Lesson #1 Love Maps: Knowing Your Spouse

What are love maps?

A love map is the knowledge you hold of your partner. It’s the deep stuff, and the shallow stuff. It’s knowing their favorite color, but also their deepest fear. It’s knowing how their day was, but also how they feel about their past ten years. It’s staying up to date on the thoughts and feelings of your partner, caring, and conveying that you care. Simply put, your love map is the little things you know about your partner's life 1(Gottman). For example, I know that Tyler is touched every time he finds a penny, because to him this means that God loves him and he’s on the right track. This is a simple thing, but a little knowledge about him goes a long way. In fact, it greatly improves our marriage.

How can love maps improve my marriage?

They convey to your partner that you really care

Let me give you an example. Because I know that pennies touch Tyler’s heart, I’m able to utilize this information to strengthen our relationship. The other day, I was vacuuming our room, and saw a penny on the floor. I absentmindedly placed it on Tyler’s scriptures which lie open on our bed. An hour later he came home. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he greeted me, but then went to our room to put his things away. Moments later he returned with a look in his eyes as if he’d just held a tiny puppy and was overwhelmingly touched. And then he said it, “you put a penny on my scriptures…” There was so much awe and heart in his tone. A little gesture that took me half a second, made his whole night. Because I knew this piece of information about him, I was able to utilize it to express my love.

They increase the strength of your marriage

A study has shown that, "knowing the little things about your partner’s life creates a strong foundation for your friendship and intimacy" (Gottman). 

Now pause for a minute, and think to yourself, “why is this the case?” Why would a love map strengthen your marital foundation?

A second study sheds more light on the subject. “Mere exposure results show that people develop a liking towards stimuli that are familiar”1(Raghanathan). Meaning that the more familiar you become with you spouse’s world, their likes and dislikes, their hopes and fears, the more your liking for them grows. Additionally,"emotionally intelligent couples are intimately familiar with each other’s worlds" (Gottman). Therefore, we can conclude that familiarity breeds liking, but liking also breeds the desire for increased familiarity.  

                                                                    

Using Emotional Intelligence to Enhance Love Maps

An article written by Daniel Goleman states that, Emotional Intelligence, or EI, includes “four domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.” Adding to this definition, it is also "the ability to perceive emotions,... to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth (Mayer & Salovey, 1997)." Now think of this, you’re an emotionally intelligent spouse, meaning that you know how to manage yourself and your relationship in a positive way, and you channel this EI to be intimately familiar with your spouse. Because you’re intelligent, you know that your relationship with your spouse is the most important relationship in your life, and you want to take good care of it. You use your emotional skills and kind heart to find out about them, and how they’re doing on a regular basis, resulting in a marriage that's stronger than steel. 

Now maybe you already build love maps, and maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re doing it half way, but want to know how to do more. Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Below we’ve provided an emotional intelligence quiz. And after you take it you’ll find a list of activities you can do with your spouse to enhance your love maps.

Let’s pause for a moment, so that you can take the quiz.  

Interactive Activities

https://hbr.org/2015/06/quiz-yourself-do-you-lead-with-emotional-intelligence
What did you learn? Was it helpful? Have you figure out what you need to improve? For me, it’s emotional control. I have the strength of really being aware of my emotions, but the weaknesses of letting them lead me at times. I know that as I improve my emotional control, it will bless my marriage. Find your Achilles heel, change it into a strength, and use that to strengthen your marriage.

And ALWAYS remember to ‘study your spouse’

Enjoy this little movie clip from the film Fireproof:

As promised, here is a list of questions you can ask your spouse to enhance your love map. Don’t do it like a check list, that’s not the point. Pick a few that appeal to you, and ask to REALLY know them better.

These Questions come from Gottmans Book, 7 principles of making marriage work.

I took them off of the Gottman institute blog.

Who Am I?
My Triumphs and Strivings:
1. What are some of the proudest moments of your life? What kinds of trying and stressful experiences have you survived in which you felt more powerful, victorious, capable of meeting challenges?

2. How have these successes shaped our life, changed the way in which you view yourself, your goals, your dreams?
3. Did your parents show you that they were proud of you for your accomplishments? What about other important figures in your life? How did this affect your experience of feelings of pride in yourself?
4. Were you shown love and affection in your family? If not, how has this affected your relationships in your adult life?

My Injuries and Healings
1. What experiences have you had in which you have felt the deepest senses of disappointment, loss, self-doubt, hopelessness, loneliness?
2. What kinds of deep traumas have you undergone? How have you survived through them? What kinds of changes do you feel in yourself after going through these difficult times in your life?
3. How did you strengthen and heal yourself? How did you protect yourself? Did you find ways to avoid such experiences in the future?
4. How do you think that these experiences have affected your relationships? Your relationship with your current partner? What do you want your partner to understand about you and your past injuries?

My Mission and Legacy

1. What do you feel is the purpose of your life? Its meaning? What do you want to accomplish? What is your greatest struggle?
2. What kind of a legacy do you want to leave behind when you are gone?
3. What kinds of significant goals do you still yearn to realize to feel that you have lived a full life?

Who I Want to Become

1. Describe the person that you want to become.

2. What kinds of struggles have you faced in trying to become that person?
3. What internal demons are you fighting? What demons have you conquered?
4. What would you most like to change about yourself?
5. What do you want your life to be in five years?

Please take 60 seconds to give us your feedback 

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References

Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (2015). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: 

Harmony Books.

7, 2. N. (2017, February 09). The Sound Relationship House: Build Love Maps. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-sound-relationship-house-build-love-maps/

Raghunathan, R. (2012, January 17). Familiarity Breeds Enjoyment. Retrieved February 21, 2018 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sapient-nature/201201/familiarity-breeds-enjoyment

(n.d.). Retrieved February 21, 2018, from https://web.sonoma.edu/users/s/swijtink/teaching/philosophy_101/paper1/goleman.htm