A successful marriage requires falling in love many times,
always with the same person. ~Mignon McLaughlin
I have to say that I love this quote. Marriage requires falling
in love with your spouse over and over again. However life can become busy. It
can be filled with work, children, church activities, or volunteer activities.
It can become easy to become disconnected from your spouse. You are no longer
best friends who intimately know details about one another. That is not what
marriage is meant to become. This quote is about continually falling in love.
We fall in love as we continually get to know one another. Being connected in
marriage allows one to weather the storms that may come. We must know one
another in order to love one another. In
his book The Seven Principles for Making
a Marriage Work John Gottman Ph.D provides a way for us to reconnect with
our spouse on a constant basis. He calls
it a love map or “the part of your
brain where you store all the relevant information about your partner’s life.” A
love map is where you store the details about your spouse: their likes,
dislikes, or important experiences in their life. To love someone is to know
them. Marriage is a living thing. It is constantly changing due to the arrival
of children, challenges at work, or life problems. You need to continually A
love map is completed as you get to know one another intimately.
These are some questions that are part of a love map:
What are the names of your spouse’s friends?
What are my spouse’s major aspirations and hopes in life?
What stresses are they experiencing right now?
What are they most sad about?
This is a link to more of the love map questions.
I am not married but I can think about my family. I cannot
honestly answer most of these questions. This means that I need to take time to
get to know my family. I cannot truly help my family until I know them. Knowledge
is power in saving our marriage. Love maps provide a way for us to continually
fall in love with our spouse.
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