Three Hour Conversations

When was the last time you and your beloved had a three hour conversation? And I don’t mean three hours of smalltalk over the course of a date night. I mean a heart-to-heart, one-on-one dialogue. This website is the fruit of one such conversation. Moving to Saint Louis from Nashville was the fruit of another. Our marriage was the fruit of another. Our first date came of yet another.

Communication is key to intimacy. Anyone that has been in a serious relationship knows this firsthand: when communication becomes stagnant, so does the relationship. A couple that enjoys communicating together, on the other hand, is a happy couple.

When Megan and I first met, it was pure Providence. We both were not supposed to be at the Young Republicans’ Christmas Party at the Bold Patriot in Nashville. The only reason that we ended up grabbing a table was because we were the “wingmen” that got ditched while one of my friends was flirting with one of her friends. 

Of course, we did a bit of small talk, but then Megan went through her list of things that usually run guys off. I honestly thought she was going through her list of strong points. She was in grad school; so was I. She was looking at going into the Air Force; I was trying to become a Marine. She owns and loves reptiles and amphibians; so do I. She had traveled internationally; I had lived in Europe. She has tattoos; so do I. 

Basically, everything was looking pretty good. By the end of the night I had asked her out for a date and she had told her best friend that she had found her future husband. I, on the other hand, was a bit leery because she was a practicing Protestant and although her ideas were more Catholic than most Catholic girls, she wasn’t Catholic. 

So, near the end of our first date, I hit her with my list of non-negotiables: I am and always will be Catholic, my children will be Catholic, I will be the head of my household, contraceptives are a no-go, etc., etc. We ended up talking for another three hours that night. (She converted four months later by the way.)

Over the course of our courtship and marriage, we have had many three hour conversations. Some of them have been much more difficult than others. Some of them were not at all convenient. There have been times that we had to cancel things to make time to keep talking.

What has made these conversations so fruitful? Openness, vulnerability, honesty. While courting, we went into several conversations knowing that they would either make or break our relationship. Now we are married and there is no breaking our sacramental bonds and we have the foundation of hundreds of hours of deep communication. We don’t always agree, but by the end of our conversations we always come to a point of peaceful understanding.

Points for consideration:

How often and how deeply do I communicate with my beloved?

Are there any topics that I avoid communicating about with my beloved? If so, how can I initiate an open and honest conversation about them? 

Pro tip: work your way up to the hard stuff, but make sure to not procrastinate so much that you never get to them.