So I'm getting ready to be a guest on Northwest Ohio's #1 Saturday morning talk show, A Firm Foundation hosted by Rick & Jackie Metz aring here in Toledo every Saturday from 9:00 am - 11:00 am on WLQR AM 1470.
As it's going to be the Saturday before Valentine's Day we'll be talking relationships, couplehood, and online dating and I wanted to put together a hopefully humorous and sometimes provocative list of ideas to wet the appetite for those who want to fall in love, as well as those already in love--and want to stay that way.
1. Have a project together.
2. Never stop dating--the person you're with.
3. Realize falling in love is a roller coaster ride filled with excitement (passion/abandon/love) and terror (jealousy/doubt/hate).
4. Accept you'll sacrifice a little of that rollercoaster ride for stability to create that project together.
5. Let your kids get bored.
6. Believe the one you picked is the one you have an unwritten contract with to grow yourself.
7. Honor the fact you'll need to renegotiate that unwritten contract when you achieve that growth.
8. Realize when the woman in your life gives birth; she fell in love with someone else.
9. Believe that when you fall in love with that new person too, you've created a new way to love her--a new project together.
10. Get over the idea that there shouldn't be any power struggles in a love relationship.
11. Don't forget, you might go off to work every day and expect her do your laundry, but if you were living alone, you'd have to do your own laundry anyway.
12. Know your kids are not supposed to be grateful.
13. Don't confuse having a mom with being in a relationship with a woman.
14. There's no intrinsic value in a long life--or marriage.
15. It's the valued directions you took and the people you touched along the way that made it valuable.
16. Take out the garbage before it's full.
17. Resist the urge to use the kids to score points against your former partner.
18. Find ways to intimately touch one another every day.
19. Risk looking silly for the one you love.
20. Accept your kids won't understand until they have their own--or at least until their 35 years old.
21. Your life is never the same after you start to live with someone.
22. Empty the dishwasher after it's done.
23. Your kids were already who they were long before you got them.
24. If you want a relationship, start asking for phone numbers.
25. A scribbled note of appreciation to the one you love is untrammeled poetry.
26. Appreciate those who fill your life.
27. Practice holding back angry words until you'll talk about what upsets you with respect.
28. When it's feeding time in the middle of the night, get up and bring the baby to her.
29. Don't let yourself lose respect for the one you love.
30. Don't gamble with falling in love with someone else unless you want to end the relationship you already have.
31. Don't always be in the dark when having sex.
32. If you're fighting--switch sides of the bed.
33. Figure out if you want your kids to like you or if you want them to be healthy adults--you'll rarely get both at the same time.
34. If your relationship is stuck, do something different.
35. Assume what you can't stand in your partner is what you hate most in yourself.
36. Make sure you both don't pick the same child as your favorite.
.8 Understand that avoiding a problem is growing a problem.
What are your ideas for a good relationship? What on the list rings most true for you? Least true?
