Christ's Compass for Couples

Jesus commands us to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31). 

This is a tall order. How do you do that, especially when it comes to the daily complications of a couples relationship?

But Jesus doesn’t leave you hanging. He gives you clues by the way He lives his life as described in the Gospels. Clues to a healthy personality that help you relate to one another in Christlike ways, yet unique to you as a couple.

How can couples do this in the 21st century? Enter the Self Compass. Based both on Jesus’ personality and modern psychological research, the Self Compass steers couples toward man/woman intimacy. 

The Self Compass

The Self Compass helps reveal what Jesus' personality is like. In the Gospel accounts of his life on Earth, Jesus showed us the model of a perfect personality. Unlike the rest of us, Jesus was perfectly loving—a good friend to Peter and John. But he wasn’t loving all the time. Jesus balanced his Love with Assertion—by standing up against the Pharisees when he saw injustice and unfairness, for example. 

Jesus also revealed healthy Weakness—he was humble of heart, a servant who washed his disciples’ feet. He sweat blood, contemplating his crucifixion. Yet this vulnerability was balanced by Strength—to act according to his Father’s will and a confidence in his identity as the Son of man.

Love in balance with Assertion; Weakness in balance with Strength. Together they form Christ’s Self Compass. A Self Compass: a compass that contains Christ’s LAWS to act as your guide to a healthy and whole marriage.

What does Christ's Self Compass look like? 

Christ's Self Compass

Christ’s various names indicate the balance drawn from his own Self Compass. On the Love compass point, he is known as the Good Shepherd—tender, kind, and nurturing. On the Assertion compass point, he is the Lion of Judah found in the book of Revelation; Christ stands against injustice of every kind, and will judge the quick and dead based on their pursuit of righteousness or lack thereof. On the Weakness compass point, Jesus is the Lamb of God, who willingly laid down his life to redeem all who call upon him. And on the Strength compass point he is the Prince of Peace who died in weakness and was raised from the dead in strength and glory.

The Compass LAWS of a Christ-centered Marriage

Love and Assertion; Weakness and Strength. These are compass points that show the contrasting polarities in your personality. Love isn’t better than assertion, and strength isn’t better than weakness. Healthy people express both tender care and diplomatic assertion. They are competent and strong, yet humbly aware of their weakness. In a well-balanced marriage, couples maintain free and rhythmic access to all four compass points of their Self Compass.

Love is kindness. Thoughtfulness. Forgiveness. Tenderness. Compassion. Fondness. Faithfulness. Friendship. Sacrifice. In the development of healthy personality and relationships, Christ gave priority to loving one’s self, others, and God.

But no one remains loving all the time, nor is it healthy to do so. While love lets you stand with-and-for your partner, Assertion is required so as not to lose yourself.

 

Assertion gives you the courage to express your point of view or challenge what you perceive as unfair in your relationship. Diplomatic assertion preserves your individual differences as a couple and helps you develop the skill of negotiating for your reasonable rights. All couples experience bouts of anger or discontent, when your interests rub against the wishes of your spouse. But when you combine assertion in rhythm with caring, the diplomacy that results will help you reach successful conflict resolution.

Weakness reflects the human experience of uncertainty, vulnerability, and soul-searching. The weakness compass point helps a couple develop humility and empathy for one another. It allows the expression of disappointment, anxiety, depression, or helplessness.

Strength reflects the human need for competence and adequacy. Each partner needs to feel appreciated by the other; to be seen as worthy, capable; to be treated with dignity.

When a couple rhythmically modulates the compass points of Love with Assertion, and Weakness with Strength, their relationship develops the balancing grace of compass virtues: 

• Love brings forth charity. 
• Assertion yields courage. 
• Weakness fosters humility. 
• Strength develops esteem.

Jesus Christ

With the help of the Self Compass, you develop a whole and healthy marriage when you center your marriage in Jesus Christ and on His personality.

Overcoming Heartbreak You've Locked Away

I learned years ago that what is the most personal is also the most universal. By disclosing to another human being our deepest secrets, we tell the story of humankind, sing the song of the ancients, and create the poetry of the soul. In baring the darkness within us, we find light, and companionship.

Why is it, then, that there is such a powerful pull to lock our secrets in some cold inner vault and throw away the key? How is it that some things we most need to share end up in solitary confinement, living and dying within our consciousness alone?

