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Life Ways Part II - Steps to Happier Marriage
How Letter Writing Can
Help You Learn Dialogue Dan Dialogue is a structured form of communication between two people. It's an attempt to communicate our feelings to our spouses. Once we begin to understand and accept each other's feelings, our levels of emotional intimacy soar, and our relationship improves dramatically. In its simplest terms, dialogue begins with a letter written by one spouse to another-in this case, from me to Anne. Because I am writing her a letter, I'm not distracted by Anne's reaction; my letter is simple communication from me to her. As basic-and even silly-as this might seem on the surface, these structured letters are a very powerful tool. Successful dialogue has several distinct steps. First, select a question. Dialogue letters help us share our feelings on given issues, answering questions like: "What are my feelings about________?" or, "_________;" "How does that make me feel?" Fill in those blanks with nearly any word or sentence in our vocabulary, any issue you may be confronting, and you have the markings of a dialogue question. For example, I might write: "What are my feelings about having another child right now?" Another might be: "The budget is tight; how does that make me feel?" Questions like these form the basis for a dialogue. You can make up any question you want, as long the question assists you in learning your feelings regarding an issue. Normally, you both write about the same question. You might pick one together or take turns picking questions. The next step is to write a letter to your spouse based on the question. You begin thinking about the feelings you experience regarding the question. In the letter, try to share the strongest of your feelings, describing them in terms to which your spouse can relate. If I tell Anne that I feel panic gripping my throat, like the time when the lifeguards charged into the ocean after our children, Anne can relate to the tightness and icy chills we both experienced as we pounded down the beach only to learn it was a "slow day" and the lifeguards were doing practice drills. But if I write that I feel nervous like the time I was having a gallbladder operation, Anne can't relate to that as well because she's never experienced it. When writing the letter, it's important for me to remember that my feelings are my own, and that they are my responsibility. Anne isn't to blame for my feelings-ever. They're based on my values and expectations. Dialogue won't work if I dump on Anne and try to blame her for my feelings. That's called "garbage dumping" and it only tears at a relationship. Dialogue isn't meant to blame or to change the other; its purpose is to understand the other and to help the other understand us. It's best to write for about ten minutes. This may be tough for some persons and easy for others. If you get stuck, write that you're stuck and why, or describe your surroundings until you get back on track. Be patient; you'll get the hang of it. You can write apart from each other and at different times, or you can write your letter while in the same room with your spouse. See what works best for you. The next step in the process is to exchange and read letters. They should be read twice-once to get the information and once to "read between the lines," to get more of an understanding of the feelings your spouse is sharing. Read it "once for the head and once for the heart." Accept the letter as a gift from your spouse, because it truly is a gift of him or herself to you. This isn't a time to concern yourself with things like spelling or grammar. Forget the English book and get to the feelings your spouse is expressing in the letter. Anne After reading the letters, take turns trying to understand what your spouse is feeling. For example, if I've told Dan in my letter that I'm feeling worried, he'll ask me questions until he is sure what being worried feels like to me this time. He might ask me to rate the feeling in terms of intensity from one to ten, or he might ask what the feeling "looks like" as a color. Another way of communicating the feeling is to compare it to a situation we can both relate to, or to describe the feeling in terms of physical symptoms. After Dan has a grasp of my feelings, the next step is for me to reach for his. As we work on accepting the feelings of each other, we both learn about a deeper layer of feelings way beneath the surface of our relationship. Both of us learn more about our feelings - where they came from, if they require action, whether they still fit or have validity in our adult lives. We also learn to be responsible for our own feelings. This means that the feeling I have isn't Dan's fault, and I can't blame him for it. Dialogue, the oral sharing of our feelings, has a time limit of ten minutes. Continuing longer isn't dialogue, it's discussion. This means that there are nights when we don't succeed in really understanding each other's feelings, but that's okay. It's the attempt to accept our spouse that brings us closer together. Dan and I try to dialogue every day. We write for ten minutes and then read letters and dialogue for ten minutes. Those twenty minutes are precious and important to us. When we skip dialogue for any reason, we sense a change in our relationship, and it isn't a change for the better. Dan Remember that the goal of dialogue is to accept and understand the other person, not to change him or