the secret to ending arguments

weheartit

amidst all the preparations,

the invitations, the decorations, the planning,

there was one thing that dante & i had to do before we could get married

in his family's catholic church...

we were required to take a marriage course

...

dante thought this was pretty much the most ridiculous thing in the world,

and although i thought it would be good for us

to have some time to reflect

on the giant, life-changing steps we were taking with each other,

i was a little skeptical too.

but...

after going through it,

i advise anyone who is getting ready to get married

to set up some time to do a pre-marriage course.

whether it's through your church, your local community center,

or with a private counsellor,

i found it so helpful to have a pre-formulated set of topics and questions

and time to talk about them.

because when you're engaged,
you should be planning your marriage
as much as you are planning your wedding.

most people know there are things they should talk about

with their significant other, like money, intimacy, children,

and personal preferences about all sorts of other things,

but most of us never do.

and these are the discussions that these courses are set up to facilitate.

and the most important thing

that we got out of the course was this...

it's not about winning a fight anymore.

if you want your relationship to work,

you have to let go of the idea that

you need to prove your partner wrong.

that has always been a very hard one for us,

and we're still working on it.

but the course taught us so many techniques for

how to cool off when you get upset,

how to slow down and listen to each other,

and how to work together to solve a problem,

regardless of whose "fault" the problem may be.

i believe that this really changed both of our perspectives

on the way we approached our relationship,

and the course helped us turn our pretty wonderful dating relationship

into a fantastic, loving and permanent marriage.

we now know that having a happy marriage is more important

than proving the other person wrong.

and of course we will always have growing to do

and changes we'll have to make in order to live in harmony with one another,

but we are doing our best to work everything out together

and to make each other happy with every thing we do.