Number 1 Way to Connect with Your Partner

If love were enough to make a marriage last, most of us would be happily married.

Yet, the astounding numbers of divorce tell us that love is not enough. It takes more.

It takes knowledge, skills, and a serious investment of time.

As someone with many talents I know that to acquire my talents I had to study, train, and apply myself to get good. Similarly, I know that relationship takes skills, knowledge, and proper application of those skills.

While teaching the work of Drs. John and Julie Gottman, I found their methods to be life-saving for so many marriages.

The simple tools that they teach can help any couple.

One couple I worked with utilized a simple skill that enabled them to rekindle the romance, and the connection and to get their marriage back on track.

When Sandra and David came in, their number one complaint was feeling as ‘if they didn’t know each other anymore.’

After being married for ten years and have three children, their marriage had undergone some serious changes. But amid all the changes, they hadn’t done the crucial part of keeping their romance alive.

Their lives were hectic. David worked over 40 hours a week, Sandra stayed at home with the three children and was often exhausted at the end of the day.

When they complained that they felt distant and like strangers, I understood. It’s normal for couples to feel this way, especially over time and with several children to raise.

In our first session, I showed them a Gottman Method technique called “Building Love Maps.” This skill is simple, yet it’s what every relationship expert works hard to get couples to do when they feel distant or are having problems.

Simply put, a Love Map is the map we create for our partner’s inner world—their dreams, hopes, fears, likes, dislikes, and everything else we can gather. If you’ve ever used Google Maps, you know that having a GPS system is really helpful when navigating a city. In the same vein, we also know that cities are constantly changing. Try returning to your hometown 10 years later! You’ll find that roads have changed, and your favorite corner store is gone.

Just like a good GPS system must constantly be updated for it to work properly—we must also update our maps of our partner. When we want to navigate to a happy place with our partner, we need a good map, and the more updated, the better.

Related Article: 45 Relationship Check-in Questions

So, How do you Build a Love Map?

Put simply, Building a Love Map is a process of gathering information about your partner. The more you know and the more current your information is the better.

In Gottman’s work, they say that the more well-built a Love Map, the better the couple will fare all around.

So, back to how to build a Love Map.

If you would like to build or update your Love Map, do this:

1. Make a list of some facts you know about your partner. Then build a list of information you don’t know about your partner.
2. Have your partner do the same.
3. Now go ask each other about the facts you have and see how up-to-date they are. Then ask each other the questions you both created.

It sounds simple, but it makes a HUGE impact on your connection.

In my work with Sandra and David, building Love Maps helped them update tons of information about each other—it led to them being able to talk about minor issues and move on to bigger issues while understanding that the key wasn’t finding solutions but instead building better Love Maps.

What difference could updating your Love Maps make in your relationship? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear some questions you have for your partner.