People do not get married planning to divorce. Divorce is the result of a lack of preparation for marriage and the failure to learn the skills of working together as teammates in an intimate relationship.
Interpretation
Marriage requires preparation and teamwork; divorce often results from neglecting these aspects.
In this quote, Gary Chapman emphasizes that individuals typically enter marriage with the intention of staying together, but many face challenges that lead to divorce. The root cause of these challenges often lies in inadequate preparation for the complexities of married life and the lack of essential skills needed for collaboration and support in a close relationship.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a marriage preparation workshop to highlight the importance of skills in a relationship.
Good marriages are built upon a combination of emotional love and a common commitment to a core of beliefs about what is important in life and what we wish to do with our lives. Speaking each other's primary love language creates the emotional climate where these beliefs can be fleshed out in daily life.
If you want to improve a relationship, it's not that you demand your spouse to change. You have to ask, 'Where did I fail in this relationship?'
People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.
Before I discovered the concept of the 5 love languages, a bit of advice I was given was to become a student of my wife and to take time to learn what makes her feel loved. I soon learned that what makes her feel loved may not always be the thing I want to do because it may not come natural to me. But learning to love her in the way that makes her feel loved is a greater demonstration of my love for her, because I've chosen to do it with a goal of pleasing her.
Typically, we get annoyed when our spouses complain. We get defensive. But, really, when your spouse complains, he or she is giving you wonderful information about what would make him or her feel loved.
Home is where you feel at home. I'm still looking.
We often hear that people mean well: that so many just don't how to interact with people with disabilities. They're unsure of the 'right' reaction, so they default to condescension that makes them feel better in the face of their discomfort.
I'm struck these days by how often people come up to me and ask to take a photograph instead of shaking hands, meeting one's eyes, and having an actual conversation.
Apparently, the most difficult feat for a Cambridge male is to accept a woman not merely as feeling, not merely as thinking, but as managing a complex, vital interweaving of both.
I was never honest. My father died, and I had never said to him, 'I'm gay.' I knew what I was, but I had to pretend not to be that to avoid the beatings.
It is an important distinction to note that she looked not only as if she had taken good care of herself, but that she had good reason to have done so. (...) She looked to be in such total possession of her life that only the most confident men could continue to look at her if she looked back at them. Even in bus stations, she was a woman who was stared at only until she looked back.
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