How to Keep Dialoguing

Fighting Apathy, Tiredness, Lack of Questions, and Crowded Schedules

Many couples initially do well with the letter writing of daily dialogue right after their Marriage Encounter weekend. However, after a few months, tiredness, apathy, conflicting, crowded schedules, and the inability to come up with good questions may slowly eat away at your commitment to write daily. Here are some suggestions to help the two of you get your commitment to daily dialogue back on track.

Just do it! Start small with baby steps, and make a commitment to write to one another twice a week. Once that becomes part of your schedule, increase your dialoguing to 3 days per week, then 4, etc., until you are back on track with dialoguing daily.

Make the time. Get together for at least 10 minutes each day even if one of you didn't write. You can also talk during walks together. Remember that it is important to touch base with one another daily about how you feel so you don't end up just talking about the kids, jobs, chores and news.

While apart. Choose questions ahead of time and write on them each day. When you are back together, start your dialogues on those questions besides the daily question you choose for that day or read them all at once, and have one dialogue on them all.

An alternative. If you find the format of the letter writing difficult and just don't like it, try comparing your answers to these statements. We've already heard from several women that they were able to get their husbands to talk to them about some sensitive issues using these statements.

Don't give up. If your spouse won't write, there is hope if you don't give up. A wife shared with us that she wrote to her husband every day. When he was asleep, she would read her notes aloud to him. She did this for six months without any feedback from him. He finally sat up in bed one night and said he believed in her love for him and he would start writing too.

Don't judge. Don't compare your dialogues quantity or quality to the dialogues of other couples. The fact that you want to communicate your feelings with one another on a daily basis is what is important.