I have been reading a book titled the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John M. Gottman. It really is an amazing book and you all should go look it up. It seriously can change your marriage and the way that you view your marriage. Here is a little video of Gottman discussing how you can improve your marriage in 30 seconds!
This story is just one small example of the seven principles that he outlines. This week I was reading about the last principle in the book which is to create shared meaning.
Shared meaning. How can our relationships have shared meaning? I asked myself this question as I was reading this book. Gottman has a list of four different ideas on how we can have shared meaning with our spouses.
1. Rituals of Connection: These are things like eating dinner together or establishing any other kinds of rituals in the home. Holidays could be another really great example. These rituals need to be created between you and your spouse or children. Maybe it is a Friday night date night or a Wednesday afternoon walk. It needs to be something that you do together as a ritual that brings you even closer together.
Shared meaning. How can our relationships have shared meaning? I asked myself this question as I was reading this book. Gottman has a list of four different ideas on how we can have shared meaning with our spouses.
1. Rituals of Connection: These are things like eating dinner together or establishing any other kinds of rituals in the home. Holidays could be another really great example. These rituals need to be created between you and your spouse or children. Maybe it is a Friday night date night or a Wednesday afternoon walk. It needs to be something that you do together as a ritual that brings you even closer together.
2. Support for each other's roles: This would be that you both understand what each other's roles really are. Talking about what it means to be a wife, husband, or parent. After discussing what roles you have then you should then find ways to support each other in these roles.
3. Shared Goals: These kinds of goals could be practical, physical, emotional or spiritual. But it is good to have a common goal to work towards together. When I have a personal goal I pray so that I may be able to achieve it. This would be a great thing to do as a couple, pray together in hopes of achieving a common goal.
4. Shared Values and Symbols: Find something that represents your relationship as a symbol. It could be something religious (like a picture of the temple or cross), it could be a house, or something from a vacation, or pictures of family. Either way there need to be some shared symbol and have shared values between the couple. My husband and I have pictures of us all around our home and in our bedroom we display our eternal marriage certificate as a symbol of the commitment we made to each other.
I think that it is so easy to become our own independent selves over time. We get so caught up in the me me me that we don't look at the us.
Last summer I worked in a hotel as a housekeeper, and often times, a couple would get hotel rooms that had two beds so that they didn't have to sleep together of so they could sleep in different beds. This was shocking to me. I was single and was excited to one day have a husband that I could share my bed with. It broke my heart!
There are just some thing in life that are better if we share them. I know that if we have shared meaning in our relationships we will be happier in our marriages and in our family's.
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