Bob Bowersox - 48 Hours to a Stronger Marriage. Reconnect with Your Spouse and Re-Energize Your Marriage

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Table of Contents

First and foremost, I want to thank my wife and partner, Toni Ann Parisi Bowersox, for her strength and tenacity in her constant efforts to improve our life together. Toni, I am convinced that your senses of relationship, of familyof simply being togetherwill, in the end, prove to be our rock. Im so glad youre in my life. Thanks for all your wise counsel with Reacquaintance.

And speaking of wise counselI owe an enormous debt to my friend and agent, Liza Dawson. Thanks, Liza, for seeing the possibilities in my simple idea and for making the effort to find the right home for it.

And boundless thanks to Leslie Garisto, whose wonderful talent with the written word smoothed all the rough edges. Couldnt have done it as well without you, Leslie.

And thanks to Scott Manning for all his help getting the word out.

Thanks also to Bernard G. Guerney Jr., whose work and book helped open my eyes and suggest some tools that actually work.

And finally, thanks to all my new friends at St. Martins Press: my editor, Elizabeth Beier, for her openness, acceptance, and immediate enthusiasm for the book; Michael Connor for his help and expertise in editing; and Matthew Shear for the opportunity.

Chapter 2: Do I Really Know What I Think I Know?

They published the results of their study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, no. 4 (1997): 74757.

Swann Jr., William B., and Michael J. Gill. Confidence and Accuracy in Person Perception: Do We Know What We Think We Know About Our Relationship Partners? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, no. 4 (1997): 74757.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Chapter 5: The Method

I have based these guidelines on the theories and techniques developed by Bernard G. Guerney Jr., a pioneering relationship psychologist. His book, Relationship Enhancement (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1977), is a remarkable teaching text for professional couples counselors. If you would like to read more about communications techniques between relationship partners, I highly recommend this book.

MY STORYAND YOURS

For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.

A. E. HOUSMAN, FANCYS KNELL

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

G. H. LEWES

THIS BOOK IS A LOVE STORY. It begins on the day that I first met Toni Parisi, the woman who would become my wife, my lover, my helpmate, and the mother of my daughter, Taylor. Like all good love stories, its a tale of romance and passion and devotion. And like every relationship grounded in reality, its also a story of deadlines and housework and family obligationsall those everyday duties that whittle away at romance and, as I discovered when it was almost too late, keep us from genuinely knowing the person weve chosen to spend our life with.

If youre reading this with more than a passing interest, I suspect its your story as well, which turns out to be a very good thing because this is a love story with a happy ending. Its not a fairy tale, mind you. It took me months of soul-searching and hours of research, with not a fairy godmother in sight, to come up with the solutionReacquaintancethat forms the core of this book. And there really isnt an ending per se: Reacquaintance, as it turns out, is an ongoing, lifelong process, a continuum of discovery and rediscovery. As you read on and movethrough the process yourself, I think youll find it every bit as exciting in its own way as those heady, falling-in-love days. And I hope youll come to believe, as I do, that love isnt a one-shot deal but our most precious renewable resource.

I fell in love with Toni on July 5, 1984, at 9:30 P.M.though I didnt know it at the time. The night was hot and humid, and I was standing with my chums Bill and Mitch on the upper level of the back-deck bar of the Rusty Rudder in Dewey Beach, Delaware, watching the last wash of pink and gold drain from the sky. The place was packed and noisy; a three-piece band was playing techno-pop dance music. Citronella candles burned on the heavy, wood-plank tables. I felt terrific.

Bill, Mitch, and I were the Three Musketeers that summer, a trio of good-looking, professional, single guys in search of all the things single guys search for. We were doing well, producing film soundtracks, commercials, and a nationally syndicated radio show. Wed rented a swank condo at the beach, and by the July Fourth weekend we were wired into every aspect of the beach scene and much appreciated by the local bartenders. Our evenings usually began at the Rudder, on that upper-level deck near the table that was reserved, every evening, in our names.

True to form I was standing near the table with my back to the deck, listening to the music and hoping the wind blowing off the Rehoboth Bay would ease the humidity a bit. I felt a tap on my shoulderMitch, gesturing toward the door.

Look who just walked in, he said.

I looked across the deck, and there was Phyllis Dorn. A longtime friend, Phyllis was gorgeous, intelligent, lots of fun. It was always good to see Phyllis. And then I lookedjust past her, across sixty feet of deck, and my whole life changed.

Standing next to Phyllis was her best friend, Toni. Petite, slim, beautiful, in a white halter top and pink shorts, her smile radiant, her face serene as if the heat and humidity couldnt touch her (How do women do that?). She turned and looked directly at me. And thats the image I remember of Toni, still clear in my mind more than seventeen years later. The rest of the evening is a mosaic of random, unfocused images. But Toni at sixty feetthats still as clear and sharp as the facets of a diamond.

We started dating regularly, usually long dinners in quiet restaurants. Wed spend the entire time talking, like we had to catch up on the past thirty years in four short hours. We shared anything and everything; we wanted to learn all there was to know about each other. I dont think we were any different from most couples. You probably experienced something similar with your partnera hunger for each other thats only satisfied by being together and learning as much as you possibly can about each other.

Toni and I were a pretty good matchnot identical spirits, but complementary, like two pieces of a puzzle. At the time we met, she was a professional lighting designer with a great sense of taste and a natural artistic gift. She was practical and grounded, soft-spoken but direct, and very much nonconfrontational (though occasionally, her Italian passion would flare up in defense of something she really believed in). I, on the other hand, was a dreamer, passionate about everything to a fault. I believed (and still do) that anything is possible, and Ive never let practical considerations stop me from trying, even against overwhelming odds. Over the years Ive helped Toni dream, and shes kept me realistic.

Four years after that night at the Rusty Rudder, we were married in a sunny outdoor ceremony full of flowers and friends. We spent two weeks laughing and loving on anidyllic Caribbean island then settled into building our life together. Professional success came quickly for both of us, Tonis in the lighting field and mine as on-camera talent for electronic retailing giant QVC, and acting in film and TV. But even though we were busy, we still found time for those long, candlelit, conversation-filled dinners. Our relationship was vibrant and enriching.

Two years after our wedding day, our daughter, Taylor, was born, the capstone blessing of the marriage. Toni decided to leave the working world to be a full-time mom, something we both agreed was important. At about that same time, my career at QVC went into hyperdrive as American consumers opened their arms to electronic retailing. Suddenly I was traveling more, away from home as much as six days at a stretch. Toni began to fill some of her free time with charity work, getting involved with the Delaware Epilepsy Foundation and eventually being elected to its board of directors. She also went back to college to earn her degree in education.

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