Let's Learn Together - Sustaining Love by Augsburger

	Full Title:	Sustaining Love Healing & Growth In the Passages of Marriage
Author(s):	David Augsburger From jacket flap: "David Augsberger is professor of pastoral care at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in Elkhart, Indiana. He holds a Ph.D. in pastoral psychology and family therapy from the School of Theology at Claremont, California. Professor, psychologist, lecturer, therapist, husband and father, Augsburger is also the author of many books [...]"
Publishing / Edition:	Regal Books, 1988

	MARRIAGE ONE	MARRIAGE TWO	MARRIAGE THREE	MARRIAGE FOUR
GOALS	DREAM We marry to fulfill the Dream - personal, marital, career and communal dreams.	DISILLUSIONMENT The Dream fails us. Or we sacrifice the marital to gain the career and so on.	DISCOVERY We discover reality beyond the Dream, we discover each other.	DEPTH We develop depth in our selves, our marriage, our life together.
COMMUNICATION	EXPECTATION We communicate out of expectations of what is meant, needed, wanted, obligated, necessary.	MANIPULATION We manipulate by persuading, seducing, coercing, evading and avoiding to get what we want.	INVITATION We discover that true communication is invitation and work toward equality.	DIALOGUE We develop dialogue with genuine mutuality and equality in our communication.
FEELINGS	EXCUSE We are afraid of, embarrassed by, cautious with, concealed about or unaware of feelings.	EXPLODE We risk sharing feelings, but find them painfully threatening, often uncontrolled, unfocused, confused and confusing.	EXPRESS We own and express feelings with freedom and with both candor and caring.	EXPERIENCE We flow with both our feelings and thoughts.
DIFFERENCES	ACCOMMODATE We tolerate, accommodate, overlook differences to avoid conflict and obey the Dream.	ELIMINATE We seek to eliminate the objectionable differences in the partner by demanding change.	APPRECIATE We discover the differences are creative, necessary parts of each of us and our marriage.	CELEBRATE We delight in our differences and develop them in each other.
CONFLICT	AVOID We avoid conflict as disruptive and destructive of the Dream.	ATTACK We explode with frustrated feelings, seek to eliminate differences through fighting, bargaining, pressuring.	ADJUST We discover more fair ways of fighting; we seek mutually satisfactory solutions more quickly.	ACCEPT We accept conflict as a healthy process and utilize it to work for mutual growth.
INTIMACY	DEPENDENT Intimacy is dependent on romance, on the moment, on the other's responses, on his/her "acting as prescribed."	INDEPENDENT Intimacy is touch and go, intense when things are going well, absent when there is tension or threat.	INTERDEPENDENT Intimacy now becomes truly possible as autonomy is balanced with solidarity.	INTIMATE Intimacy now develops freely in emotional, mental, social and spiritual levels.
ROLES	COMPLEMENTARY Relationships are shaped by complementary "fitting" of partner's strengths and weaknesses.	SYMMETRICAL Relationships are competitive, adversary, tit-for-tat struggles to claim personal identity.	PARALLEL Relationships achieve balance, equal freedom and responsibility. Autonomy and intimacy are protected.	INTERTWINED Relationships are mutual, with both partners secure and satisfied whether near or far.
MEANING	HOPES Hope shaped by the Dream are largely false hopes which must eventually die for love to become truly alive.	HOPELESSNESS Hopes fade, falter and fail us. Life together becomes empty and alienated.	HOPEFUL Hope rises as we find that beneath the old hopes there is deeper, richer meaning to our life together.	HOPE True hope has emerged and pushes us onward from healing in the past, pulls us forward with the promise of the future.