But the practice of disclosing your self (strengths and weaknesses, talents and foibles, achievements and mortifications) is what prepares you to go deeper than usual with the one you love, the partner in whom you seek a heart-to-heart reciprocity. You learn that together you can transcend life’s painful episodes—past and present; those humiliating events that might have conquered you but for your redemptive sharing.

Ride Into Hell

My most humiliating experience began during a winter day of after-school sledding. Cheeks flushed against the cold and trembling with excitement, I stand in line with three other boys who wait their turn to dive through the air, land on sleds, and race to the bottom of the snow-packed hill. My turn comes up and I giggle uncontrollably when body and sled unite for another wild ride.

I gather myself at hill’s bottom in preparation for the trek back up, when I see five boys forming a curtain of bodies around me. Jimmy, a sixth-grade classmate, emerges from the circle, hands gyrating in boxer fashion. Is he playing some kind of joke?

Just then a fist whips out and connects solidly with my eye. Three blows follow hard after. I dizzily try to find him in my vision, but he is dancing around. The street itself looks tilted, like I’m in an elevator in an earthquake. More hammer blows sting my cheeks, nose, and chin.

The next half dozen blows I neither see nor hear, and wouldn’t even know about had not bystanders later told me. Mercifully, blackness swallows me like a snake swallowing a fish. 

When I come to, the world looks red. Two neighborhood friends have heaved shoulders under each of my arms and are dragging me home. My body feels foreign and out of joint. It’s not the physical pain, primarily, that feels so alien, but the humiliation of having not defended myself, the horror of having no answer to Jimmy’s evil assault.

A Real and Present Liberation

Here is what I’m driving at: it is precisely through retelling and reliving our stories that our isolation, and the evil embedded in our memories, is overcome. Every transparent disclosure cleanses and dresses old wounds until such time as we are substantially healed. Healing requires transcending fear and shame, and recovering our lost dignities.

Are you wondering if perhaps I cut off the Jimmy story prematurely?

Yes, you’re right. So if you are prepared to listen, I will tell you about Delta.          

That night Mom uses scissors to snip off my undershirt, to avoid pulling it over the cuts on my face. Dad retires to his den, grumbling about having a son who can’t hold his own in a fight.

I crawl into bed, my mind playing mental movies of flashing lights, falling bodies, derisive sniggers, and banging blows. I curl into a ball, cringing. A consoling image vies with the ghostly collage until it comes into focus. It is my girlfriend Delta’s face. 

Delta is my fledgling attempt at having a girlfriend, my fifth and sixth grade flame. We talk at night on the phone and sometimes hold hands during recess. She has a ponytail, blue eyes, and a smile that tickles my insides.

Though I don’t want to go to school tomorrow wearing my raccoon black eyes and purple bruises, I will go. Delta will help me through this terrible pain. She will know that I am actually quite courageous; it’s just that nobody ever taught me how to fistfight. I drift into a restless sleep, grasping the image of her warm hug.

The next morning at school I arrive late. The whole class, even the teacher, leer at my puffed-out face. I scrunch down in my seat low enough to become invisible. An eternity later the buzzer sounds. Everyone tears out of the room for the playground. I stay behind waiting for Delta to come running down the hallway to find me.

After five minutes, I peep out and the hall is empty. Another five minutes and the buzzer sounds. The first boy into the room, Terry, runs up to me breathless, and blurts, “Delta thinks you’re a coward. She’s broken up with you. She doesn’t want you to call her anymore.”

I learned enough at that moment to write a small book. The topic? A dozen reasons for never loving someone because it only leads to heartbreak. Not that I was intellectually aware of what I learned. This was a different kind of learning: the way a dog learns about cars by being run over. I unconsciously decided that genuine intimacy isn’t worth the pain; that relating superficially is the safest way to proceed.

But let me say what you know from your own life experience. While there are plenty of heartbreaks inherent in living and loving, they are most effectively overcome by baring the heart and cleansing the soul, by disclosing your pain to a trusted person whose gracious understanding brings you back to social solidarity.

Over the years I’ve risked sharing my inner life many times, and have many times received healing and encouragement. If this weren’t true, I’d be writing a post called, “How to Avoid Pain in One Easy Lesson: Clam Up.” I want to support you in your search for inner healing. I want to say:  

“Whatever pain you’ve secretly endured, 

go ahead and share it, so that you can keep 

finding the courage to love again.” 

Handling Christmas with The Self Compass

Having just got through Thanksgiving, are you wondering how to handle Christmas? The Self Compass can help you do this. 

The first thing is the use your Weakness compass point to acknowledge upfront that you will occasionally feel frustrated, impatient, and anxious about getting everything done and making everyone happy. These negative feelings arise when you try to accomplish too much, too fast, and expect the whole world to cooperate with you.

Did you know that most people experience a considerable amount of anxiety and anger precisely because they want a perfect Christian season and Christmas day?

The way around this is to accept that you'll be facing holiday traffic, longer grocery store lines, and the occasional bossy relative. You surrender to these normal pressures and inconveniences without making a big deal of it. You pray for the grace of Jesus Christ to abide within you, being a sense of ease and lightheartedness, perhaps even deep gratitude that He came into the world at Christmas just for a relationship with you! All of this arises out of a healthy Weakness compass point, where humility abides.

Next, combine your Love compass point with your Assertion compass point in this fashion. Care for people, but don't take on the maddening burden of trying to make them happy. You can't. People can make themselves happy if they want to, but many prefer griping, fussing, and finding fault with something or other, rather than having a good day or a wonderful Christmas.

Take responsibility to enjoy your own wonderful Christmas in the presence of whomever you're with, while they are simply themselves. This takes the pressure off you and lets you relax and enjoy small delights.

When it comes to relatives, remember that personality patterns run deep, and Christmas doesn't change them. If a person has an angry or argumentative pattern, expect them to continue behaving this way right through Christmas dinner. Of if someone is a died-in-the-wool loner, don't expect them to become suddenly gregarious and cheery.

Don't forget your Strength compass point, where you can exercise reasonable diligence in doing your shopping for gifts and food to have a "good enough" Christmas to feel peaceful and thankful.

Now that you've got the relatives in perspective, concentrate on your inner relationship with Christ. The Holy Spirit is sent by your heavenly Father to live within you precisely to glorify Christ in the core of your being. Stop rushing. Stop fretting. Stop feeling like Christmas is a pressure cooker and you're in the soup!

Breathe. Let your shoulders melt. Smile. Converse with Jesus inside your mind. Invite Him to help you understand and receive all the love He has for all, and the wise pathway He will guide you upon this coming year. Jesus Christ is one family member you can count on to be peaceful, joyful, and fun. He will help you have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Dan Montgomery's Scriptural Self Compass

Kate and I have recently seen the need for a new expression of the Self Compass, one that shows how key Scriptures can contribute toward a balanced walk with Christ. 

Scriptural Self Compass

Love: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet 3:15).

Assertion: “(An elder) must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (Titus 1:9).

Weakness: “These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word” (Ps 25:8-9).

Strength: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isa 40:31).

The wisdom of the Self Compass is that it helps you cultivate the very rhythms of grace seen in Christ's personality through the Gospels. We need Jesus as our personality model, and we need the whole of Scripture, including both Old and New Testaments, to influence our personality and relationships.

I encourage you to meditate on each of these Scriptural Compass points, and connect them with a visualization of yourself putting them into action. 

For the Love compass point, picture yourself cultivating gentleness and respect for family, co-workers, neighbors, and even strangers.

For the Assertion compass point imagine holding firm with Christian values and refuting worldly influences from television, movies, and literature that would otherwise corrupt your Christian orthodoxy.

For the Weakness compass point, pray that the Holy Spirit might help you become more humble and contrite, because the Lord draws near to us when we confess our needs to him.

For the Strength compass point remember to call upon the power of the Lord to renew your strength you in times of adversity or challenge. He will do it!

Keep the Scriptural Self Compass in mind day and night, for these LAWS of personality and godly guidance are meant to bring you ready assistance in a vast array of life situations. Join Kate and me in this prayer:

"Dear God, thank you for the love you show me. Please show me how to assert myself in gracious ways. I humbly call on you in weakness, knowing by faith that you will always strengthen me. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Your Personality Matters to Christ

Personality is the hallmark of humanness and the gift of a loving God to each one of us. Through personality you share with Jesus the potential for identity, free choices, and intimacy with others. By engaging the Lord with your whole personality, you develop a reciprocal rhythm of communication and communion that lasts a lifetime.

