Description
“How could this happen to me, a Marriage and Family Therapist?” I asked myself on sleepless nights after the break-up of a marriage. My anguish fueled my determination to discover answers for myself and my clients about how to choose the right partner and be a good partner. It took years of research and learning before I published my book. I wanted to express complex ideas in simple everyday language for everyone to understand.
First, what do you value in a marriage partner? Knowing that, how have you done in the past with relationship? Then, what did you learn from your family about relationships? All these steps are like going deeper into who you are with others. The carefully crafted exercises take the reader step by step through a valuable process of self discovery which can benefit anyone regardless of where the reader is in his/her romantic relationship history.
“Fishing by Moonlight”, expresses the romance of moonlight and love, and the murky mystery underneath the surface. My goal was to help myself and others to discover things we had not been aware of before and make use of the knowledge to create what we really want in relationship. Stories about couples help to illuminate how the insights are lived out in real life.
After the discovery come the tools for making it happen or “Becoming the Optimal Partner”. Communication skills are crucial along with dependence, independence and the ideal, interdependence as we learn to support and comfort one another. Conflict can be dealt with to create more intimacy if we are curious about a partner’s feelings and listen carefully as he/she expresses them even if there is more body language than words.
There is a chapter on commitment and one especially for singles. The last chapter describes healthy relationship and refers to other experts, along with a visualization of the reader’s own future dreams. There is a lovely paragraph on “cherishing” written by my husband. We met and married while I was completing the book.