Cover photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Written by Katrina Voorhees
The rush and excitement that comes from being in love is nothing short of euphoric. The only way to describe it? Heaven on earth. But contrary to popular belief heaven is not found, it is made. In America, we use the phrase falling in love to describe the act of loving, but as John and Julie Gottman explain in their book, Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, “Happily ever after is not by chance. It’s by choice” (Gottman, et. al, 2019).
While choosing in love instead of falling in love may not sound as romantic, it is certainly more reliable. If a person were liable to fall out of love as quickly as they fell in it, marriage would be nothing more than a temporary arrangement, a fragile compromise based on feelings of ecstasy and novelty which new romance provides but cannot maintain. No love, no matter how fierce, can survive that. For love to be maintained it must be fostered, nourished, and expanded on a daily basis.
Said Susan Lyman-Whitney in an article published in the Deseret News, “A second paradigm is ripping through our culture like wildfire—if you don’t feel the love anymore, then why stick around? As a therapist, I hear it all the time: “We just fell out of love.” While love (the noun) may initially bring two people together, it is love (the verb) that makes it last” (Lyman, 1995).
What does love the verb look like? While there is certainly no end to the amount of marriage and love advice out there, here are just eight of the ways to choose love on a daily basis that will bring to pass the kind of happily ever after that couples yearn for.
1. Pay attention to bids.
Humans are creatures of connection. Bids for love and affection come in many forms, if we learn to pay attention. They can be as simple as a touch, laughter at a joke, a knowing look, or a pat on the shoulder. If your partner is telling you a story, look them in the eyes and give them your undivided attention. Ask them how their day went and then look for cues about how they really feel. Show them that you really care by being ever-present and anxiously concerned about their wellbeing. If they are hurting, find ways to show empathy. If they are excited, find joy in their joy. When they need love, do not hesitate to fill that need for them (Hildebrand, 2020).
2. Choose to be kind, patient, and forgiving.
Social scientists have found that successful marriage comes down to a few key attributes. Although it may surprise you, kindness takes the lead for the most important factor in any successful marriage. Not far behind come the vital characteristics of patience and forgiveness. That is to say that when we choose in love, we must also choose to give the benefit of the doubt, to look past weak moments and to love in spite of ourselves. Just as doctors treat patients when they are sick and injured, we must treat frailties of the ones we love with patience, realizing that at times the cure they so desperately need is love and kindness (Smith, 2020).
3. Accentuate the good and downplay the bad.
So much of life has to do with our perspective. There are no flawless soulmates, however, as beauticians know, beauty is not found in perfection but rather in the accentuation of positive attributes. Besides that, there is beauty in the resilience that is born of failure. When a child is learning to walk, we do not criticize them for falling, we praise them for getting back up and trying again. Gottman put it this way in his interview with Atlantic: “There’s a habit of mind that the masters have, which is this: They are scanning the social environment for things they can appreciate and say thank you for. They are building this culture of respect and appreciation very purposefully. Disasters are scanning the social environment for partners’ mistakes (Smith, 2020).
4. Practice the principle of lived invitation.
How then, we think, can we ever help our spouses to improve in this life if all we ever do is point out what they are doing right? The principle of lived invitation beckons us to lead by example as we strive to master ourselves first. When a person tells their spouse to live a healthier life, they may feel criticized and hurt, and struggle knowing how to improve. A better tactic would be to live a healthy lifestyle, in which case a spouse will see the desired benefits and know exactly how to follow suit. If the desire to do the same is not inherent, it is not likely that criticism will push them in that direction anyway. If, on rare occasion, criticism is needed, it should be done in private, along with an offer of support and commitment to uphold the same standard of living (Marks, et al. 2016).
5. Focus on filling their needs and your needs will be filled.
When we show love to our spouse, they will likely reciprocate our actions and we will also feel the joy that comes from giving, one of the sweetest aspects of romance. The ideal relationships occur when both individuals make the wellbeing of their spouse their highest priority (Hildebrand, 2020).
