I am neither a therapist nor a psychiatrist. My wife and I are average folk who work secularly, and we live in a modest home in a small town in England, with wonky black-and-white buildings and a lovely river, complete with ducks and swans.
We've had our ups and downs, but people have regularly commented on how happy we look. At first we were almost unaware of this, but as time passed, more and more people asked us what our secret is, which led me to writing a book about 12 years ago. I never liked that book though – it always felt too ‘preachy’ to me, like I was wagging my finger at the reader rather than befriending them and metaphorically putting my hand on their shoulder and just having a chat.
This second incarnation of the book came yet again out of people asking us: “After 25 years, how come you still look so happy? How come you still look like you’re in love?” So I sat down and started fresh.
My approach was simple: What does it take to have a happy relationship? I made myself comfortable and began writing a list. Rather interestingly, my list resembled the chapter headings of the original book to a large extent, but there were a few extra items on the list, having learnt a few more lessons the hard way since writing the original book. Who’d have thought, haha!
Some things did not change though. Being an IT geek, I have that natural tendency to look for root causes and then finding ways to fix them, rather than treating symptoms. The result is that How to be a Happy Couple is challenging you to look deeper than the surface, to look within, to find the real cause of problems, and then work on fixing it.
As one human being to another, I’d like to leave you with this parting thought: Please work hard on building a strong relationship. For any civilisation to survive, it needs strong families, but strong families, at their core, need strong couples, which in turn are made up of two strong people who love each other and know how to work together smoothly. It starts with you.
Pantalla :
