Day 18. LOVE SEEKS TO UNDERSTAND

Today's challenge is to seek to understand my wife a little bit more.

Understanding opens the way for trust to grow. It also helps me to meet her needs. It demonstrates to her that I care. Genuinely.

When we were courting, and engaged, I studied her. I understood her to a degree. The challenge is to keep studying.

When we move further into our relationships, of any sort, there is a danger of having "enough knowledge to be dangerous". With our partners, with our children, colleagues in the workplace, we can know them enough to begin second-guessing. We can start to assume their meanings and motives, and this can create problems in our relationships.

They feel judged or misunderstood. Barriers of suspicion or fear arise. Things can be said or thought, that are most unhelpful in our relationships. I see it often in others. I see where I have created problems in my own mind that have damaged my relationships with Liz and our respective children.

For a healthy marriage, I must constantly seek to be hearing and understanding Liz. Not assuming her meanings or motives - I'm usually wrong when I do that!

That's what I have been working at in my own life. Trying hard to not judge, not assume, not create problems that aren't really there. Love tells me to simply love Liz, not try to fix problems that don't exist.

I am trying to listen more and assume less. Because my commitment is to Liz for life. And I want our relationship to be the best it can be. I am glad to have found such a deep friendship as I have with Liz, and happy to have our marriage.

Liz often seems to feel that I have expectations on her that she can't fulfill. I hope that as I prove her worth to me more by listening better, and showing how truly I value her, this will help build her esteem and help her to know she is truly loved for who she is, not for something I might expect her to be.