I am convinced that your personality development is more treasured by God than the Milky Way galaxy, the rotation of planets in their orbits, and the entire plant and animal kingdoms. I know it’s hard to believe, but Almighty God has designed Creation as a backdrop against which your personality and relationships can come to the fore in dialogue with him.

There are those who say, “You don’t need to know anything about your personality to please Christ. Just read the Bible, go to church, and keep the Ten Commandments. That’s what God wants from you.” 

Actually, these are good ideas, but only when taken alongside your personality growth in Christ. Personality is the sum total of your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. It is through understanding the workings of your inner life—your personal psychology—that you sustain a bridge of intimacy with the Lord. 

Your personality is as unique as a fingerprint, yet follows laws common to humanity. Knowing and honoring the laws of personality enhances the quality of your interpersonal communication with God. Not knowing these laws, or unwittingly violating them, diminishes or even cripples your individuality and relationship with Christ. 

But I have good news. There is a simple way to place these laws of personality into perspective: a personality growth tool I call the Self Compass that is scientifically valid and biblically sound. 

The outer circle of the Self Compass symbolizes your selfhood throughout the stages of life. Resembling a physical compass, the four compass points reveal a dynamic tension between Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength. Combining the first letter of each compass point gives you a convenient way to remember the LAWS of personality and relationships.

The compass points of Love balanced with Assertion, and Weakness balanced with Strength, are essential for a healthy personality. Yet because many people don’t know this, they can favor one compass point at the expense of the others. They become “stuck” on that compass point with rigid behavioral trends that trouble them throughout life, never recognizing that many of their miseries are optional.

In overly using the Love compass point, you develop the dependent trend of feeling unsure of yourself and always needing people’s assurance and approval. 

Exaggerating the Assertion point creates the aggressive trend, where you argue frequently and feel irritated at other people because it seems that your problems are their fault.

Being stuck on the Weakness compass point triggers the withdrawn trend of recurrent helplessness and depression. Fearful of making mistakes, you exchange the adventure of self-development for a morose existence of detached isolation.

People stuck on the Strength compass point feel superior to others and become judgmental perfectionists. This controlling trend makes them bossy and critical, a real pain to be around.

Part of finding your freedom in Christ is this: don’t short-circuit your potential and disappoint God’s calling by getting trapped in a narrow corner of your personality. Rather, live robustly and creatively with your whole Self Compass! 

Here are some quick guidelines for how to get each compass point running smoothly, so you can enjoy the many benefits of compass living. 

Love and Assertion

The first polarity within the Self Compass is Love and Assertion. Love comes from all the times you express kindness, forgiveness, nurturance, fondness for the Lord, or sacrifice for the well-being of someone in need. Love empowers Christian service and supplants selfishness with altruistic caring.

But giving too much love to others lets them take advantage of your resources without replenishing you in return. You’ll likely become a smiling doormat, a person who is secretly depressed, even resentful. 

You need a healthy dose of Assertion to stand up for your reasonable rights, negotiate for fairness in the world, and dare to resist others—and the devil—when pleasing them would counter your guidance from the Holy Spirit.

Think of it this way: Love fosters good will and good cheer, whereas Assertion cultivates self-expression and self-preservation. When you have Love and Assertion operating rhythmically within your personality, you can love yourself and others while enhancing your individuality in Christ. This fulfills the LAWS of personal and relational health.

For example, healthy people can say “yes” as well as “no” to requests that other people make. They can yield to others when compromise is appropriate; yet take firm stands when it isn’t. Like Christ, they respond flexibly to life situations without being stuck in a trend of dependency or aggression.

Maturing as an individual in Christ, then, entails learning to trust your Self Compass and follow your inner marching orders from God. Honoring the rhythm between Love and Assertion increases your fidelity to God’s unfolding will. 

The Holy Spirit faithfully guides you precisely because of your courage and flexibility. Remember Jesus’ promise: “I have said these things while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (Jn 14: 25-26).

Weakness and Strength

The other polarity of personality is Weakness and Strength. Weakness captures all the times you feel uncertain, vulnerable, anxious, hurt, sad, lonely, fatigued, stressed out, overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused. You might immediately think: “These are bad feelings. I don’t ever want to feel this way.” Yet Christ knows that by admitting your weaknesses and deficiencies, you are made humbly reliant on him.

For those super-person Christians who claim to be strong all the time, I say, “Why don’t you grow more human, like Christ is human? He had moments of loneliness, doubt, frustration, and anguish. Are you greater than the Lord?”

