Share Your Life

Friendships are based on mutual interests. Marriages are no different. To keep the friendship in your marriage strong each spouse must turn toward the other and open up their life so that the two lives can become one shared life. We must put our spouse first, before our job, before our friends, before our children, even if it is just listening to what great thing happened to them in line at the grocery store or what horrible thing their boss said to them, or helping them with the dishes or kids. We must live our lives together, instead of just as roommates who have sex. If you have made a habit of living your life separately from your spouse, this may not be an easy task. 

Making our lives one is not a one-time task.  This will be something that we will work our whole lives to do. As our lives change and our marriage changes, we must constantly work to keep the two moving in the same direction. 

Marriage expert John Gottman gives some advice on how we can do this. In The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, he describes some activities that can help us to move our lives and our marriages in the same direction. One of these is to be aware of what he calls our spouse’s emotional bank account. Basically this means to record, but not for the sake of competition, the ways in which you show your spouse that you care and the ways in which you act contrary to that love. So washing your wife’s car would be a deposit into her emotional bank account while nagging your husband to take the trash out for the fifth time would probably be a withdrawal from his emotional bank account. This activity is a good place to start to look at where your relationship currently stands. It is a great way to see where you need to improve and whether you are making a net positive contribution to your marriage or not.  

As a side note, if you are having trouble showing your love in a way that your spouse is responsive to I suggest doing some reading on their love language. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman is a great resource for this. I know that the principles outlined in his book really helped me to see how to show love for my husband in a way that meant the most to him. Plus, these principles are applicable to any close relationship that you may have, be it with parents, children, siblings, friends or other family members. 

Gottman also suggests starting and maintaining jointly meaningful rituals. These activities bring a sense of shared meaning to a family. Don’t know what your rituals should be? Simply talk about it. What is important to you? What is something that you like doing together? How should special occasions such as holidays and birthdays be celebrated? Sit down and talk about these things. Find out what your spouse values and tell your spouse what you value. A shared life means honoring the things that each other value. Find meaningful ways to execute these rituals, even if it’s just dinner together every night. Remember that this is a joint effort.

These two items are by no means that you can really share a life with your spouse. They are a start though. Share your dreams, goals and beliefs. Share your time. Most importantly share yourself. And don’t give up. This will not be a short term task. Keep with it.