Tag: book excerpt

My husband might die.

I’m wide awake, lying on my back, staring at the ceiling in an unfamiliar room, while these four words loop in my head. I am staying with a friend and fellow military wife in Colorado. Earlier in the day, I tried to keep my composure. But now, in the quiet darkness, I can’t hold back my tears. The worry has set in strong, as this possibility feels very real. Much too real.

Harold might die.

My husband, my best friend and the love of my life, chose to leave me to climb a massive mountain halfway across the world . . . and he wasn’t even a climber when I met him three years ago!

If your marriage feels stuck or out-of-whack, maybe it’s time to take a step back to consider what you’re willing to give to—and what you want to get from—your relationship. Relationships tend to thrive when partners have similar needs and desires. Yet we sometimes don’t take the time to ponder the qualities we need to feel in sync with our partner. By taking an honest look at the key traits that are deal breakers for you—what I have come to term "essential qualities" such as honesty, respect, and kindness—you’ll get straight to the heart of your relationship issues.

The following is an excerpt from "Dancing in the Kitchen: Hope and Help For Staying in Love"

I am a singer and a songwriter, but I enjoy the expression of art in many forms. From a very young age, I loved to draw and paint. I remember when I signed up to take my first art class. I was fairly good at painting and drawing but as soon as someone else had expectations of me, I froze. The freedom I once felt was gone and I couldn’t create like I once did. I needed to find a method of practicing the new skills I would learn without losing the heart and joy that once came so easily in the beginning. Then I could apply those skills when tackling new and more difficult art assignments.

True love isn’t about running in slow motion across a field of wildflowers into each other’s arms and murmuring sweet nothings into each other’s ears. Nor is it about being on a never-ending honeymoon and existing in a perpetual state of ecstatic union where every day is sunny and we engage in perfectly synchronized, effortless, multiple-orgasmic, no-sweat, no-fart sex.

People say it all the time: "The very things that first attract you to your spouse often end up being the very things that annoy you." And these "very things" can even tear couples apart. Many spouses (of all ages) shrug their shoulders and passively give in to this "truth," slowly watching their marriages wilt. It’s heartbreaking to see this pattern repeat itself over and over again. This heartbreak is what drove me to research this topic extensively and write this book—because I know the other side of this truth: those very things that attract us to our spouses have the power to invigorate our relationships. They have the power to give meaning and vitality to our marriages. If we use them correctly, they have the power to re-attract us to our spouses, over and over again.