was traveling and Adriano heard some crying in the woods by our house. After three days of hearing the crying, he climbed over the fence to investigate and there was this little beauty. She was pinned under some wood and tangled up in some wire...the poor thing. We're pretty certain she was a wild dog, as there were about four others like her and a larger dog that scattered once Adriano got over the wall. Well, he rescued her and then took her in to mend her foot. She's doing fine now. Her foot is all better. And in the meantime, Adriano and I have fallen in love. So, we're adopting her! She's "our girl!" According to the vet, she's about 2 months old.

And, interestingly, I think she's giving me a preview into the over protective, mother hen parenting style that Adriano will expend with vengeance one day when we have a child. He's such a worry wart...afraid she'll fall, that's she's not getting enough food, etc. I never imagined that he would be this way.

Adriano says that he wants a boy for a child, while I feel like we'll have a girl. After seeing the way he acts with Tao, maybe we better have a boy? I fear a girl would never be allowed to leave the house. Something might happen...