her. Armed with a clear understanding of the other's feelings, we may choose to change our own behavior or expectations. Or, conversely, our spouse may choose a change. Primarily, however, dialogue is a tool to share and understand the feelings of the other-period. Once you're communicating feelings, you're building solid areas of communication. Try dialogue with your spouse. Buy an inexpensive spiral notebook for each of you, and practice the dialogue process over the next month. You can make up your own questions, or try some of the ones offered in the inset on this page. What should we dialogue about? Don't be afraid to make up your own questions, but if you're stuck, try some of these: How do I feel about: Children our strengths Our income our faith Dialogue your job Sex my job My body writing to you Your body working on our relationship Our home being your spouse Vacations needing more of your time Our car(s) needing your help with Your parents accepting you My parents accepting me Spare time our friends Housework my relationship with God Our problems your relationship with God Role models Growing old with you It is critically important to remember that your feelings don't make you right on a particular issue, no matter how strong they may be. They are simply emotions to be shared so the other knows where you're coming from. Try to be accepting of your spouse's feelings. These feelings are uniquely personal, and your spouse has every right to them. Sometimes the feelings your spouse has shared will upset you. That's okay. Be patient and realize that your spouse took some risk to share these feelings with you. Try to accept them and share your own. To model this process for you, Anne and I have included abbreviated versions of two recent letters dealing with the question: What do I feel when activities separate us? Dear Ann, When activities like my business travel separate us, I often find myself in different places, wishing you were there so we could see them together. At those times my feeling is loneliness-even when I'm traveling with others. It's a nagging sense that something is missing. I remember feeling like this once, walking along Lake Michigan, in Chicago; and again on the CNN Tower overlooking Toronto; and also in Old City in Stockholm. It's an emptiness that I sense by a feeling of chilliness in my upper arms and shoulders. Also, my hand feels conspicuously empty, because I want to be holding yours. The feeling is fairly strong, maybe a 6 or 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. When your job has you busy, I sometimes feel left out-a lost feeling that I sense as murky grayness. It's like being a child again and not finding anyone around the neighborhood to play with. Given our jobs, there isn't much we can do except to try to stay close when we are together. I like to think we'll make travel together a priority some day, maybe after retirement. I love you, Dear Dan, For the most part, my feelings about our being separated depend on the activities. If it's my work, I expect the separation, and it's routine. When it's your job and normal activity, I expect separation and consider it a necessity. When it is your job or activity but is extended, like a business trip or too many meetings for Cub Scouts, I begin to feel down in the dumps and overburdened. I feel the responsibility for the home fires and the kids like a weight on my shoulders. It gets heavier as the time gets longer. My resentment builds. When our volunteer commitments mount on us, I feel like I'm running on a treadmill and that you are, too-like the old story about two ships passing in the night, barely aware of each other. It is at times like this that I barely consider you and me as a couple. We are just two people who live in the same house, filling our hours with other stuff. This feels lonely and uncaring. It is sad and gray, like a vase full of dead flowers or an overgrown yard-something that is dying because no one cares. I love you, After exchanging the letters and reading them twice, we decided to focus more on Anne's letter, because it expressed the strongest feelings. I told Anne I could relate to her overgrown yard allusion because a few years ago, ours had suffered while I put all my spare time into an addition to our home. The yard wasn't a priority, and after a while it showed. Anne said that my impression wasn't strong enough, that the feeling she was experiencing could be compared to the hopelessly desolate look of the yard in an abandoned home. This shocked me a bit, since Anne shared that these feelings didn't occur all that often, but they were every bit that intense when they did hit. The dialogue made me realize, again, just how fragile relationships are. Fortunately, we have some time off coming up, and we can plan to spend more time together and recharge our batteries. Without the dialogue, we might have continued putting our relationship on the back burner until real damage was done. The dialogue didn't allow either of us to change the other, but it gave us more information on which to base decisions about changing ourselves to better our relationship. In the next article, and throughout the series, we will begin looking at various aspects of our relationships and ourselves. We will use the dialogue process to know our spouse and ourselves more deeply, and to resolve the inevitable conflicts that arise.
Copyright © 1999-2003, Daughters of St. Paul. All Rights Reserved.
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