Testing Our Limits

As Dan and I have busy schedules and we don't get much time to spend together, let alone do things with others, we finally met the couple in our ward who is in charge of young married couples activities last Sunday. We receive e-mails about what the activities are, but are rarely free at the times they have them. So we asked them about a recent activity that they had and we missed out on which was a quiz for each married couple so that the other spouse is able to better understand they way they show affection and how they would like to receive affection. She suggested that she could e-mail us the quiz and do it at home because it was really fun! We happily accepted and waited patiently for it's arrival. It finally came last night. I was excited to experience this fun and be able to better understand each other's needs. We each had a copy and filled it out for ourselves. Some of the questions made me laugh so hard like this one:

How were you disciplined growing up?

a) Spanked

b) Yelled at

c) Grounded

You can only pick one...ummm, what if all 3 apply?? At least I got some hard laughs out of it because I certainly didn't laugh after the tests were done. Like when I read this question:

What would you like more of that you feel your spouse lacks?

a) Intimacy

b) Communication

c) Responsibility

How can you even answer this question? More importantly, how would your spouse react when you do answer this question? We compared scores and found that I was more of a "touch-affectionate" personality and Dan was a "visually-affectionate" personality. This information is good to know now, but we also saw that we didn't answer any questions the same! That said to me right away "I've been doing it wrong all this time?! Why hasn't Dan left me??" All along we've been giving affection the way that we each like to receive it for ourselves, which turns out isn't the right way at all! All of a sudden this "fun test" isn't so fun after all, I got upset with myself as if I hadn't been making Dan happy to the fullest amount just because I thought that he liked things that same way I do. I know that Dan and I are different, but this test just told me that we are pretty much complete opposites! You think that having been together for this long we would have already figured most of this out by now, but instead it just kind of hit us in the face all at once! 

After sleeping on it last night, I'm over it now, and realize what ways I can improve our relationship and make it that much better than what it already is. Needless to say, Dan threw out the tests as soon as he could because it caused so much stress between us at first. It's hard to say if I would recommend this quiz to any other couple, I guess just be prepared to be upset at first, but keep in mind that you are together for a reason, there are different ways to make others happy and feel appreciated and loved. It's just deeper than I thought I would find it.