Discover Dreams? Check! (FAML)

        I feel like in this week's reading there wasn't as much new stuff as there usually is. It talked about getting ourselves out of gridlocked problems. Those are the perpetual problems in marriage that you can't really solve, you just have to live with. And when I say that I am sure you feel kind of stuck and you are probably thinking something along the lines of "Isn't that what marriage books are for, to help me get OUT of all the problems?" Funny how sometimes books tell us what we already know. Really though there are problems that just don't ever seem to get solved. That is okay! They don't have to be solved in order to have a good marriage.
     In this book though, Gottman teaches us ways to get passed the annoyance and anger that comes with these unsolved problems. He tells us that when we have these problems most of the time it is because dreams are not being realized. This makes a huge difference. When we can understand that the arguments we seem to be having all of the time are because someone's dreams aren't being met it helps us see things in a different light. Instead of the problem being super annoying and aggravating all of a sudden we see a need that we can help our spouse with.
      The other day my husband and I were talking about the most ridiculous thing.He had been teasing me and  He wanted me to admit things and there was no way that was going to happen. I thought it was silly and totally unnecessary. However he saw it as a trust thing. If I couldn't be totally open and honest about even the small silly things how am I going to be able to talk about the hard stuff? After a little bit things started to get annoying. I saw no purpose in having that conversation.
      I don't know if I realized until after what I was doing, but instead of stonewalling him (which I probably would have done) I decided to ask him why this was all so important to him. We ended up being able to have a good conversation which helped me to better understand where he was coming from. We thought of different things from his past and other reasons as to why this would affect him so much.  Afterward I went back to reading this book and I realized that we had been having the conversation that Gottman teaches us to have. #RelationshipGoalAccomplished! Now lets see if we can keep that going.