What is the “Dialogue” as we describe in our book?:
To simplify what dialogue is, we first of all call it a “10 and 10”. That means 10 minutes to write and 10 minutes to share verbally with each other.
First, you select a question. You then should write your response in the form of a love letter independently from your spouse. That means you each only need to squeeze in 10 minutes whenever you can throughout the day. It could be while a kid is napping. Some take the child to the park and write while the kid is going down the slide. It is different for everyone. If you are working, it can be the first 10 minutes of lunch hour, or just sitting in the car before or after work before going home. Even on a hectic day it can be one taking the kids outside while the other writes.
The harder part is the 10 minute sharing time where you really do need to be together. We usually would do that right after the kids went to sleep, but often we were too tired then. At times we even did it with a curious kid sitting on our lap who we would tell that we just needed to take time to read our letters from each other and at some point the child would get bored and go off and play. When they were older, the kids would actually support us by closing us in our bedroom for 20 minutes so we could come out and be more loving parents! We do set a timer to keep it limited to an event we can really fit in everyday.
We read each other’s letters twice. Once for the head (to quickly get the information) and once for the heart (to get better in touch with the person behind the words). And sometime we actually read our own letter out loud to the other. Then we choose which person’s feeling seems the strongest to explore it more deeply and see if we get what the other is feeling . We ask questions specific to the feeling like “Is there another time when you felt similarly?” Or “do you think there is a situation where I may have felt the same?”
You should hold hands and look into each other’s eyes as you explore the feelings. This actually helps because you can feel the tenseness or softness in the touch, or clamminess, etc. The only purpose is to better understand the feeling inside the other person.
As for questions for dialogue, everyone can find them on the Worldwide Marriage Encounter website: https://wwme.org/dailydialoguequestion. But we usually make up our own questions based on persons, places and events going on in our daily life.
Remember- The whole concept here is to share feelings. Feelings are NOT judgments, opinions, solutions, etc. Feelings are the sensations that happen within our bodies as a reaction to people, places and situations. Feelings are neither right nor wrong, good nor bad. They have no morality because they just happen spontaneously. The point of dialogue is to understand, appreciate and even take on the other person’s feelings. IT IS NOT a time to solve problems, make decisions, etc. If you say “I feel that…” you are not sharing a feeling, you are sharing a judgment or opinion.
More tips on the writing part: Once you are able to capture the essence of the feeling you then need to describe the intensity. It can be mild like a 1 or 2 or very strong like a 9 or 10. Some people like to associate colors with the feeling. It is mellow like pastel yellow, or coarse and hard like fire engine red. Maybe it is a dark feeling.
This takes practice. Just do the best you can when you start. BUT because feelings are not right nor wrong, good nor bad, THEY CANNOT be argued with! It is purely and simply a gift of who you are at that moment in time. You might wish you could change someone’s feeling, but for this exercise it is just to accept, understand or feel the same feeling simultaneously.
We find it easiest to write in the form of a love letter to set the tone. Only spend one or two sentences actually answering the question. All the rest of the 10 minutes should be spent on discovering and sharing the feelings behind the question.
When it becomes possible for just the two of you to get away, you should attend a Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend. That is the best way we know to get this practice kick started. Our next few blogs will begin providing some of our own actual dialogue examples.