Knowing Your Spouse

As I read chapter 4&5 in Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work I kept thinking about how lucky I am to be married to my husband. He is seriously the sweetest, best man I know! I kept getting ideas about how we can strengthen our already strong marriage. I loved reading about "The Love Map: 20 Questions Game." My husband and I decided that we're going to play that this week during our Valentine's Day dinner. Gottman's 20 question game is where together you and your husband pick 20 numbers from 1-60. These numbers correspond to questions in the book. You get points for the questions you answer correctly about your spouse and visa versa. Something we noticed was that the superficial questions,like what's my favorite color or my favorite food, were only worth 2 points. Then the more deep questions, like what my goals and fears are, were worth more points. We thought that was really interesting. We talked about how important it is to take the time to talk to each other about your goals and dreams and your fears and such. This truly does deepen a relationship and make a marriage more fulfilling.

I thought it was really appropriate that we discussed how to help couples to be friends and think positively about each other as we talked about the adversities of marriage. It's really easy for me to see how my husband sacrifices for me. He is always thinking of my needs. I hope I'm doing for him what he's doing for me. I know there is definitely room for improvement. I really love the quote from Brother Goddard's book, Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage. He said, "It turns out that our sacrifices are not sacrifices, but purchases. We sacrifice our puny preferences and God rewards us with eternal joy" (p. 41-42). How beautiful. This life is so short. When we remember our eternal goals it's so much easier to do what's right for your marriage and spouse.

Although I'm not perfect at this, I do feel that we should do all we can to know and love our spouse. I think we should have fun traditions, we should laugh together, we should cry together, stress together. I believe we should share our whole self with our spouse. I think we should learn to listen well when our partner is talking and remember the little things they mention to us. This could be as simple as knowing what sauces your partner likes at your favorite fast food. Whatever. I know I appreciate the little things my husband does for me or remembers about me. Those things, though small help keep our relationship strong. We have a mutual trust in each other.