When artfully managed, the Weakness compass point fosters humility and empathy for others who are suffering. Strength, on the other hand, imparts the confidence required to develop your talents, pursue the education you need, interview for jobs, hold your own in relationships, and feel good about your accomplishments. Understood this way, Strength encompasses the occasions when you feel healthy confidence, adequacy, and esteem for yourself or others.

When you integrate Weakness and Strength into your relationship with Christ, you find yourself able to converse with him day and night, asking for blessing and guidance in everything you do. At the same time, you take responsibility for your choices. You do the footwork to make good things happen instead of magically hoping that life will get better. 

If you combine the four compass points into a single prayer, it might go like this:

“God, please strengthen my weaknesses and help me develop humility about my strengths. Show me how to care for people assertively and maintain a caring attitude when I assert myself. Thanks. Amen.”

For more about this, you can read Christian Personality Theory: A Self Compass for Humanity that is co-authored with my wife Kate.

Why Are Men Afraid to Cry?

I first got the message that men don't cry in seventh grade football. The coach put me in as a halfback to run the ball, and two upperclassmen tackles who looked freight trains smashed into me so hard I crumpled to the ground. Not only did I feel humiliated, but worse than that, I couldn't breathe, for one of the boys had hit me in the gut on the way down.

I lay there writhing and struggling for my breath to return, only to hear the coach yell, "Montgomery's just a weak sister! Leave him where he lays." The teams formed up and continued the scrimmage, leaving me in the dust (it literally was a gravel and dirt field, not grass).

When I could breathe again, I crawled to the sideline and eventually stood up, bracing back the tears that wanted to stream. I was learning the secret that most boys and men learn. To keep from being taunted as a wimp, I steeled my spirit, tightened the chest muscles around my heart, and clenched my jaw. Did this mean I was a man?

Not quite. The following year I took my girlfriend to the newly released West Side Story. When Tony—the boy I most identified with—was stabbed and left bleeding to death in a parking lot, his head in Maria's lap, the dam of restraint broke and tears streamed down my cheeks. Moments later my girlfriend took her hand out of my hand, looked at me incredulously, and whispered, "Boys don't cry!" 

That completed my initiation into manhood, and for the next five years nothing in heaven or earth could make me cry. In terms of the Self Compass, I had learned that boys and men are to inhabit the upper quadrants of Strength and Assertion, and only girls and women had access to the lower quadrants of Love and Weakness.

In other words, I learned to appear strong in all situations, and if that didn't work, to get angry. How many billions of us men, do you suppose, are stranded in our human development, because our self-expression prohibits the softer, more tender and vulnerable side of being human?

What I like about the Christian faith is that Jesus, one of the strongest and most assertive men in history, wasn't afraid to cry. When his dear friend Lazarus died,"Jesus wept." Not only did he cry, but he loved with his whole heart, whether it meant loving his Father in heaven, loving his friends and disciples, or loving those who hated him.

It is the whole Self Compass—this willingness to feel and express both Love and Assertion, both Weakness and Strength—that makes Jesus Christ a Savior and Friend who encourages your full human development, whether you are a boy or girl, a man or a woman. 

I don't know about you, but I love this Son of Man and Son of God who bravely endured the cross, and though broken, bruised, and forsaken, continues to open his heart to us, seeking only to make us as whole as he himself is!

By the way, over the years, as I developed the various aspects of my self through the Self Compass model, I not only learned that it was acceptable for men to cry, I also learned how to constructively develop strength and assertion. In fact, I am a black belt in karate.

Crying and karate...they are just two of the ways I know that Jesus is working in and through me to make me more whole. He will do the same for you if you let him.

For more about helping men, women and children develop a whole Self Compass in their personality and relationships, read:

Christian Personality Theory:

A Self Compass for Humanity

How To Trust God and Feel God's Love

Whatever chaos is in the world, whatever governments are in power, and whether Christianity is in or out of favor, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invite you to walk and talk with them every single day.  

Your communication with the Trinity is not contingent upon external factors, but internal ones. Your whole personality and human nature are the means of communion with God, and that communication is a spontaneous ongoing interaction.

What a pleasure.

What a mystery.

What an adventure!

In developing your individuality in Christ, you speak your mind to God, disclose feelings of every sort, and surrender your life and body to his care. 

