Marathon, FL 24º42.366N | 81º5.669W
[WORKING HEARTS]
This one is called Parent-Child Dialogue and is a role-playing exercise. Your spouse pretends they are your parent, and you talk to them about childhood wounds and frustrations.
I have to admit, we both found this a little maudlin, so we did it our own way. Instead of role-playing, we just took turns talking about what we learned by doing the earlier childhood frustrations exercise.
While neither of us had any major blockbusters to divulge, it was interesting to find that, even though we came from vastly different households, our frustrations were similar. Could we be kindred spirits in that regard too?
Well, in case you haven't been reading this, we're going through these exercises, because we haven't been feeling all that kindred. As reported before, we started back in December and fought about the only exercise we had to do together to this point, that would be Exercise #1. We were able to maintain our air of tension through this exercise as well, trying to be kind and empathetic through gritted teeth.
The upcoming lessons will slowly move from individual work to the meatier stuff, a perfect crescendo of pressure and anxiety building. The book warns that there will be blow-ups and backsliding, repeating old patterns, you know, general mayhem. Something to look forward to.
I know there are at least 12 couples who are working with us, or 'with us', and if you want to interject privately or publicly about your progress or lack of it, please do. We'd love to hear from you.
Don't lose faith. Chip and I are on Exercise #13 and have had tremendous breakthroughs. The communication tools coming up in Exercise #8 are life-changing on their own.
March on!
Here is the book in our Amazon.com store (you pay the same price, Amazon gives us a paltry percentage):
Getting the Love You Want -- paperback
Getting the Love You Want -- Kindle edition
HAPPY WHAT? -- how this started, my original confession on Valentine's Day
Exercise #1 Don't forget to read how awesome you are, even if you don't feel it yet.
Exercise #2 & #3
Exercise #4
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