Do you remember the crush you used to have on the one you promised to love “until death do us part?” You felt a magnetic attraction to your future spouse. After you married, the passion faded. In the days or months after you both promised to cherish each other, your relationship lost its excitement. What happened?
How did your marriage lose its spark?
How did you become more like roommates than lovers?
How do so many once happy couples slip into a rut of mediocrity, or even into a pit of despair?
My Shattered Rose-Colored Glasses
Not long after their wedding day, married couples begin to notice character traits in their spouse that went unnoticed before.
Somehow, as we unpack and settle into our new lives as a married couple, most of us lose the rose-colored glasses we used to see each other through.
I didn’t just lose my rose-colored glasses–they were shattered.
We were only a few days into our honeymoon. My wife Tami told me she felt homesick. She wanted to go home early to see her parents. I was shocked. It was like being hit with a bucket of ice water.
Tami will tell you that I didn’t do anything to make her homesick. But I heard her say she’d rather be somewhere else than with me on our honeymoon! I began to doubt the strength of her commitment to me.
I began to suspect Tami might be a little crazy. So I began to watch her more closely for evidence that would confirm my suspicions.
If you’re looking for flaws in your spouse’s character, you’re guaranteed to find some. I did.
Another thing that happens when we look for character flaws in others is we cultivate our own character defects. I did that, too!
I replaced my broken rose-colored glasses with a magnifying glass. A magnifying glass makes small things appear huge–it transforms molehills into mountains.
With my magnifying lens, I zoomed in on Tami’s flaws. I began to lose respect for her. My disrespect grew into contempt, and it colored my words and actions.
I became self-righteous, critical, rude, and self-centered.
Correcting My Marital Myopia
When I was about 20 years old, I started to notice that I couldn’t read road signs without squinting. I’d been doing a lot of book reading in college. Some people say the strain of focusing on things close up can contribute to nearsightedness.
Nearsightedness is also called myopia. A few years after marrying, I’d focused so much on my wife’s flaws, I developed marital myopia.
I needed corrective lenses.
If contempt is allowed to take root in a marriage, it needs to be plucked out. It’s like a weed that spreads its seeds and multiplies. Its minions will overtake and choke a marriage that could’ve thrived.
I needed to correct my focus to be able to see my wife’s positive qualities.
Tami’s attitude toward me had also changed. What we focus on in the behaviors of people close to us often changes their behavior toward us. By pointing out my wife’s flaws, I spurred her on to do more of the things I disliked about her.
How to Cultivate a Thriving Marriage
Tami and I ended up in marriage counseling with a psychologist who helped us change the way we looked at each other. We learned to recognize and focus on each other’s good qualities. After all, these qualities attracted us to each other in the beginning.
The apostle Paul gives this excellent counsel:
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8 NLT).
If you’re familiar with this passage, you’ve probably applied it to the media you watch, read, and listen to.
What would happen to your marriage if you applied this passage to how you look at your spouse?
John Gottman, Ph.D., has done excellent research on what causes marriages to thrive and to fail. One of the key ingredients to a thriving marriage is frequent sharing of fondness and admiration between spouses.
Sharing fondness and admiration reignites or keeps alive the feelings of attraction and appreciation that existed during their courtship.
Tami and I have learned how to do this, and it’s helped us thrive in our marriage. We’re now at 26 years and going strong.
To express fondness and admiration in our relationship, we needed to discover and make positive comments about each other’s strengths and other positive attributes. Does this mean we’ve eliminated all negative interactions? No. But we’ve achieved Dr. Gottman’s ratio of 4 positive interactions for every negative interaction–a pattern that Gottman’s research has identified as key to a satisfying marriage.
If you’d like to heat up your marriage with more happiness, passion, and overall satisfaction, follow these 3 simple steps:
1. Discover each other’s strengths and positive attributes.
An easy way to get started is to each take and share the results of a personality test that identifies individual strengths and positive attributes. Then share the results with each other.
I like the VIA Character Strengths Survey. Using this survey, researchers have found that practicing your top 5 character strengths in marriage contributes to a happier, more satisfying marriage.
Follow this link to get my free guide on how to take this survey free and how to use it in your marriage.
2. Express appreciation for each other’s strengths and positive attributes at least 3 days a week for 3 weeks.
If you’ve used a personality test like the VIA Character Strengths Survey to discover each other’s positive qualities, you have a good place to start. Using a blank piece of legal-size paper, draw a vertical line in the middle of the page. In the left column, write at least 3 of your spouse’s strengths. In the right column, write notes to track when you saw your spouse use one or more of these strengths. To make this step easier, use the worksheets included in my free guide.
Ask God to give you a clear vision to help you see your spouse’s strengths. Then, each time you notice your partner use one of these strengths, write a note on that right column to help you remember it.
Next, make time to write a short love note and put it on your partner’s pillow or some other obvious place where they’ll find it. If your spouse likes to get texts or emails, you can deliver the love note that way, too.
In the first sentence of your love note, use a phrase like: “I’m proud of the way you _____.” “I am impressed that you _____.” “I like how you _____.”
In the blank, describe how you saw your spouse display their strength. Write with sincerity. Use this only to show fondness and appreciate a positive quality. Don’t use this as an opportunity to ask for sex or anything else–you’ll ruin the moment. Sign it with love, and leave it at that.
This can be done in 5 minutes or less each time you do it. Do it 3 times a week (on different days) for 3 weeks, and you will develop new pathways in your brain that will help you recognize and focus on the best things about your mate.
3. Savor each other’s compliments.
When you receive a compliment in a love note, savor the moment. Resist any inclination to downplay or discount your spouse’s positive comments about you. Express genuine gratitude for your spouse’s kind words and let them sink in the way they did when you had a crush on each other. This might mean you need to read it out loud, save it, or post it in a special place.
These instructions and worksheets for keeping track of your partner’s positive qualities are included in my free guide. Follow this link to get your exclusive copy of my free guide.
How are you doing at recognizing your spouse’s positive qualities? Does your vision need some correction? If you’ve kept your positive focus throughout your marriage or successfully corrected your vision, how did you do it? Let’s chat in the comments below.
___________________
Sources:
Lavy S. et al. My Better Half: Strengths Endorsement and Deployment in Married Couples.Journal of Family Issues, September 16, 2014 0192513X14550365
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Thanks Jon,
You packed so much great content into this post. I love the image you paint of marriage myopia. It can be all to easy to hone in on our partner’s weaknesses and create a miserable situation. I’m pretty fortunate though, Jenny is great at expressing appreciation, and pointing out when I get things right. Her simple words of affirmation, letting me know that she noticed the effort, really do brighten my day. And I’m working to put these words into practice myself–Of Course, Jenny makes that pretty easy too. Besides the obvious, of being absolutely gorgeous, Jenny’s an awesome mom, step-mom, has a great since of humor, and there is no one that I’d rather spend time with.
Thank’s for the excellent reminder not to let little flaws–that will always be there this side of heaven–ruin a good relationship.
I’m excited to check out your guide and the survey too. I’ve taken the Barna, strengths finder assessment and found it incredibly helpful. This survey sounds a little more marriage specific, so I’m excited to check it out. I just subscribed and am eagerly awaiting the confirmation e-mail 🙂
Jed,
Thanks for inviting me to guest post and for your comments! It’s an honor to be able to speak to your tribe.
The VIA Character Strengths Survey assesses our strengths from the perspective of how we approach life, so wouldn’t be marriage-specific in the sense that I think you’re suggesting. But its results can be as easily applied to marriage, as they can to parenting, our approach to faith, or our work. I’m interested to learn what you think of it.
Always glad to see collaboration and sharing happening. Enjoyed reading your post, Jon.
One thing that struck me while reading this is that often, it seems, what we deem “weaknesses” or “flaws” in another person really just reflect personal perception or preference: that “WE wouldn’t do it that way” or that this trait or approach irritates US. Being able to celebrate another person as a whole (rather than only for the parts we prefer over others) would be ideal, in my opinion.
Hi Erik,
A good point. A person’s
value isn’t defined by their qualities. Love embraces the whole person as they are.
Also, focusing on someone’s best qualities can be taken to an extreme, if we set ourselves up as the judge of what is best and worst in a person. The value of objective measures like personality tests can counter our personal bias.
For example, I’ve
considered my wife’s persistence (one of her Signature Strengths) to be a weakness–my bias. Where I would be inclined to let something go because it takes too much time or effort, she’ll stick with it. I tend to think in terms or return on investment, but she values the accomplishment, regardless of the time or effort spent on getting there. I can perceive her as wasting time, while she perceives herself making progress towards her goal. In learning that her
persistence is a strength (as objectively measured in the VIA survey), I’m now learning to appreciate her perspective, and regardless of my bias, that there’s value in celebrating her accomplishments with her.
Thanks for commenting!
Your willingness to include this personal example helped greatly to illustrate what I was getting at, Jon. Again here, I appreciate your humility and candor. The best advice is that which comes from a place of personal failure, trial, growth and perspective over time.
Thanks, Erik!