The Love Dare, Day One of Forty

I have decided to blog about our progress with the Love Dare. It will help remind me to keep up with reading the book every day with Jordan. Sometimes I might blog about two days at a time since I don't always have time to blog at night.

Today wasn't hard at all, really. All we had to do was go all day without saying anything negative to one another. When I saw that part of the movie, I was skeptical. Sure, I thought, I could go one day; but what about when I finally HAVE to tell Jordan something's wrong? After one day of trying this dare, I've realized the book wasn't talking about constructive criticism--which, if we're being honest, could be used more sparingly by almost everyone. It's hard to explain, because you can't hear my tone of voice, but it's the difference between saying "Jordan, you left the back door unlocked A-GAIN," and saying "Honey, could you please try to remember to lock the door? It's dangerous to have it unlocked," and then perhaps offering to write a reminder and stick it somewhere, or just check the door myself. (I just checked it and he remembered to lock it tonight!)

If you're like me, and you think of the times you've offered what you thought was constructive criticism, you might realize a lot of it was made up of guilt trips. There is no point to a guilt trip. Playing the martyr after a long day of work when you should be loving your family is stupid. This is a habit I will be happy to break, but I am going to have to work at it.

Today Jordan and I did a great job staying positive with each other, and it's amazing how making the decision to do so improved the tone of our whole day. I did not do so well with Suzi, though. We are having a little bedtime crisis, as she refuses to go to bed even if we go with her. Jordan and I will be tired and Suzi will be ready to party! You can imagine how it pleases her when we take her to bed and insist she lie down. No matter how much I tried to tell myself slow to anger, slow to anger, I couldn't hold it in tonight. Jordan and Suzi are up in bed as I blog and I guess they are sleeping since I don't hear any screaming.

I'll try to do better tomorrow...