6. Continue courting one another after marriage.
Don’t stop dating one another. Don’t stop flirting. Make your partner feel desired by you. Don’t stop getting to know them. Continue to make them feel special and spend time with them. Don’t stop dressing up for your spouse. Make an effort to let them know you desire them! Your spouse needs to be held and loved. They need to know that you respect them and that you admire them. They want to know that you are excited to be with them. They need to know that they are successful in their attempts to love you (Bradley, 2014).
7. Seek for interdependence not independence.
So much of the bliss found in relationships is found in working together towards a higher goal than self. Best-selling author Stephen Covey defines interdependence as people, “combining their efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.” Covey states that, as an interdependent person, “I have the opportunity to share myself deeply, meaningfully, with others, and I have access to the vast resources and potential of other human beings” (Covey, 1999). People who work interdependently contribute equally so that a much larger goal is accomplished by the team than would be possible by any one team member alone. Happiness may be found in the expansion of self, but joy is found in the expansion of others, in true teamwork.
8. Lower your expectations.
This last one may surprise you, but it is nonetheless true. Any business professional will teach you to under-promise and over-deliver. This is because when we expect perfection, we will ultimately be disappointed. If, on the other hand, we expect to love and be loved in return, we can almost always meet that expectation.
Most of the best things in life come not by chance, but by choice. Love is no exception, although the concerted effort marriage takes will last a lifetime, unlike other pursuits which come and go. For those of you who are single, I invite you to choose now to love those around you, to choose to see the best in others and to practice giving others the benefit of the doubt. And for those who are married, my invitation is to wake up every morning and choose your spouse. You chose them once, choose to remember why. You fell in love once, allow yourself to do it again, because as John Gottman (2019) put it, “Love is a choice that you make every morning when you wake up. It’s the decision to choose to cherish your partner, especially when you don’t feel like it. It’s in these times, in particular, that your partner likely needs your love the most. In truly healthy marriages, each partner wakes up in the morning, and makes the decision to purposefully practice and cultivate more love for their spouse.”
Pick one of these ways to “choose in love” this week:
– Figure out a way to serve your spouse every day, make them smile.
– Listen to understand, ask questions that let your spouse know you care about how they feel
– Find room for uninterrupted quality time together every day this week – even if it’s just 15 minutes
– Stop with the comparisons – choose your love and love your choice
References
Bradley, J. F. (2014). Courtship Must Continue After Marriage (Make Your Marriage Work, Solve Your Marital Problems, Add Spice To Your Marriage & Live A Happy Married Life) (Volume 3) (1st ed.). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Covey, S. R. (1999). The 7 habits of highly effective people. London: Simon & Schuster.
Gottman, J. M., Gottman, J. S., Abrams, D., & Abrams, R. C. (2019). Eight dates: Essential conversations for a lifetime of love. New York: Workman.
Hildebrand, S., MA, LPC. (2020, September 08). How Emotional Bids Impact Your Relationship (1149530127 864440887 J. Jaspan MS, LPC, Ed.). Retrieved January 11, 2021, from https://thelightprogram.pyramidhealthcarepa.com/emotional-bids/
Marks, L. D., & Dollahite, D. C. (2016). Religion and Families: An Introduction (Textbooks in Family Studies) (1st ed.). Routledge.
Smith, E. E. (2020, May 12). The Secret to Love Is Just Kindness. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/
Sparks, C. (2020, December 11). Top 10 Gottman Relationship Blog Posts of 2019. The Gottman Institute. https://www.gottman.com/blog/top-10-gottman-relationship-blog-posts-of-2019
Susan Lyman, S. L. (1995, June 7). The Good Marriage. Deseret News. https://www.deseret.com/1995/6/7/19216707/the-good-marriage
Katrina Louise Voorhees is an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University where she studies relationships, family and art. She has a beautiful family and an outstanding extended family. She recently married her best friend, Paul Voorhees, who makes her laugh every day. Besides writing and romance she is also crazy about painting, singing, deep conversations, good books and ice cream.