PartnerChats

We’ve all known couples who manage to find themselves in a committed relationship all the way to marriage with seemingly little in common. Sometimes that’s just because the outside world doesn’t know them well enough. Sometimes it’s because they doubled-down on the commitment in the throes of passionate attraction, and never did their due diligence on the nuts and bolts of how the relationship would work.

“Due diligence” may sound like a cold term for affairs of the heart, but if a storm looms on the love boat horizon, it’s worthwhile knowing before you commit to setting sail together.  That doesn’t mean whatever the issue is can’t be dealt with, but you’re better off knowing it’s an issue beforehand. Some things are huge, like refusing to move, or children. Some are small (to most of us), like who takes out the garbage.

Have you talked to each other about what you – individually and collectively – expect life to be like together? Have you done so with any system, any guide to the issues and questions and possibilities to be explored? Have you discussed what work you’ll do, how to raise kids (if you both want them), how much time to spend with which relatives, whether to have pets, how you spend your money and split up the work?

Do you know and accommodate each others beliefs and expectations about God, politics, schooling, holidays with which family – sex?

Many are manageable, depending on how you both land on these issues compared to each other, but easier if discovered and managed early.  So think of this as an early warning device.  Nothing in the PartnerChats book or method is designed to talk you into or out of anything, just to have the information to allow an eyes-wide-open relationship. We’ve discovered, talking to others who have done this interesting discovery with each other, that even the areas in which you disagree are made more agreeable by chatting about them.

I’m not a marriage counselor or psychologist. I’m not trained to tell anyone how to live, or who’s right or wrong in a conflict. I’ve been a working journalist most of my life, and I’m used to asking questions and learning from answers. When my wife, Suzanna, and I first started on this quest to figure out what we wanted to know about each other, and what we thought about important areas of our lives, I was surprised at the lack of helpful material out there. So we put it together ourselves – first creating our own list of chats and then getting lots of help from scores of other people who we engaged in this conversation.  Many of the questions leaped out during the first days. The rest evolved over several years – again, with more than a little help from my friends.

We’ve also learned, to our delight and surprise, that long-married couples also found value and bonding in these chats. It’s not just for those who have yet to pull the trigger.

This PartnerChats.com site has been set up for you to ask questions, make observations and tell your stories. It also has a few examples of exercises referred to in the book, such as a sample family history and dream planning.  There also is an opportunity for readers to request more subject areas – or topics within a subject area – that might not have been included in this print version.  Feel free to visit the site and add or ask anything you consider relevant.

We hope you have as much fun and as much revelation as we have in our own PartnerChats.

    Hal DeKeyser

Tell us your story. Pose a question. Comment. (Feel free to cut and paste into these, or email it to PartnerChats@gmail.com).