How Communicating Saved Our Marriage - 2nd Edition: Let's Talk About It

By Antonio Moore and Laura Moore

Discover the secrets to better communication as a couple! Do you want to strengthen your bond? Do you want to improve your relationship communication skills? If that's the case, this is the book for you!

This book is all about how important it is for couples to communicate in relationships. It discusses why it's hard for couples to communicate and offers proven tools and tips to get the lines of communication back open for good!

Antonio and Laura wrote this book about how hard they worked to save their marriage. They talk about the problems they ran into and how determined they were to learn some simple communication skills. It tells the story of how they learned to communicate with each other over the course of their 28-year marriage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781794764484

Book preview

Preface

It was thirty-one years ago when we had just met. It was all smiles; the love, passion, and commitment were there – the only thing remaining was building our legacy together. It was time to take all those dreams we had talked about and make them a reality. So, we got married on a beautiful October afternoon, and the world was all ours - meet Mr. & Mrs. Antonio Moore.

Now, all we needed to do was live happily ever after, right?

Wrong! The fun wore off, and we both quickly realized that we had committed to a life with each other until DEATH DO US PART! For better or worse? In sickness and in health? For rich or poor? Whoa – can we re-think this marriage thing, or was it too late if we changed our minds because we had the big, beautiful wedding?

Laura and I were in our mid 20's when we got married — and we had a rough start. We developed a pattern of behaviors early in our marriage: When we hit a problem, we reacted. That reaction would begin with me getting upset and Laura going quiet. The more upset I would become; the more Laura would shut down. And the more she shut down, the more upset I would become. It did not take long before she would leave the house. I would worry about her, so I'd go looking for her. Then (the way I remember it), I would apologize, and we would go home… lol. Nothing more was said about what had happened.

No one had told us that the fun would end and that we wouldn't even know if we liked each other. We didn't know what to do with our inability to communicate. You see, Laura never saw her parents fight when she was growing up, but I grew up hearing my parents fight all the time… So, how to communicate or even manage emotions was never modeled for either of us.

We were two different beings who were not only of the opposite sex but also from different upbringings. One was from the Eastside middle class – the other was from the Westside of the projects considered low-budget. We were unprepared for all the things that we did NOT have in common, but when the challenges arose – who knew we wouldn't be able to COMMUNICATE about them either! One thing for certain was that neither of us knew how communication problems would creep up, and we surely were not prepared for it. "How Communicating Saved Our Marriage" is real and comes from our 28-year journey together as husband and wife.

Marriage & Relationship Coaches

Today we can assure you that it is not surprising that when two people get married, they find it easier to tell their spouses what they do not like about them; than what they do like. We have included some of our individual experiences as husband and wife; our professional experiences as marriage coaches have taught us valuable life lessons.

As Marriage and Relationship Coaches, we help couples get the relationship they want by giving them new tools and showing them how to use them. About 40% of couples who come to Marriage Means Moore first thought about getting a divorce or breaking up. After going through relationship coaching, over 89% of couples decide not to divorce and stayed together.

Anything in life takes effort, and we are not saying it is easy. However, if you really care about saving your relationship or marriage, do your work; what do you have to lose? These communication tools in action opened the lines of communication and helped us both to grow individually and together. This is how we saved our marriage by communicating.

That old cliché that said marriage was 50/50 did not work at all. You know what we mean... I will do my half, you do yours. Truth be told, in marriage, the plan is for each of us to give our 100%; otherwise, we are just measuring the efforts of our spouse. Letting them know when they measure up to what WE see as their 50%. And honestly, you end up feeling like your 50% is always better than your partner any way.

The challenge is to be able to look at the years behind you and smile at the lessons they taught you

~Antonio & Laura Moore

Dedicated to…

Couples who do not want to break up but have given up on their relationship. When it's hard to love someone, you start to wonder if you made the right decision. This is especially true when decisions are made without thinking about how people feel and when people can't talk to each other without getting into fights. When it's too annoying to talk to your partner, you just stay together, and hope things will get better.

Investing in your relationship by learning how to communicate is the most important thing you can do for it.  If someone had taken the time to teach us how important it is to communicate in marriage, we would not have wasted so many years trying to do it our own way. Learning how to communicate saved our marriage because we realized we were on the same team. Thank God we were able to keep our marriage together even though the odds were against us. You can, too! Learning how to communicate with each other is what makes it work, and it is worth it!

Table of Contents

Preface

Dedicated to…

Let's Talk About Communication First

How Communicating Saved Our Marriage

Useless Communicating

Check Yourself Alerts

Using the D Word

Our Divorce