\u201cHappily ever after doesn\u2019t happen by chance, but rather by\nchoice.\u201d Dr. John Gottman<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the weekend my husband and I went to a marriage workshop\nthat covered material from The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work, written\nby Dr. John Gottman. Drs John and Julie Gottman are renowned experts on\nmarriage and have done extensive research on what causes marriage to fall apart.\nThey then used that knowledge to come up with a guide with seven core principles\nthat will help couples to nurture a better relationship as well as teach couples\nhow to handle conflict. It\u2019s an awesome book and workshop and I\u2019ll share just two\nof my favorite exercises we did this weekend:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This first one was my favorite \u2013 We were all asked to look\naround the room and notice everything that was green. We were then told to\nclose our eyes and we were asked to say everything in the room that was\nred. That was hard to do because we\u2019d\nall been looking for only the green items. \nGottman shares that some people feel that looking at your spouse through\nrose colored glasses will give you an inaccurate view of reality, but research\nhas shown that the EXACT OPPOSITE is true \u2013looking through rose colored glasses\nactually gives a person a MORE accurate view of reality because those red items\nwere always there in the room, you just didn\u2019t notice them because you\u2019d only been\nlooking for the green items! So in marriage\nif we are constantly looking for things to appreciate about our spouse we will\nsee everything that is really there, but if we are only looking for things to\ncriticize about our spouse we are going to miss 50% of everything that is\nactually there. That makes SO MUCH SENSE!!! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s one more I\u2019ll share – We all remember the days when Mapquest\nfirst became available for us to print off driving directions to get where we wanted\nto go. Because Mapquest wan\u2019t using real-time data back then you would often\nprint the directions and begin driving only to find that the map used had\nbecome outdated \u2013 a street name had changed, a freeway onramp had opened, a one\nway street now existed \u2013 so following the printed directions no longer led you where\nyou had hoped to go. Marriage relationships are just like that – When we first\nmarried our spouse we knew all about what they liked and disliked, their fears\nand dreams, etc., but then as time has gone on each person in the relationship\nis constantly growing and changing as individuals so if one spouse tries to rely\non their old Mapquest directions they no longer take them where they were\nhoping to go. That\u2019s why in marriage it\nis critical that we don\u2019t rely on old maps of our spouse. We need the most current\nmap of our spouse\u2019s hopes, fears, desires, and dreams. We must constantly be\nasking our spouses questions to get to know how they feel today rather than\nthinking we know them because we knew how might have answered a question a year,\nor two, or twenty years ago. Gottman\neven provides suggested questions we can be asking our spouses to make sure we\nknow our spouses real-time love maps \u2013 without that, marriages inevitably end\nup lost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Happily ever after won\u2019t happen unless you make a choice to put in the time and effort it takes to strengthen your relationship. Attending workshops, reading great books on how to strengthen your marriage, and seeking couples counseling are all choices that are worth making. <\/p>\n\n\n\n