The DNA of Relationships (3 page)

Bob Paul, one of the main creators of this new material, is married to Jenni. Both of them would tell you that the first several years of their marriage were anything but satisfying. Bob’s constant demands and insensitive instructions about how she ought to meet his needs led to almost daily fights. She grew to hate him. In total disgust she shut him out of her emotional, spiritual, and physical life and once even told him, “The thought of ever making love to you again makes me feel like I’m going to vomit.” If any relationship seemed impossible to save, this was it. However, many of the insights described in this book are a result of Bob’s long journey as he allowed God to change him and completely transform his marriage. The process has dramatically influenced the way he works with people. Bob and Jenni have now passed their twenty-third anniversary, and they’ve reached that milestone as a happy, contented couple, delighted to be together and thrilled with their marriage.

Sound impossible? It’s really not. We’re going to show you how to become part of this relationship revolution. This book will open the door to miracles in your own relationships. It fascinated me to hear Bob say to the couples that visited our counseling center, “I don’t know how God is going to do this, but I’ve experienced a miracle in my own marriage and get to witness miracles occurring in other marriages almost every week of my life. A miracle really can take place in your relationship.”

We’re going to show you in this book how to experience that kind of miracle. In fact, let me offer you a guarantee: The powerful principles and techniques that you’re about to learn can help to revolutionize
your
relationships and turn them into something deeply satisfying and even thrilling.

And you know what? It’s easier than you think.

A Pattern for
All
Relationships
The exciting concepts and methods hammered out in our marriage intensives apply to
all relationships
, not merely to marriage. I made this discovery for myself as I saw major improvements taking place in my own home and with friends.

After seeing the results of the patterns that Greg and Bob’s team had discovered, I started thinking,
Wait a minute! If this material has so effectively helped me to handle my conflicts with Norma, maybe it can also help to explain why I lost some key friendships back in the seventies and eighties.
I was closer than a brother to several men, and yet we fell out of fellowship and into terrible disharmony.

Dreadful memories flooded my mind, painful memories full of sadness and regret and grief. I thought of two men in particular, once dear and close friends, but from whom I had so totally disconnected that we no longer even spoke with one another. Here I was, a respected marriage and family “expert,” and yet I couldn’t even get along with men whom I once counted as my closest friends! The thought deeply embarrassed and troubled me.

As I replayed old mental tapes and pondered what might have happened between us, eventually it dawned on me. I began to see how these men and I had been involved in a destructive dance. As a result we simply went our separate ways—angry, hurt, and confused. And so we lost a treasured friendship.

But maybe it didn’t have to be that way! Maybe I could employ the same principles that worked so well with Norma to strengthen my current friendships and rebuild damaged ones!

I’ve been learning ever since! And what I’ve been learning and applying in my own life, I want to teach you.

The Joy Can Be Yours
We all want warm, fulfilling relationships—in our marriages, in our families, in our friendships, and in the workplace. I long for you to experience and enjoy the same newfound life and vitality in relationships that I’ve come to experience in the past few years as a result of applying the concepts in this book.

What a difference it can make when you understand the DNA of relationships, the relationship dances, and the five dance steps. As you join me in this delightful adventure of discovery, you’ll experience God’s love and power in fresh and exciting ways:

You’ll learn about the amazing
Power of One.
You’ll see how to take personal responsibility for your part in all relationships. You’ll see how to become completely empowered to choose how you feel within all of your relationships. This message has completely changed our family, our staff, and our lives. We just have to send it out to the world, to churches and families and couples and singles, so that others can enjoy the same freedom and enthusiasm that we’re enjoying! Can you just imagine teenagers—or anyone else for that matter—not blaming others for being unhappy? They could learn how to be responsible for their own emotions. That would be a great day.

You’ll learn about
Safety,
about creating an environment that feels safe, where true intimacy can take root and bloom. You’ll learn how personal differences can enhance your relationship instead of causing problems and how you can adopt an attitude of curiosity instead of judging others. And you’ll discover how to effectively and positively deal with “walls” that your partner or friends may put up. Just imagine friends, couples, and kids feeling completely safe to open up and share their deepest thoughts with others who love them.

You’ll learn about
Self-Care,
how God wants you to take care of yourself so that you can become a channel of his love to others. We’ll show you how to make sure that your internal battery is charged, ready to connect for satisfying and fulfilling relationships. Imagine a host of people learning how to take care of themselves in ways that enable them to care for others. Can you see workplaces and churches filled with people who are not expecting others to fill them up but rather are taking care of themselves during the week and coming to work or church to enrich each other?

You’ll learn about
Emotional Communication,
a powerful communication method with the strength to eliminate the main causes of divorce and the primary causes of separation between friends. You’ll learn how to connect deeply with the heart of another person. We’ll show you how to find the emotional “nugget” that leads to effective and fulfilling communication, enabling you to feel confident that you will be understood. And we’re going to show you how to make communication easier and more efficient than you’ve ever experienced! Imagine feeling that others deeply understand you.

You’ll learn about
Teamwork,
about adopting a no-losers policy that will help you walk in harmony and complete unity with your spouse, family members, and friends so that you never again have to worry about losing an argument. We’ll show you how to identify the obstacles that make your relationships difficult, as well as how to remove those hurdles. Imagine families and neighbors and colleagues working through conflict in ways that don’t damage relationships.

Does any of this sound appealing to you? Does it sound like something you would like in your own life?

Well, how could it
not
?

We Have a Relationship Crisis Today
What you will learn and experience in this book will have an impact far beyond your personal relationships because we are surrounded by millions of people in relationship crises. The following could be read as the headlines of a culture losing the battle for relationships:

• Lifelong friendship goes sour
  
• Teenager runs away from home
  
• Coworkers quarrel, one leaves the company
  
• Girlfriend and boyfriend split up
  
• Newlyweds have first fight
  
• Adult siblings stop talking to each other—for years
  
• Soldier returns home from defending country and abuses his wife
  
• Marriage of fifteen years shatters in divorce
  
• Lonely teenager commits suicide
  
• Pastor’s marital infidelity splits church
  
• Two students, estranged from friends and society, assassinate a dozen schoolmates and then end their own lives
  
• Nineteen terrorists wreak havoc on a country, killing thousands of innocent people
  

Something has gone very wrong. We all know it. At least one of these scenarios has touched nearly every person on earth. The effects of broken relationships cut across the generations, from school children to married couples to senior citizens. And the consequences are staggering. Worse yet, the tragic stories of disrupted friendships, marriages, families, communities, and nations grow increasingly frequent.

We see that practically all the world’s crises, little or large, can be reduced to one thing:
the breakdown of relationships.

We believe that the message of this book can have a profound impact on our culture. Our ultimate goal is not merely to help you build great relationships but also to encourage you to take what you learn and multiply it in the lives of others around you.

Later we’ll describe in more detail how we’re working to recruit an army of a million relationship champions who will gather weekly with a small group of other champions to help one another learn and apply the DNA of relationships principles. It excites us beyond words to think of the potential of partnering with you and a million or more other people around the world!