Lynchburg Living

"Just a Thought..."

By Jon Dupin

Let’s face it: Marriage is hard work. There has to be an almost viscous drive to fight through boredom, business and major setbacks to get to the great stuff. Otherwise, the marriage goes into survival mode, or worse, it becomes another court date and lawyer fee.

These are three questions I ask my wife regularly to make sure we still fight for vitality and stay out of “survival mode”:

1) What can I do better?

This question always makes me wince a little, because it opens my male ego up to possible collapse, but I ask it anyway. If my wife knows she is given permission at scheduled intervals to coach me as her husband and our children’s father, then wisdom often emerges over frustration. She doesn’t have to calculate when the planets will perfectly align in order to discuss my recent return to emotional aloofness or my ADD on house projects. Those things regularly go on the “What-Jon-Can-Do-Better” list.

While I don’t require it, she often returns the favor and asks me the same question. Sometimes I oblige her and other times I don’t. Either way, something crazy starts to happen when we ask this simple question of one another – we start getting better at being together.

2) If you were me, what would you do?

Here’s a question that helps diffuse an impasse or argument that is heading for nuclear. Stop, breathe and give your spouse the opportunity to experience this whole situation from your point-of-view. If you were me, what would you do? Your spouse is then given the chance to do two things at once: 1) Describe to you how they hoped you would have handled a situation, and 2) It helps them get into your skin voluntarily, instead of being forced to see it your way. You’ll be surprised how clarity shows up sooner rather than later, and often with less collateral damage.

3) What do you love about me?

This is really a trick question, because it’s more about them than you. Let me explain. When your spouse takes the time to reflect and verbalize what they love about you, then you discover how your love gets noticed the most by him or her; what makes him or her feel loved. She might say, “I love when you send me a random text about how beautiful you think I am.” And yet, she may never mention that you clear off the table after dinner every night.

He might say, “I love when you show me affection without prompting,” but he may never mention how incredible you make the flowerbed look in the spring. It doesn’t mean that the things left unmentioned are not important; it’s just not where your love is transmitted the most. Subconsciously, your spouse is revealing that love is greater felt by what rises to the top of his or her “What-I-Love-About-You” list. Of course, keep up the clean up and flowerbeds, but you definitely want to maximize the affirming words and unprompted kisses, because that is often how love is highlighted most.

Jon Dupin is the lead pastor at Brentwood Church in Lynchburg. Read more from Jon at www.jondupin.com.