Читать книгу Turn it Up! - Kelly DuPée - Страница 7

Did you know there are two types of light switches? One is called a toggle switch. You flip it up and the light goes on; you flip it the opposite way and the light goes off. There is also a dimmer switch, which has a knob that you can turn up or down depending on the brightness of light you want.

What does this have to do with marriage or relationships? I like to think that there is an imaginary dimmer switch that controls the strength, health or quality of your marriage. If you want more light in your house, you can turn the real dimmer switch up. Likewise, if you want the room to be darker, a dimmer allows you to gradually adjust the light to what you would like it to be. A lot of people tend to think of the health or quality of their relationship as a toggle switch that is either on or off. You are either married or you are not; and, if you are married, it’s either good or bad. The truth is, however, that a dimmer switch is a much better way to think about your marriage.

When you get married, you are excited about it and very much in love. During this time, you could say that your switch is turned all the way up. As time goes on and the challenges of life hit you, the brightness or quality of your relationship can start to dim as if someone turned it down. When you get busy, or spend a lot of time at work, or focus your attention on your kids, you gradually start drifting apart. What was once turned all the way up has now been gradually turned down. What was once dynamic and exciting has morphed into something routine and dull. However, just as life can turn the quality of a marriage down, you have the power to reverse that and to turn it up.

In a romantic relationship or marriage, everybody wants two things: for the relationship to be great and for it to last. The problem is that often we do not know how to get these things. How do you build a fulfilling and long lasting marriage with another human being? We all look at couples in their golden years that have been married for decades, thinking they either must be really lucky or really blessed. Certainly, there are some who have figured out how to be happily married. However, the sad reality is that most marriages or romantic relationships either end painfully or stay together while being unhappy. This does not have to happen to you. I have got good news: you really can have a great marriage that is enjoyable and fulfilling, AND that will last a lifetime. But this does not happen by accident. You have to intentionally turn it up.

This book will teach you how to have a long lasting and enjoyable marriage. I will show you how to monitor and turn up the heat in your connection so that you can respond and fix problems while they are still small. I will give you practical and easy-to-follow instructions on how to strengthen and sustain your marriage so that it will last a lifetime.

Before I tell you how to turn it up, let me tell you a bit about me and why you should trust that I know what I am talking about.

I have been extremely blessed in my marriage to the love of my life, Carrie, for over thirty years. We have had some challenges, as all marriages do; but we have overcome them, grown in our love and learned a few things along the way. I have the incredible blessing of serving as one of the pastors at Faith Church in the Los Angeles area and as a Chaplain for the West Covina Police Department. I am also a certified Life Coach that specializes in marriage coaching. In those roles, I have officiated hundreds of weddings, and have talked and prayed with hundreds of couples at different stages in their marriages. Some of them have been engaged and have come to me for premarital counseling. Some have been married and in need of input on specific issues. A few have come hoping that a conversation with me would keep them from filing for divorce. I have also taught and led marriage classes and programs. I am not a marriage counselor, a therapist or a psychologist; however, my own marriage, along with my experience helping couples, has given me some insights on how to make a marriage work.

I am passionate about helping you have and maintain a great marriage. I have seen too many divorces that could have been prevented. In addition to helping couples stay married, I have also helped individuals to recover from divorce and I have seen firsthand the devastation that is caused when a marriage dies. Although I love helping people in any way I can, I would always prefer to be at the top of the cliff, warning you to turn around, rather than waiting with an ambulance at the bottom to help after you have crashed.

So, what will you get from reading this book? Here are just some of the benefits. You will see why it is important to regularly check on the quality of your connection and to turn it up. You will learn things that you can consistently do to turn up the passion, love and fulfillment within your marriage. You will learn how to protect your connection from outside influences that could turn it down. You will learn how to ask for what you need. You will learn how to solve problems together, avoid conflicts and deal with the challenges that inevitably arise along the way, that can also turn down the strength of your connection. You will learn how to deal with negative emotions, like anger, in a healthy way so that it will not damage your relationship. In short, you will learn how to turn up the strength of your connection, which will result in you having a great marriage.

This book contains wisdom that I have gleaned from many other sources that have poured into our lives, such as Dr. Jim and Marguerite Reeve, the senior pastors at Faith Church who have been married for almost fifty years. Their wisdom and example have been an inspiration for thousands of people, including us, and we are very thankful for that. I have also taken some of the best ideas from other experts in marriage and relationships, and condensed them into the easy-to-follow concepts that you will find here.

This is a how-to kind of book, a manual to follow so you can learn how to be married. The instructions and suggestions I make are time tested, and many of these concepts have been proven by research done to help couples have a stronger and better relationship. Let me assure you that these are things that Carrie and I have applied and continue to practice on a regular basis; not just theories that I think would work. They have been tested, evaluated and applied to real life relationship challenges, and are proven to work.

Here is my promise to you. If you read and apply the concepts in this book, your marriage or relationship will improve and become stronger. I cannot promise that it will last a lifetime: this is up to you and your spouse. But I do promise that the stronger the connection you have with your spouse, the better your marriage will be; and you will survive the storms and challenges. If you do not put into practice what you read in here, I can guarantee that you will not have the practical wisdom that could help you have a great and long lasting relationship.

Who is this book for? If you are just getting started in your marriage, this book is for you. If you have been married for a while, but have hit some bumps and realize you need help, this book is for you too.

I have heard that pain pills sell better than vitamins. Unfortunately, we seem to only look for help when we are hurting, instead of taking proactive steps to improve our health. This book will not help you unless you read it. Do not wait until your marriage or relationship is in trouble to do so. The time to repair the roof on your house is before it rains. If you wait to read this book, you will not only miss out on a better quality for your relationship, but you will also be unprepared for the storms that will hit it. Think again of what you want in your marriage. You want it to be great and to last. I believe this book will help you achieve both of those goals.

If I have not convinced you yet to read this book, let me give you one more reason: your children. If you have kids or want to have kids, what kind of marriage would they want you to have? Would they want parents who are always fighting, arguing or, worse yet, avoiding each other because of unresolved issues? Would they want you to separate from each other? Would they want you going to court to decide who gets to live with whom? No. They want to see you talking, enjoying each other and working through the challenges in a healthy way. They want to feel and know that they live in a secure family, so they can thrive and grow into healthy adults who will also know how to be married. You can give them all of these things.

This is a book based on reality. Recently, I was teaching this to a group of engaged couples, where I could tell that some of these concepts contradicted the romantic ideas they had about life and marriage. I could tell I was bursting their bubble. I was not trying to depress them by explaining how challenging being married can be, but to give them a clear idea of what they were stepping into. Many couples feel they do not need to learn how to be married, they just want to figure it out on their own. Perhaps, that is why so many marriages do not make it. That is not what I want for you: I want you to know the pitfalls that could destroy your marriage so you can avoid them. I also want you to know how to respond in a more effective way when conflict arises. The truth is that your marriage will face challenges, but you can overcome them and pass the tests when you are prepared.

So do not wait, get started now. Read, talk about and apply the concepts presented in each chapter. We will first talk about why the connection between the people in a marriage or relationship is so important and about how to monitor it. Then, I will give you five commitments you need to make and five skills you need to learn how to use with each other. A commitment is a promise, followed by action, that is lived out on a daily or regular basis. These commitments are ongoing behaviors that when you do them regularly you will keep life from turning your connection down —and instead turn it up. A skill, however, is a tool that you learn and then use when it is required by a certain situation. By living out the commitments and using the skills, you really can have the kind of marriage that you want. One that is enjoyable and fulfilling, AND that will last a lifetime.

Are you ready to turn it up? Then let’s begin!