How To Keep The Spark Alive – Lesson 1.6 – What You Can Expect

Welcome to Lesson #6 of the How To Keep The Spark Alive course!

In the last lesson you explored why you might be having doubts in the early months of moving in together and ways to resolve those doubts.

In this lesson, you’ll learn about what to expect over the years of your relationship.

You’ll Learn More About Yourself And Your Partner Than You Can Imagine!

In the 1950s Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham developed a simple and powerful model to explain personalities. It’s called the Johari Window.

Let’s look at this model in greater detail to see how it applies to you, your partner, and your relationship:

The Johari Window shows how everybody has four aspects:

We live in an impatient society. Consider this. When you boot up your computer, how long does it take before you get impatient? I bet not long.

1. The Public aspect is what everybody knows. This could be what you look like, your job, and other easily discovered things about you.
   • When you first meet each other, the “Public” square is small, and the “Private” square is large.
   • The longer you know each other, the “Public” square becomes larger.
2. The Private part of yourself is that which you know but others don’t.
   • Some people keep this “Private” part hidden. They don’t want anybody to know certain things. This makes for good novels and weak relationships.
   • In healthy relationships, the “Private” becomes smaller as you come to know each other better.
3. The “Blind” part of you is what others know about you, but you haven’t discovered yet.
   • Your partner may have a better awareness of what both your gifts and weaknesses are. As you learn from your partner, you’ll know more about both your strengths and weaknesses.
   • Most of us resist recognizing the areas we need to work on. We also often resist acknowledging what our gifts are.
4. The “Undiscovered” are the hidden qualities that neither of you know.
   • In relationships, many “undiscovered” qualities will become discovered. You’ll be surprised at some gifted areas you weren’t aware of. You’ll be disappointed when you learn things you aren’t happy about.

What you learn about each other can bring you closer together. You can become comfortable with each other because you accept and trust each other. This brings a deepness to your relationship that you didn’t know was possible.

In the Midst Of The Ordinary Will Be Passion And Bumps

Most of life is filled with routine. The same actions and events occur with regularity. Your job is to ensure that your relationship also has times of excitement and passion. That’s why you want to build passion into your life by the rituals we discussed earlier.

Keeping your relationship strong will ensure you make it through the challenging times. There will be times when someone loses a job, becomes ill, or struggles emotionally. The more solid you make your relationship during the ordinary times, the better you’ll handle the challenging times.

Change – The Constant In Life

It may seem strange to say change is the one thing you can count on in life after we’ve talked about the ordinariness of life. Even when life is ordinary, change is happening, even if barely noticed.

One day you look back a few years and realize you’re a different person than you were. You look at your partner and realize they’re different, also. You just didn’t notice it and then you did.

There are natural developmental stages adults go through:

1. In the mid to late 20s, we’re getting used to being an adult. We’re “trying on” the adult mindset.
   • Our idea of what makes a relationship is in flux. Sometimes we act like a teenager and other times like an adult.
   • We’re making decisions about our personal values and what we want to do with our lives.



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