WEEK 6: Cherishing Your Spouse

My parents on their wedding day August 18, 1979

 

My parents are best friends.  They love to spend time with one another.  They work together.  They travel together.  They “date” one another. Growing up this just seemed normal and I made the naïve assumption that all married couples spent that much time together.  Isn’t that what all couples did?

That is until a friend of mine, who had been spending quite a bit of time in our home, said to me rather bluntly one day “Don’t your parents get sick of each other?”  

I was taken back. “Ummm what do you mean?”

“They spend A LOT of time together!  I mean its’s cool and everything, but my parents would kill each other if they spent that much time together.”

It really wasn’t until that moment, as a 15-year-old teenage girl, that I realized how special the relationship that my parents had really was.  They loved spending time together.  They made time to spend together and the time they invested in one another paid off.  Not only do they have a wonderful marriage, but they are also each other’s best friend.  They have someone who knows them better than anybody else in the world.  Someone who truly cares about their hopes and dreams.  Someone who is aware of their worries and their fears.  Someone they can count on. Someone who truly wants them to be happy and who wants to add to that happiness in their lives.

 My parents over 30 years later.

In his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” John Gottman teaches important principles for having a strong marriage.  Two of the principles that he teaches are the importance of enhancing your love maps and that of nurturing your fondness and admiration for one another.  My parents exemplify both principles. 

Enhance Your Love Maps

Gottman teaches that being “intimately familiar with each other’s world.”  In other words, making efforts to know each other.  Because of the time that my parent’s have spent together my Dad knows that when my mom has had a crazy day that she would love nothing more than to run a hot bath and unwind reading a book in the bath.  My mom knows that when my Dad is in “project mode” that he may not be hearing what she is saying, but it is only because he is focused not because he doesn’t care about what she is saying.  They know these things about each other because they have made the effort to know these things.  

“Emotionally intelligent couples are intimately familiar with each other’s world.

 I call this having a richly detailed love map.”

-John Gottman

Gottman emphasizes that couples who have enhanced their love maps are more prepared to handle conflict and face stresses that are inevitable in a marriage. 

Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration

Fondness and admiration are crucial in a long-lasting relationship.  When we focus on the positive qualities of those we love we are far more likely to show respect rather than contempt when conflict rises, which it inevitably will. 

“Fondness and admiration are two of the most crucial elements in a rewarding and long-lasting romance.  Although happily married couples may feel driven to distraction at times by their partner’s personality flaws, they still feel that the person they married is worthy of honor and respect.”

-John Gottman

So how do we nurture fondness and admiration?  The beauty of this question is that it doesn’t take lofty displays or grand gestures. It is in the small and simple things that we do each day.

Saying I love you.  Expressing gratitude for the long hours they work.  Acknowledging the efforts made each day in nurturing their children. Pointing out strengths rather than the weaknesses.  Telling your spouse, you are proud of them.  The small and simple things. 

I hope as you have read this you have not been given the impression that my parents have had a flawless marriage.  Just like all marriages they have had their ups and downs.  But a constant that I have always seen with them is the honor and respect for one another.  They have always made the other feel important, loved and a priority.  Hopefully we can all take a lesson from hearing a little about their story and make an effort today to show those we love the most that we care about them and that we respect and admire them.

References

Gottman, J. M. (2015). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. New York: Harmony Books.