Relationship Help 101 – Know Your Spouse’s Interests for Increased Love and Harmony
Relationship Help Point 1 – Why Know Your Spouse’s Interests?
One of the most powerful relationship help principles I have learned over the years is the idea of always knowing the likes and dislikes of your spouse. Why is this important?
All people fervently desire to achieve happiness when they get married. They want to live a fulfilled life with the person they have selected as their mate. They want to experience love and know that the special someone they have married will always be there for them. It is only natural.
Why do you need to know and understand your spouse’s likes and dislikes? How can you know how to treat each other and what activities are appealing if you don’t know? People can change over time. What someone may like right now they may not enjoy as much five years from now. In addition, what unspoken message do you send when you take the time to really know and understand your spouse? What you say is that they really matter to you. It says you care and that your spouse is important to you. You validate your spouse in their eyes. You say that you love them enough to take the time to truly know and understand them as a person. Understanding this principle can provide you with the relationship help you need for a great relationship.
Relationship Help Point 2 – How Do You Learn About Your Spouse?
There is no real magic to this at all. Listen, observe, and finally ask questions as needed. Make it a point to notice what they do. Just use the six simple words for asking questions. They are ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘why’, and throw in ‘how’ for good measure. Ask yourself these things when with your spouse. Make it a game. Try to see what makes them happy, sad, mad, or glad.
This exercise will help you focus on them and not on you. You will be trying to understand your spouse better so you can make them happy. It is really very simple. If you focus on making those around you happy, and treat them the way you would like to be treated, then you will be happy as a result. It is one of those unwritten laws. It is a law that will never change. It is as true as the sun coming up tomorrow. It allows you to nourish your relationship.
Incorporate what you learn from observing and asking questions into how you treat each other. Try using this information to make sure you do and say those things that help to lift and build. Make it focused on them and not yourself. Invest the time necessary to do it right.
Relationship Help Point 3 – How Will You Benefit?
Unity becomes the ultimate goal for understanding your spouse. Harmony will soon follow, and before long you will feel much closer to each other. It will allow you to feel the completeness of when two people become one. I am not referring to one in the physical sense. I am referring to oneness as oneness in purpose. This is what truly makes a great marriage. It happens when the two of you become one in mind, heart, and soul. It means being one in how the two of you raise your children. It means becoming one with long-term family goals and objectives. It means being one as it relates to how you present yourselves to the world.
Now with all of this being said, it doesn’t mean you give up your own uniqueness and identity. It is essential that you both keep those qualities that make you unique from every other person in the world. You will both have individual strengths and weaknesses. However, when you combine those strengths together as a team, it means the two of you become better on a larger scale than you ever could have individually. This is called ‘synergy’. When two people have synergy, it means two plus two does not equal four, it equals five or six or even more. It means your combined positive qualities are magnified together into something that is absolutely wonderful. This synergy is created when teams, groups of people, or couples know each other so well they play off of their strengths. They learn to use those abilities in tandem and so much is accomplished and lives are changed. So how can this happen if you do not proactively take time to make sure you really, really know each other? You can’t. If you don’t, over time you will find you have become nothing more than two strangers living together under the same roof.
Self-esteem will increase between you as you both see that you are part of something truly great. The two of you will be headed down a glorious path of creating a legacy of completeness. You will be leaving your posterity an example of how to live a full life with meaning and value. There is no greater thing you can leave your children. There is nothing better than knowing you have lived a full life worthy of emulation. Love will fill your home. Home will serve as a shelter from all the buffeting of the outside world. It will allow you to leave your mark on your corner of the universe.
Husbands benefit when their wives know, understand, and accept them for the things they like and the things they dislike. Wives benefit as their husbands cater to their needs and focus on those things that are of interest to them. Children benefit as they see how much their parents love each. They see Mom and Dad take time to truly know and understand each other. People feel validated and made to feel they matter in the lives of their loved ones.
Love for each other is nurtured. There is growth in all areas of life as both spouses feel motivated to please each other. It may sound somewhat farfetched, but think about it for a minute. How do you feel when someone takes the time to truly get to know you for the person you are? How does it make you feel knowing someone is making the effort? Does it make you feel important? Do you feel like you matter? Isn’t this type of relationship help the kind that will benefit both you and your family?
What Does Your Spouse Like?
Do you have a great advice about knowing your spouse? Share with us your successes and stories on how to do this. Share it!