For the last several months, my fiance and I have been working our way through Gary Chapman's book "Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married". Based on what he's seen in decades of premarital and marital counseling, Chapman has created a list of a dozen topics for couples to discuss on their journey towards marriage. Many of the concepts seem intuitive, if not downright basic. For example, "That toilets are not self-cleaning" and "That I was marrying into a family". Well, duh. It's not that we didn't already know these things, but it was incredibly beneficial to actually discuss them and what they meant for our relationship.
As we worked our way through the book, we found that we had already touched on many of the topics, but it was nice to have a nonthreatening springboard into them that wasn't triggered by an argument. The book covered areas like money, in-laws, roles in marriage, sex, disagreements, personality, etc. More importantly, it made those subjects concrete, asking us to discuss specifics like how much we will tithe, who will do laundry, and what constitutes a meaningful apology. It wasn't always easy to be honest in our discussions, but again, it wasn't like we were waiting until an argument arose before bringing it up, when things would have been far more emotionally charged.
I would highly, highly recommend this or a similar book to help break down the barriers to discussing these important topics. Again, it gives you a platform to start talking without having to wait for him to leave the toilet seat up or her to make some extravagant purchase. I don't even think it matters if you're already married, or not sure you're going to get married. Any couple can benefit from having these discussions on neutral ground. Get a book and start plugging away.
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