Cherish Your Memories!

Several years ago I snuck away with my husband on one of his business trips!  We had to drive for a several hours and when I am in the car I love to read!  I don’t have a lot of time to do that at home because I am pulled so many different directions with my kids.  BUT— I know that my husband starts to feel a little neglected as we are in a car alone together and all I want to do is go away to my little happy place in some fairy tale ending novel.

Well, this trip I decided I would do things a little bit differently, so I found a list of get-to-know-you questions that were online and printed them out.  I have found being married 20 years that we are very comfortable sitting in silence, but I thought it would be fun to have some set questions that we could talk about.  They were a broad range of questions, from your favorite color, to your biggest challenge in life, to your greatest dream.

We laughed, we cried, and relived a lot of great moments that we had shared together, as well as getting to know each other better again!  The miles on the road flew by and before I knew it we had reached our destination.  That was one of the most memorable trips that we have taken together because we strengthened our relationship by getting to know each other again.

In John Gottman's book "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work", he teaches the first principle to saving your marriage is to "Enhance Your Love Maps".  Dr. Gottman defined a love map as a couple who are "intimately familiar with each other's world."  He believes that, "Couples who have detailed love maps of each other's world are far better prepared to cope with stressful events and conflict."  I believe this to be true.  When I feel the closest to my husband I feel that we can overcome anything together!

One very important thing that we can do in our marriage is to talk about and remember why and how we fell in love! I believe that it is those good times that will get us through the hard times which are sure to come!