The Lord, in turn, may respond by composing sentences in your mind, hugging your heart with tender care, or imparting serenity to your body, a tangible peace that calms your nervous system and melts your muscles.

As in any close bond, conversation with God sometimes sings like poetry, and other times feels uncertain and awkward. If you come to a place where God seems distant and your burden heavy, get back to the basics. Kneel at your bedside for several nights, praying for the rejuvenation of a lively faith. 

The Lord is right there with you. He will help remove any obstacles and rouse your awareness of the Holy Spirit’s power and presence, for “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God,who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).

There's more on how to trust God and feel his love consistently: 

Faith Beyond Church Walls: Finding Freedom in Christ.

 

The Strength of Human Weakness

In America and most parts of the world, Strength is admired and cultivated as a way of striving for achievement and building self-confidence.

Weakness is an experience that nobody likes and everyone shuns.

 
However, when people seek Strength at the expense of avoiding any sense of Weakness, they become entitled, inflated, and even cocky about how strong they are. I believe the Bible wants to correct this human error by teaching that "pride goes before the fall."

The truth is that we are all weak under our facade of strength. We all get sick, have accidents, are thrown into panic by sudden adversity, are vulnerable to various addictions, and haunted by the uncertainty that we may not have enough (money, friends, health, or even life) the day after tomorrow.

So Christ teaches us to rely on him day to day, and not worry about tomorrow.

Yes, we can make reasonable, tentative plans. And yes, we can exercise a certain amount of control in governing our circumstances. But we must not do it obsessively, at all costs.

We remain humbly open to discovering and doing God's will, even when we find this inconvenient and uncomfortable.

God often asks us to accept temporary adversity, vulnerability, and uncertainty—precisely so that our self-willed Strength does not become our god.

Compass Therapy and the Self Compass show how Weakness is one of the four universal compass points of personality, and offers as much positive value to mental and spiritual health as do Love, Strength, and Assertion.

But how do you experience Weakness gracefully, especially when it hurts? First, realize that God came among us as a fully human person—Jesus. He experienced human weakness through the things he suffered. He didn't own a home, had no spending money, was sometimes popular and sometimes despised, had some loyal friends and some who betrayed him, and experienced moments of anxiety, grief, and terror, the same as we do. For these reasons Jesus Christ is a humble and empathetic Savior.

You come to terms with Weakness by knowing that you can't do life by yourself. You lean on God and others to help you out. You accept your losses and move forward into Strength. You surrender to occasional waves of anxiety and uncertainty, while still keeping your eyes on the Lord, who strengthens you through Weakness. And you develop the virtue of humility and empathy for those who still suffer.

God makes a way for you when there is no way. 

For more about how faith calms fear and heals anxiety, read  

Faith Beyond Church Walls:  Finding Freedom in Christ

Three Tips for Staying in Love

Here are three tips for staying in love!

1. Warm-up your partner up to the communication you wish to have. Realize that we each live inside our own skin. At any given moment, we are experiencing things that our partners have no way of knowing about, unless we tell them. It is a huge mistake to believe that if a person really loves you, he or she will be able to read your mind. No way. Your partner is as locked inside the skin as you are. The only tools available for communication and communion are words and body language. So whatever you want to say, especially if it has a strong emotional valence to it, break it to them gently.

2. Avoid verbal arguments and misunderstandings by willingly repeating whatever you’re trying to say in fresh new words. It is only natural for couples to mishear a communication, or to take something very personally and react defensively, instead of continuing the communication. With practice you can learn to let your partner finish whatever they are trying to say without interrupting them, or short-circuiting the communication with an emotional reaction. The rule here is that the more grace you extend to your partner, the more grace they become willing and able to extend to you. So taking the time to clarify any misunderstanding builds mutual goodwill.

3. Just as in car maintenance, keep your intimacy well oiled and lubricated by a generous supply of basic kindness:  “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “Please may I?” “Excuse me.” “Good morning.” “Sleep well.” “How are you?”  “I need you.” “I’m sorry.” “I love you!”

As you can tell, I feel passionately about couple’s love. 

If one of my dreams could come true, it would be that every couple on earth might come to know the warmth, emotional security, and adventure of couple’s intimacy that really works.

For more, have a look at 

STAYING IN LOVE: Dr. Dan & Siggy's Guide to Couples Love