How to Speak with Your Partner if You Know Him Well

Efforts to really know our partner continue throughout our lifetime. People do not change, but they do mature in their tastes, preferences, attitudes and feelings. What keeps a relationship alive and interesting is our desire to know our partner completely, yet never really attaining that goal.

There is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to knowing our partner well. Our partner will continue to develop new facets to his personality as time progresses and he has new and different experiences. We can know our partner well, but never enough.

We only have to think back over the past and reflect on the changes that have occurred in our own lives. We are not quite the same now as we were in our twenties, thirties etc... We change, we grow. So does our partner. It takes constant, loving vigilance to keep the "knowing" of our partner current and pertinent.

Some things about our partner will never change. He will take his coffee a particular way, have a favorite chair, prefer to sleep on the right side of the bed. Less concrete things, however, will continually change; his thoughts about life, his attitudes toward others, his preferences about how he spends his free time.

Life experience, professional fulfillment, relationships with friends, extended family and coworkers all leave their imprint on our partner's psyche. Life is seldom stagnant and change begets change. Two individuals agree to make the life journey as partners for better or worse. We cannot predict the future so there will always be an unknown element to our relationship as we stretch and strive to meet the challenges life presents.

I have spent almost half a century getting to know my spouse, and even after all this time, he continually surprises me with new attitudes and preferences. He is basically the same person, however, over the years his tastes in music, food choices and activities have varied.

My spouse has become more sentimental and more spiritual with the passing of time. He has mellowed about many of his previously rigid beliefs. I don't think I will ever finish "knowing" him, because as long as we live, we will both continue to grow and change, as will the world in which we live.

The word "enough" suggests completion, finished, done. We never want to feel finished with getting to know our partner. We want to continue to communicate to the end of time, and in the process, continue to learn new things about each other to share, to please, to enjoy.

Communication is the main ingredient for a fulfilling relationship. Communication is also the way we continue to learn new and exciting things about our partner.

Life is lived out in phases. There is the "getting together" phase, the "creating and bringing up a family" phase, the "pursuing our interests" phase, and ultimately the retirement phase. Through it all, communication will keep us on the same page as we share our feelings about the moments and memories which make up our life together.

If we reach the point where we feel we know our partner enough, that could suggest we are taking our partner for granted. Taking for granted that we know how our partner thinks and feels can potentially cheat us of learning new and exciting things about him. We never want to stop being curious to know more about the partner we love and respect.

Getting to know our partner is a continual work in progress; an ongoing, pleasurable journey through life and we can never know "enough."

More Men Use Shower Gels

Americans last year bought more bottled body washes to bathe with than traditional bars of soap. It's the first time that's ever happened. And while women have used body washes for years, more and more men are now making the switch.

Daniel Smith is a man's man. He's 26 and doesn't mind getting dirty. He happens to be a pit crew member for NASCAR driver Tony Stewart.

Smith says on race days, he gets filthy hours before the race even begins. And after wearing a fire suit for five to six hours, he smells pretty bad when he gets home, he says.

Smith's team is sponsored by the men's grooming company Old Spice, so he gets free samples from time to time. But he says he's used body washes for about 10 years, long before Old Spice even made such a thing.

Back then, he had to use a shower gel made for women. But as soon as men's body washes started showing up in 2003, this self-admitted metrosexual switched, and he hasn't looked back.

"Dude, it's been so long since I used a bar of soap ... I don't even remember," Smith says.

'Search For Sex Appeal'

The magazine Advertising Age has reported that sales of bar soaps have fallen 40 percent since body washes were introduced.

And despite the economic downturn — bottled gels still outsold regular soap, even though they're more expensive and consist largely of water. Gels are also more profitable, so it's no surprise that companies have stopped advertising bar soaps.

"It's the same guys that are making the shower gels and body washes as are making the bar soaps," says Jim Oakley, who teaches marketing at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. "And they want to push the body washes." So the manufacturers advertise the washes rather than the bars and make the washes look better, he says.

To get men to ditch their bars of soap for bottled gels, companies often focus on scent.

Oakley says most ads are aimed at young men because they're more impressionable and more willing to make a switch than, say, their fathers. And, Oakley says, a young man's constant search for sex appeal can't be underestimated.

Environmental Impact

But the bottles that body washes are sold in come with consequences.

"It does have an environmental impact," says John Kalkowski, the editorial director of the trade publication Packaging Digest. "People who are considering making that change from bar soap to body washes may want to consider what that impact is."

Kalkowski says the bottles can be recycled. But if they go into the trash can, those bottles create more waste than the small paper or cardboard packages bar soaps come in. And all that trash could add up to body wash's dirty little secret.