Love, Admiration, and Fondness

LOVE, ADMIRATION, AND FONDNESS

This week we read some more chapters in the book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman, PH.D. The chapters were about enhancing your love map with your spouse, and nurturing your fondness and admiration. They were really great chapters and I was able to learn a lot of things about myself and what I want in a future spouse. In the chapter on enhancing your love map, Dr. Gottman suggests three activities that will help you enhance the love map you have of your spouse. The activities include: the love map twenty questions game, asking open ended questions, and the “Who am I” activity. Each of these activities will increase your awareness of the needs of your spouse and will help you to each have better love maps of each other.

In the chapter on nurturing fondness and admiration, Dr. Gottman suggests some activities that will fan the flames of your marriage. These activities include: the “I appreciate…” activity, the history and philosophy of your relationship, cherishing your partner, and a seven-week course in fondness and admiration. Each of these activities will help you to have greater appreciation and admiration for your spouse.

As I was reading about these different activities, I was thinking about my own parents and what makes their marriage work. They consistently tell each other that they love and support each other. They also know what is going on in each other’s lives, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, etc. It shows that they love and value each other and that they have deep admiration and fondness for each other.

My favorite activity from all of the activities that were mentioned in both chapters was the seven week course in fondness and admiration. Each day for seven weeks, the book gives you something to think about and something to do that will strengthen the relationship you have with your spouse. Some of them are easy such as writing down a characteristic of your spouse that makes you proud, and some of them require a little more thought such as planning an outing or a romantic date with your spouse. All of the activities are geared towards increasing your admiration and fondness for your spouse.