Charlie Bloom - 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married: Simple Lessons to Make Love Last

Acclaim for
101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married

This is a wonderful book. I strongly recommend it as a uniquely useful guide to real partnership. I found it both moving and highly practical a rare combination of wisdom, honesty, and sound advice, grounded in Lindas and Charlies love for each other and their years of experience as counselors, it is engaging, empowering, and inspiring.

Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade
and The Power of Partnership

At last, a relationship book that dishes out more than advice. I wish I had read these teaching stories before I got married. Linda and Charlie have grown wise about love.

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., author of
Romancing the Shadow and The Holy Longing

In this fascinating book, Charlie and Linda Bloom offer wise guidance drawn from many years as couples therapists. Here is a book that will not only save you a lot of grief, itll help you find meaning in the grief you cannot and should not avoid.

Susan Campbell, author of Getting Real and
Truth in Dating

THINGS
I WISH I K NEW
W HEN I G OT
MARRIED

THINGS
I WISH I K NEW
W HEN I G OT
MARRIED

SIMPLE LESSONS TO MAKE LOVE LAST

L INDA AND C HARLIE B LOOM

New World Library
Novato, California

2004 by Linda and Charlie Bloom

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Edited by Kristen Cashman
Front cover design by Cathey Flickinger
Type design and typography by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bloom, Linda,

101 things I wish I knew when I got married : simple lessons to make
love last / Linda and Charlie Bloom.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-57731-424-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1.Marriage. 2.Love. I.Title: One hundred one things I wish I knew
when I got married. II. Title: One hundred and one things I wish I
knew when I got married. III. Bloom, Charlie. IV. Title.
HQ734.B6573 2003
306.81dc22

2003021608

First printing, February 2004
ISBN 1-57731-424-7
Printed in Canada on partially recycled,acid-free paper
Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

On March 1, 2001, while we were working on the first draft of this book, we got the phone call every parent prays they will never receive. Our son Eben had died in an accident. He was twenty-two. In the aftermath of the overwhelming grief that we both went through in the ensuing months, we found a source of life-giving strength in the love that we had been nurturing together over the years. The 102nd thing that we didnt know when we got married is that the love that two people share can get them through unspeakable suffering and help them both to heal from even the most terrible tragedies of their lives.

We dedicate this book to our beloved son Eben.

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most
difficult of all our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof,
the work for which all other work is but preparation.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Contents

First and foremost we wish to thank our students and clients who have believed in us enough to put their faith and trust in us over the years. Thank you also for the courage you demonstrate in taking on the practices that committed partnerships require. You have been our teachers and our inspiration.

To our children, Jesse, Sarah, and Eben: thank you for your patience with us over the years, particularly during the early years when we were still struggling with our own unlearned lessons. You taught us forgiveness and self-forgiveness, over and over again.

To our friends and teachers, Stephen and Ondrea Levine, we have a special debt of gratitude. Thank you for reminding us that we are so much more than our emotions and desires, for teaching us to keep our hearts open in hell, and for helping us to awaken and strengthen the spirit that infuses our lives and our connection. Thanks also to Jack Kornfield for teaching us the practice of mindfulness, and to Thich Nhat Hanh for the How can I best love you? meditation, and for being a living embodiment of compassion. Thanks to Barry and Joyce Vissell, who helped to pull us back from the edge of the well on more than one occasion.

We also have a deep sense of gratitude to Nancy Lunney, who believed in us and our work and who invited us to teach at Esalen Institute, our second home. We cherish our dear friends who supported our dream of writing this book: Seymour Boorstein, David Kerns, John Amodeo, Claire Bloom, Susan Campbell, Connie Zweig, Lewis Engel, Kim Karkos, Lynn Gallo, Mary Melkonian, Sharon Savage, Monica Dashwood, and Grace Llewelyn. Without your belief in us, we couldnt have kept going with the project.

To Marc Allen and the wonderful staff at New World Library, especially our gifted editor, Kristen Cashman, and Georgia Hughes, Cathey Flickinger, Monique Muhlenkamp, and Munro Magruder: thank you for your enthusiastic support and expert guidance, and for creating a publishing house that is truly committed to service.

Most of us, when we fall in love, simultaneously stumble into a multitude of myths, such as being meant for each other and living happily ever after. Take a deep, forgiving breath and acknowledge any of the romantic movies youve conspired to create in your own life. Many of us awaken, as Dorothy did in The Wizard of Oz, in an unfamiliar land, discovering smoke and illusion behind passions curtain, rather than what we most need to sustain real love. Relationships look pretty easy in the movies and on television, where most of us have learned what little we think we know about partnerships. The reality, we quickly learn, is different. The statistics about divorce are sobering, but they dont unearth the source of the problem.

We have surveyed many groups of seminar participants who confirm that most people have more training in driving a car than driving a successful relationship. No wonder people have such a hard time sustaining love! We have traveled the equivalent of thirty times around the world sharing stories and skills with couples. Everywhere we go, we hear the same question: How can I create a relationship that really works? Linda and Charlie Bloom have confronted that question squarely in their own partnership and in their seminars. What they share with you here is realreal knowledge about the real skills; thats what 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married is all about.

If only... is a phrase we have all heard countless times. If only I had known her better. If only we had a chance to learn something about making love work. If only we knew how to listen to each other. This illuminating book erases If only. Here youll find practical ways to connect and reconnect. Youll find the skills and the support to step into the unknown areas so that your relationship can flourish.

Whats really delicious about Linda and Charlies book is its bite-sized format. You can open the book to any page and find a nourishing morsel. As you digest theme after theme, youll find that your relationship blossoms without the necessity to work hard or struggle. What a novel idea!