Your Love Map
As the years in marriage move forward it is easy for the relationship to act as just another part of your routine; you feed the dog, you get the kids to school and kiss your husband goodbye. Despite how helpful routine can be in terms of having structure in your life, it cannot be what you depend on to create a marriage that you can honestly say you enjoy. Be fully aware that desire and passion is fed by INCREASING your knowledge and engagement in what you love. Your partner is constantly changing before your eyes whether you take the time to notice or not. With this said, I would like to highlight and expand on one of the seven principles identified in the book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work written by Nan Silver and marriage researcher John Gottman, Ph.D. The research indicates that in order to fuel the emotional bond in your relationship that you must “enhance your love map.” This map refers to the area in your mind that has stored all that you know about your spouse. If the map does not continue to expand monotony sets in, irritants get in the way, and you wonder when this all started feeling so “blah.”
Gottman expounds on how healthy marriages happen when both partners are deeply entangled into each other’s world. Each partner isn’t oblivious to one another’s current stresses, their dreams; they are constantly keeping up with their latest interest, or asking questions to know intimate details of their day. Keeping up with the Joneses could lead to a slew of problems while keeping up with the thoughts of your spouse is essential to allow love, creativity and joy to exist in your marriage. Emotional connection requires you to increase your knowledge of your partner in an intentional way rather than allowing assumptions keep you from asking your partner about their day or thoughts on an issue. For example, over time we tend to assume we know what the other may say about their day as though something new isn’t going on in their internal world. Of course you still have the same job, you have the same kids and find that your spouse still has the same frustrations as last month, yet your emotional life is in constant flux with your daily experiences. You may not learn an earth-shattering new truth about your spouse every day, however if your spouse senses the curiosity, tenderness or concern in your voice it could raise awareness into how to meet each other’s needs or it could merely help you find ways to further connect your worlds together. Oddly enough, regardless of how long you have been married there could also be aspects of your partner that you still have yet to observe or learn. If you were to take this moment to think of 3 questions to ask your partner out of pure curiosity and for the purpose of understanding your husband or wife to a greater extent, what would they be? Expanding the “love map” in your marriage could allow for you to have a deeper appreciation for who they are, create amazing inside jokes between the both of you and wait for it…keep you from taking the other for granted. If your spouse is hooked on the latest Netflix show ask him or her why they are immersed in the story or voluntarily share why the show excites you to invite your spouse into your emotional sphere. When you are planning a date night propose to engage in an activity that connects one or both of you to something playful you never experienced as a child as another way to learn more about the other.
I invite your marriage to a broader and richer “love map” that will expose new qualities of who you are to cherish day by day. Break out of your routine to be inquisitive about each other and new emotional connectors will have the chance to keep you relishing one another or having more compassion for the other when stress hits. Let your growing knowledge of each other become a priority rather than allowing routine to fool you into thinking it has the power to define your marriage. Surprise your spouse with a question this week that will spark a new found appreciation for your relationship and who they are!
