Better Together: Meet Me Half Way.
Welcome to Better Together. The newsletter focused on showing you how amazing your marriage can be, and trying to help you get there. Each week we give you a brief glimpse into our lives and three potentially life-changing ideas to help you become a better partner. We hope that you will find this newsletter inspirational and practical.
We believe that “close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives.” [1] We believe that by strengthening marriages, and families, we can improve the world at large.
We hope you will help us share this vision. Please consider sharing this newsletter with others via: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, or email.
1. the Grant Study, a 75-year-long Harvard research project on human development
From Our Lives
We all have different personalities.
For example I am the quieter of the two of us. I tend to shut down or just stop talking when things get tough. Nathan on the other hand tends to talk more trying to help get us on the same page.
As you can guess these two styles clash, and often. We have learned that both of us need to be aware of our own needs, and the needs of our partner. If we are both willing to compromise, and find some middle ground, we can meet both of our needs.
When Nathan notices I am not participating in a conversation, he lets me know he needs me to get more involved. When I notice I am feeling overwhelmed I let Nathan know that he needs to give me a little more space, maybe a couple of minute break or slowing down the conversation a little.
These different styles and needs aren’t new to us, but at times we get lazy and don’t put in the effort required.
When our partner reminds us to make an adjustment, we have a choice, we can be open and curious or defensive. This one decision can lead to us solving a problem or just making it bigger and uglier. The more we are aware of the consequences of our decisions the better choices we will make and the happier our marriage can be.
What We Have Been Reading
“Attention isn't free. It's the most valuable thing you spend.”
“Excellence is mundane. Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.”
“Your time is better spent championing good ideas than tearing down bad ones.
“The best thing that can happen to a bad idea is that it is forgotten. The best thing that can happen to a good idea is that it is shared.
“Feed the good ideas and let bad ideas die of starvation.”
— James Clear
Call To Action
Please help us by filling out our anonymous survey!
Now, go give your spouse a hug and tell them you love them!
Written and published by Nathan & Kelli.
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