Helping Couples Who Want More Intimacy in Their Relationship…
We’ve had the pleasure of meeting a couple of times with a married couple who is striving to have more intimacy in their marriage. We’ve shared some things that work well for us and this week we are re-introducing Dialogue to them. They are already familiar with it, so we gave them a list of Dialogue Questions that we are also using until we meet again.
In keeping with our Blog of July 2nd, “A Deeper Kind of Communication”, we would like to provide some of our own actual dialogue examples. (If you haven’t read that Blog yet, you might want to start there. https://passionateparentcouple.com/2021/07/a-deeper-kind-of-communication/)
For our first sample dialogue, we chose the Question: What does humor mean to me in our relationship? HDIFAT? (How do I feel about that?)
WRITTEN DIALOGUE:
Ed: My lover Benjie, Your most endearing quality is your response to my humor with the chuckle and smile that I love so much. Sweetheart when I think of this question all I have to do is reflect on the time we just went through when we were stressed and under pressure without humor, and life was soooo much work. Therefore, seeing the humor and “just having fun with it” like from the 3 Amigos movie, I absolutely feel alive and energized. I get giddy and bubbly inside just thinking of humor in our life. It is such a light happy feeling. It makes me want to jump and hug and play and dance. It is airy in my chest and warm and soothing in my stomach. My body feels light and aware and sensitive. It is an 8 on a scale of 10. I truly feel alert and alive! ILY, Your smiling Eddie
Betty: My Eddie, I appreciate how easily you can make me laugh! Humor is so important to me in our relationship because it helps me stay positive and not dwell on the worries that can pop into my mind. You have really challenged me to get away from my negativity in a concrete way. Right now, I have just a melancholy longing feeling. This longing is definitely a heart-felt feeling. It would be a 10 on a scale of 10 and I’m sighing and taking shallow breaths. My chest is radiating with little hands to reach out and grab some humor. My longing is thinking back to our dating and how we made each other laugh til our cheeks hurt. Now I want to get back to that. ILY B
VERBAL DIALOGUE:
Ed- After ready Betty’s letter, I knew her feeling of melancholy longing was very strong because I too started to recall how much laughter we had been missing. I got tears as I realized how we had let so much of that slide while real life consumed us.
Just realized that we didn’t post the complete Blog. So here is the rest of the VERBAL DIALOGUE:
Betty- When I read Eddie’s letter, I could relate to his energized feeling, but I also knew it had been a long dry spell so it was difficult to picture how he could have come that far so fast. I really wanted to know more about his feeling.
Ed- I told Betty that her Melancholy longing was already forming in my chest and that I really wanted to fully capture her feeling. She agreed that her feeling was stronger so we decided to dialogue on her feeling.
Betty- Ed asked a few questions about the color and taste. My responses were that it was a dark blue purple, and the taste was like his deceased aunt’s pot roast that we missed so much.
Ed- I certainly sensed the longing, but for me it was too easy to recall all the joyful times we had with my aunt and my feeling seemed much lighter.
Betty- Ed asked if there was another time I felt a similar feeling. I immediately flashed on when we had to leave our new baby Danny in the hospital for 4 days after his birth and how I had a longing mixed with melancholy to have him with us.
Ed- As soon as Betty mentioned that time, I immediately felt the surge of melancholy longing we had as we drove back and forth to the hospital. I got tears in my eyes and could see some forming in Betty’s eyes as we held hands tightly.
Betty- I told Ed he was definitely experiencing my feeling of melancholy longing.
Having just experienced the same feeling at the same time was like being bathed in intimacy and we were one.