love dare day 13

Day 13, a couple of days late, yet I'm here. Jim and I sat down and wrote our "we" rules of engagement. This is rules we agree to follow when we do have arguments/fights. We used the books suggestions, but made some changes of our own. So here is our "we' rules:

1. We will never mention divorce.
2. We will not bring up old, unrelated items from the past. (this one I'll have to work on)
3. We will never fight in public. (the book suggests also not in front of the kids, however, we feel its okay to fight in front of the kids as long as we are following our rules. I don't want my kids to think marriage is easy)
4. We will call a "time out" if the conflict escalates to a damaging level.
5. We will never touch one another in a harmful way.
6. We will choose to forgive each morning and start anew.
7. Failure is not an option. Whatever it takes, we will either work this out or let it go.

Then it was my turn to do my "me" rules, so in addition to the "we" rules, here are my "me" rules.

1. I will listen before speaking.
2. I will not use a guilt treatment to get my way or get my sympathies.
3. I will not raise my voice to an angry level.

Although this was a process, it really helped us talk about how we argue. If we would have had these in place several years ago, I doubt we would have went through some of the extreme struggles we did in our marriage.

Kim