Featured Article

How often have you tried to get the full attention of your spouse knowing full-well that you do not have his/her full attention. How often have you wanted to say, “Knock-knock, is anybody home?… It is frustrating to try to communicate to your partner unless you have that person’s full, undivided attention. To get that attention, try to pique that person’s interest until he or she is “thirsty”.

The adage that states, “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” is not necessarily true because if you dumped lots of salt into the oats before taking the horse to the water, it will probably be very thirsty. Now, I’m not talking about manipulation because that would be selfish. You are doing this with respect and for the benefit of the relationship.

Noted author, Gary Smalley, gives the following example. He tells of his wife wanting him to spend more time with the children so she said, “I talked to Greg’s teacher today and found out he’s not doing well in reading and spelling. The teacher said part of his problem is that he hasn’t developed his hand-eye coordination well enough. That’s a real serious thing. He states that she had salted his interest with the word serious. Then she said, “It could cost us lots of money in the future. So the best thing to do is to nip it now”. “What do we have to do?”, Gary asked as he “thirsted”. She responded “I think it would be good, if you’re interested, to start playing catch with him regularly to develop that hand-eye coordination” Football, you mean?” “yeah.” Smalley thought that was a great idea – saving money and helping his son! Notice that before the request that her husband play catch with Greg, she made him thirsty by piquing his interest.