Talking Up Relationships

If there's one thing I LOVE, it's good conversation with practical strangers. Thankfully, my job allows for me to engage in it all-the-livelong-day. In preparing for the February "I [Heart] Issue," of the magazine, I've been interviewing couples. Without divulging too much information, I'd just like to share a few golden nuggets from several of these sweethearted people. Some of their words were sobering; others hope-givingly romantic. People like these...they are my teachers.

From the female half of a ballroom dancing couple:
"The challenge is not to lead, and to let the guy lead. With couples, especially, it's hard for the lady to do that. If the guy's not leading, it's just instinctive for the lady to try and take over, and if you're both leading, it doesn't work. You're not pulling her around, but you're just initiating the steps. It definitely takes practice."

The male counterpart of a catering duo:
"[Being in business together has] redefined who we are as a couple, because it's put us in a position where we have to fight. For everything that we have, and everything that we are, we have to fight. We put all our effort, energy and time into this. We face different challenges. I think for us, deciding if it's worth fighting for...We're both on the same team; we both want the same things. We may approach it differently, but we want the same results."

And from the marriage counselor about her husband:
"I think there was a time where it was actually brought to my attention that I was over-analyzing everything that we said or did in our communication; how we resolved conflict. It was just overkill. Date nights became, 'We need to talk through this and this and this. Cause if we don't and we let it go for a week, we're going to be like this couple that was in my office in crisis.' There were several months where I was just very overly analytical about us, trying to look at everything through a magnifying glass and it just didn't work at all. It took a colleague saying, 'Ya'll need to have fun. There's other parrts to your marriage besides just making sure you talk through everything.'"

And from a girl with "different abilities" about her boyfriend:
"A lot of the stuff he likes is the same stuff I like. He's funny. He's outgoing. He's got a good personality. And on top of all that, he helps everybody. And I try to help as much as I can. Basically, he's just a really nice person and he takes care of me. He treats like a queen. He doesn't even treat me like a princess. He treats me like a queen. He brings me lunch in. He brings me pie. Like today, I had chocolate pie he brought in for me. And he also helps me sew on my scout badges--my meirt badges--because I don't know how to sew them on. I don't know where half of them go."