When this article posts, Deborah and I will be wrapping up a weekend getaway to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. If you ask couples how they know they are in love you will get many different answers. Some will say they can’t imagine living their lives without the other. Others might tell you that they complete each other. Then there are those who will say they, “just knew she/he was the one for him/her.” My explanation of how I know I am in love with Deborah might be a bit more mundane, but, in some ways, much more powerful. Whenever we are apart, whether I’m at work, enjoying time with my kids or my friends, running some errand, or just home alone, it isn’t long before I look forward to the time Deborah and I are together again. When a person considers dating someone based on how they look, who they are, or some expectation regarding dating and marriage, communication is often overlooked. Being in a relationship often overshadows whether or not they should be in a relationship together at all. For Deborah and myself, however, communication was not a problem. Deborah and I met online - not through a dating service, but on a message board - and got to know each other through posts and private messages. Additionally, we had a long distance relationship for many years, living over seven hours apart. Communication was all we had most of the time. We went into the relationship knowing nothing about each other. We weren’t able to go out and experience things as a couple. In fact, we didn’t even know what each other looked like for the first several months. We just talked and talked, online and on the phone, and through that communication, we built a strong foundation that eventually led to Deborah moving to where I live, me proposing, and the two of us marrying. Communication is an important component in our marriage, as well, and we do not take it lightly. When we don’t talk, things don’t go well. Luckily, that isn’t the case most of the time. One of the best ways we keep the communication lines open is by going out to eat alone. While we enjoy sharing a meal with friends or our children, we try to be alone at least once a week, or every other week at the most. This hour where we don’t have to worry about preparing food, cleaning up, or dealing with other household distractions gives us time to really delve into topics of conversation that have been on our minds. We’ve planned vacations, shared work and life issues, even discussed buying a house during these meals. They are one of the highlights of our week. Another tool that we find useful in keeping up good communication is the DVR and the pause button. Deb and I are not big activity people and much of our time is spent together watching television, probably more than we should. While that is the case, it does not stop us from interacting. We are not afraid to grab the remote and pause a program or movie to enter into a lengthy discussion. Sometimes it is directly related to what we just saw on the screen. Other times the conversation has nothing to do with TV, but is just too important to put on the back burner for later. And these aren’t quick two or three sentence observations, either. We might be talking for ten to twenty minutes or more before resuming the show. On some occasions, in fact, we have talked for nearly an hour and put off finishing the program till another night. The last example I wish to give about our marriage and communication is how we argue. Some couples call it fighting. Deborah says we never fight. My son likes to refer to most of our disagreements as “Inconsequential Bickering.” The truth is, Deb and I don’t always see eye to eye, and sometimes a disagreement can become a bit severe. Rarely, however, do these moments last longer than 30 minutes, nor typically happen more than once a month. When we began our relationship, the concept of a “short fight” was foreign to me. When I argued I tended to draw it out, not give any ground, and keep it up for several hours to several days. Deborah wouldn’t let me get away with any of that crap, and I love her for that. If I started to walk away or withdraw she would stop me and insist we talk it out. And that’s what we do, usually coming to some sort of resolution within a half hour. When we look upon our marriage, it’s strength and success, Deborah and I attribute it to what we call the “Big C,” or communication. The Bible tells us that “a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver (Prov. 25:11).” We have found this to be true. On our anniversary I can give Deborah gold earrings or a silver bracelet, but if I’m not open with her in my communication and am unwilling to discuss our lives in depth, those items of jewelry might as well be pieces of tarnished tin. It is not expensive gifts that make a marriage strong. It is rich communication.