***Learning to Dance: Love and Marriage

By America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts.

Over the past 32 years, we have studied successful marriage in the United States and around the world. In our just-released book entitled How to Marry the Right Guy
, we describe the thirty-three indicators a woman should look for in choosing her man.

We often use the notion of “learning to dance” as a way of describing these relationships. Dance becomes sort of a metaphor for successful love.

You have probably heard the expression, “It takes two to Tango.” When we were in Buenos Aires, Argentina a couple of years ago, this point was really driven home to us as we watched the Tango dancers perform on the streets. Tango dancing is exotic, breathtaking, sexy, exhilarating, entertaining, heart-pumping, and just plain fun. But here is one absolute fact – you cannot do the Tango by yourself! It does, indeed, take two to Tango.

The characteristics we describe in our book are a pervasive part of who loving couples are together as if describing the steps of a well-choreographed dance. Successful couples have learned, practiced and committed these characteristics to memory. It is like watching a pair of ice dancers gliding through a perfectly executed triple jump—they are beautiful skaters individually, but magnificent when together.

On the other hand, failed marriages and failed relationships are like dancing in the dark without knowing the steps. The steps appear to be easy at first, but tragically, divorce statistics tell us that half of all married couples never learn to dance. Instead, they stumble and fall until they eventually give up and quit dancing altogether. If they had learned to make the seven characteristics part of the fabric of their marriage, the fabric of their loving relationship, they could have learned the dance of lasting love.

If you want to achieve a lasting love, first learn and understand the seven characteristics present in all successful relationships that we describe in our third book, Building a Love that Lasts.

Then accept the commitment to practice each of the characteristics everyday of your loving relationship. While the seven characteristics might seem simple at first glance, successful couples describe the hard work it takes to make each of the characteristics habitual and pervasive in their relationship.

Learning to dance is fun, but it is also hard work. It takes commitment to perfect the moves. Remember, successful relationships are, more than anything, an accumulation of having done the simple things. To use the Tango dance as an example, in a holistic sense it is beautiful to watch, but the beauty of the dance is made possible because those doing the dance did the little things – they learn the steps, and they practiced a lot!

You cannot Tango by yourself!

Whether the beat of your loving relationship is a Tango, Salsa, Swing, Waltz, or the Texas Two-Step, when each of these seven characteristics describes your dance together, you will have achieved a successful loving relationship with another person. You will then be well on your way to achieving a long-lasting love like the successful couples we have interviewed over the years that celebrated their Golden Anniversaries together.

Love is like learning to dance. Learn how today. And as a good friend of ours in Texas likes to say, “You meet a lot of nice people when you go dancing!”

Today, you can see how you stack up to the best marriages around the world. Take the Marriage Quiz to assess your chances of achieving a successful marriage of your own.
you witness the signs, take action. Save your relationship if you can. Having a healthy and happy marriage is one of the great success stories of life. It is not too late to save your marriage.

In love and marriage the simple things matter. Love well!

By Drs. Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz
America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts