Week 6--Cherishing your spouse

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There’s nothing like doing your reading for class, preparing for homework and realizing that you are a sucky, sucky wife.

John Gottman talks a lot about love maps in his books. Basically, your love map is a way to show how well you know your partner. (more information here and here) I took the Love Maps Questionnaire in the book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”, and the results were not good. Okay, they weren’t terrible, but my score was “below 10” which means I could improve in this area. I should have my husband take the questionnaire, too, and see how he scores. I’m sure he will do better than I did. Although there are some things that he is just oblivious to, he is better with the whole emotional intelligence thing than I am. He can be more in tune to what is going on around us.

Of course, there is one of his personality quirks that drives me crazy related to how in tune he is. He can ask SO many questions, most of which I don’t have the answer to because I didn’t think of asking them myself. I’ve often said that he’s the woman in our relationship because he wants to know all the details of what’s going on with people and I tend to settle with the big picture. When I found out a couple we knew was getting divorced he wanted all the details right then, but I didn’t have them because I didn’t ask.

Luckily, in the chapters I read this week, there are exercises that help me and my husband have a better relationship. We really need to work on our love maps. I realized a month or two ago that I have stopped asking my husband how his day was…because the answer I got every time was, “busy”. He used to tell me things that were going on at work, little anecdotes about the people he worked with and who annoyed him, etc. He doesn’t do that anymore. I wonder if it is because things are more tense at work or everything is going well so he doesn’t think he needs to share. I just realized I don’t even know who he works with on a daily basis (besides his boss) like I used to.

The material this week has certainly shown me that there is a lot of work to be done in my marriage. If we want to make it another 24 years we need to make sure we are taking the time to nurture the fondness and admiration that we have (had?) for each other.

Part of my homework for the next 5 weeks is to go on a date once a week. This really won’t be a problem for us. We have gotten into a regular habit of going on a date every Friday night. Our problem is that we are in a serious rut. We do the same thing every time! Luckily, we have Pinterest! I was able to find a ton of ideas for cheap dates (we have 2 kids in college, one in high school and one in elementary which = $$$), even things we can do at home now that our built-in babysitters are getting busier. Here are my favorite ones.

21 romantic stay-at-home date night ideas

30 Cheap date ideas for married couples

50 things to do (other than movies)

So, there are 101 cheap(ish) date ideas. I’m sure the lists overlap a bit, but hopefully it will get us out of our “going to the same restaurants each Friday night” rut.

I can’t wait to see how we can improve from where we are now!