Last night Kylie gave me a book to borrow called Before Planning Your Wedding, Plan Your Marriage. It's written by Dr. Greg and Erin Smalley, a couple who have been married for 15 years now and have done their fair share of premarital and marital counseling with couples.
I delved into chapter 1 when I got home from work today and already took some important pointers from what I had read, but one thing that stood out to me the most from this chapter was what Dr. Greg and Erin call safety.
The truest form of emotional intimacy comes from feeling safe with your fiance. With safety, couples bring down the guards and make their true selves and feeling apparents to their soon-to-be spouse. But the way to achieve this intimacy that comes from the safety is to honor your mate.
Honor is another word for value, as Dr. Greg and Erin say. When I read that I started thinking about possessions that I value the most. I'm very proud of my furniture. It was my first big investment when I first became a teacher. I bought a couch, a queen-sized bed and mattress set. I also value my collection of children's books. Most of them are my absolute favorites and some are classics. I want to keep them in perfect condition that I will only let 3-4 students at a time into my classroom library so I can monitor the treatment of my books. Of course my newest possession that is definatly valued above all the others is my diamond ring!
Although these important things are valued greatly, they are still just "things" that do not provide any emotional intimacy for me. That is why Dr. Greg and Erin encourage couples to see eachother as valued possessions. When you choose to view and treat someone as a valued possession, the level of safety within the relationship increases and therefore so does the emotional intimacy.
This book has really opened my eyes about how marriage is supposed to be and I'm only in the first chapter. I'm excited about the other things that I am going to learn through this book. I want to be a good wife to Bryan not only for the sake of his feelings or for a healthy marriage, but because God commands the wife to honor thy husband!
2 comments:
that's so awesome that you are reading that book! I've never read it but I've heard good things! :)
adriene...danny and i read that book AND i made us do the homework assignments in it! its a really good book! I just let bo and amanda (soon to be vaculiks) borrow it.
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