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Learning to Dance with My Husband

As we took lessons, I realized how many parallels there are in dancing to marriage.


By Barbara Rainey


For Christmas one year, our six adult children gave my husband and me dance lessons. Amazingly to us, one of them remembered one of us (it was probably me) saying several years ago how much fun it would be to learn to dance together.


I loved dancing when I was a teenager. As a teen in the late 60s I mastered the twist, the mashed potato, and other dances of equally elementary difficulty. My best girl friend and I would practice the jitterbug with each other, and if she wasn’t available I practiced alone by holding the door knob of my closed bedroom door. In my freshman year of college I dated a guy for several months just because he was a great dancer.


Several years later I married a non-dancer. On our honeymoon Dennis and I danced once, but it was just the slow=dance style of rocking back and forth from one foot to the other. It was fun at the time because I loved my husband, but I figured further dancing was not in my future.


So when we received our Christmas gift, I was delighted. Dennis was skeptical. But he was a good sport and was willing to give it a try for me.


“On the first lesson,” our kind instructor said, “rhythm is learned.” Right, I thought very skeptically. My husband is not naturally gifted in rhythm. But the instructor did not lie, as I’ve watched him make great progress. After our sixth lesson I was thrilled to see that we were actually making noticeable progress learning the waltz, the rumba, the tango, and the swing. All very much at a beginner level, but we were learning.


I’ve realized how many parallels there are in dancing to marriage. For example, in dancing the man has to learn to lead and the woman has to learn to follow his lead. (Emphasis on the word learn for both partners.) I must admit that I have realized I am not naturally gifted in following! I went into these lessons thinking it would be easy for me. It was my husband who needed the instruction, not me. Wrong. As I understood that I was not a good follower in dancing, I left the lessons several times pondering how to be a better follower in our relationship.


Connection is another very important element in dancing. The woman has to pay close attention to the man’s movements so she knows to follow when he is changing directions; otherwise he’ll step on her toes. It’s called maintaining connection.


Even when he makes a misstep, a good follower will go along with the misstep, knowing he will correct it on the next step or two. If she does this no one knows a mistake was made. Our instructor even had the women close their eyes and practice feeling the tension changes in his hand on her back and his other hand holding hers. The application for marriage was obvious: Keeping a close connection takes focus.


Another marriage lesson is that my husband needs to learn from the master Teacher. It’s not my job to try and teach him what I think he doesn’t know yet. He doesn’t respond as well to my suggestions as he does to the teacher’s. I’m so prone to help him by showing him the right way to do the dance, and I’ve realized how true that is of me in daily life. When I do that in dancing and in life he feels it as criticism and mothering. Ouch.


You’ll never see us on Dancing With the Stars, but learning to dance has been great for our marriage as we’ve learned something new that’s taken us outside our comfort zone. Dancing has also rekindled some romance as we’ve practiced the deep connection of eye contact to the beautiful sounds of music.


Copyright © by FamilyLife. Used with permission.


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