Worldwide Marriage Encounter
of North/Central Alabama

Home
Up
Common Abbreviations
Feeling Words

Dialogue is meant to allow your spouse to share their feelings without being judged or analyzed. Dialogue is not a time to unload or blame. By following some simple guidelines and techniques, you can make the most out of your dialogue.

    Dialogue Do's

Write - a 10 minute love letter focusing on feelings.
Exchange - and read twice, once for the head and once for the heart.
Dialogue - 10 minutes on the strongest feeling in one of the letters.
Select - a question for your next dialogue.

    Dialogue Don'ts:

• Avoid getting hung up on grammar or spelling.
• This is not the time for "garbage dumping".
• Avoid giving "you" messages. Use I feel statements instead.
• Avoid blaming statements, i.e., "you made me..." or "you didn't...". Just concentrate on the feelings.
• Avoid measuring how much your spouse wrote.
• Avoid using critical judgments. The decision to love your spouse will keep you on track.
• Don't expect your spouse to change because you shared your feelings.
• Don't short-changing the time in your room together by not spending the full time talking about and continuing to draw out/explore the feeling about which you have written.
• Avoid the temptation to problem-solve on the subject during the dialogue time, be sure to use the 10 minutes just to listen.

    Download a collection of dialogue questions, click here.

 

(This is in PDF format so an Adobe Viewer is needed. It can be download for free, click here.)