Rituals for Creating Closeness in Marriage

A couple of months ago, I was feeling like my husband and I weren’t connecting as well as I would like.  When connection goes down, it seems like petty irritations go up.  I went looking for some suggestions to help.

I found a blog post that referenced this article.

I love the work of John and Julie Gottman.  Their marriage advice is based on over 40 years of research on what really works in relationships.

Today when I was looking for that initial blog post I had read, I couldn’t find it but did find this one which I liked.

I remember reading about the 6-second kiss upon arrival home (Gottman calls it the kiss with potential).  Also, about twenty minutes of uninterrupted, undistracted time for a couple to talk/de-stress each day.  And something about bedtime rituals.
 
We talked about it.  Some of the things in the article are already solidly part of our daily rituals.  Several others we had been neglecting or had entirely forgotten.  We talked about adding three of those we had forgotten back in.  The sad thing is, we started, didn’t continue, and the only one I can remember of the three is the six second kiss.  Sometimes I feel like we keep learning and forgetting the same things over again.

Several years ago, we had a period of extreme relationship stress.  We did marriage counseling and read several relationship books together.  I can’t remember which we read/listened to and discussed, and which ones I just read.  (It’s all up there in my brain smashed together).  I know we accrued a whole shelf of Gottman books at the time, and books by several other marriage experts.  We were both very motivated to improve things in our marriage.

One day while I was reading my scriptures, I remember being drawn to a scripture in the old testament in Nehemiah 4.  The Israelites have returned to Jerusalem and are trying to rebuild their religion and their city.  Some are assigned to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.  Their enemies find out and are not happy about it.  They come and try to kill those who are rebuilding the wall so the work will stop.

Nehemiah 4:16
And it came to pass from that time forth, that the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the habergeons; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah.

I felt very strongly that we needed to establish rituals of connection that would help keep our relationship strong.  And we were going to have to work very hard to keep those things in place.  Just like the guards keeping the wall builders safe, we needed to expend the effort to keep our relationship building safe.

Some great things came from that time period.  We started holding weekly marriage meetings.  At these meetings, we express appreciation for each other.  We check in about how we are doing in our relationship, check to see if we are protecting our marriage building, and we have a discussion time for anything that is bothering either of us.

Sometimes I get the feeling that these meetings are really for me.  Having them, makes a huge difference in helping me feel loved, appreciated, and like I have a voice.
 
I am so grateful to James for making the time and taking the effort to have them.  I don’t think that opening himself up emotionally or hearing things I’m not happy about are his favorite things.   But he cares enough about me and our relationship to do it.

I’m the one that usually has discussion items, which kind of makes me feel guilty.  Something I read or heard somewhere in the Gottman cannon helps though.  Apparently, even in marriages where the wife is highly critical of the husband, having these weekly meetings and letting her air her grievances, led to greater levels of happiness for the couple.  And I am not a highly critical wife.

One almost seemingly magic thing that happens when are holding marriage meetings regularly is that we almost never fight.  Somehow, it pre-empts whatever the factors are that cause us to argue.  I can’t tell you how much I love this!

One other thing that tends to happen at these meetings which is very good for us, is that we get off topic.  Sometimes we just get talking and connect in a way that we often don’t have time for in the rush of our week.  Covering our agenda is really important.  But I also love the connection that comes from the off topic times.

Over the last 8 years we have had two times where we’ve let these marriage meetings slide for a period of months.  It was not easy to get them going again either time.  It takes significant commitment to have them, but it makes a huge difference in our relationship.

I’m glad to have found the “6 hours a week to a better relationship” article again today.  I’m going to print the visual reminder in the article and put it on the fridge.  I'm going to pick just one to work on this time, so hopefully I can make it stick.