You are made for love. Because of the brokenness of our world, you may have forgotten what true love, healthy love, looks like. Let me remind you what you already know deep down.
Love is built on promises that are proven through action over time. There are many promises that strengthen love. Here are the most essential four:
When you commit to living out these four promises, you provide a secure, trustworthy base for your partner and invite your partner into the kind of marriage that can withstand the many storms of life.
I am here with you.
Choose to be present with your spouse, to join him or her physically and emotionally, even when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient. This kind of love strengthens intimacy and heals the lonely heart.
How do you live this out?
- Tune in
- Make a daily habit of learning more about your spouse. Seek to be the expert on your spouse’s heart. What brings him/her joy? What’s his/her greatest challenge? What’s something s/he is learning? In his book The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work, marriage researcher John Gottman calls this making a “love map” of your partner’s inner world.
- Turn toward
- When your spouse reaches out to you, respond kindly, instead of irritably or not at all. In one of the research studies detailed in his book Principia Amoris, Gottman found that couples who ended up happily married responded to each other’s small “bids” for connection 86% of the time, while couples who ended up divorcing responded to each other only 33% of the time.
- Open up
- Share your vulnerable feelings and needs. Let your partner become the expert on you. This may mean that you take the time to get to know your own feelings, needs, and longings so that you can share them with your spouse. Deep connection happens when we join each another moment to moment, allowing our partners to rejoice with us when we rejoice and mourn with us when we mourn.
- Show up
- When your spouse is in need, support him/her. Be the primary person your partner seeks when he or she is in distress. According to Dr. Stephen Porges, who created the leading theory for understanding how danger affects the human body, “safety is not the absence of danger, but the presence of comfort.” When your spouse feels threatened, your empathy and comforting touch can calm his/her body and provide a physiological buffer against the traumatic effects of stress.
Partners who fail to connect emotionally slowly turn each other into strangers. Gottman’s research shows that these emotionally disconnected pairs divorce in an average of 16.2 years.
I am safe for you.
This promise is a powerful tool to keep arguments from escalating. When you and your spouse disagree, remind your partner (and yourself) that you are not trying to hurt him/her but are committed to treating him/her safely.
What this looks like:
- Notice that your partner is hurt. (You’ll be able to tell because your partner will seem angry, distant, or hurtful toward you.)
- Avoid “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” These are four very tempting but extremely corrosive fighting tactics identified by marriage researcher John Gottman:
- Criticism – attacking your partner’s character instead of addressing a single incident
- Defensiveness – explaining why you’re right instead of acknowledging your partner’s hurt
- Contempt – treating your partner as ridiculous, rather than maintaining respect
- Stonewalling – shutting your partner out instead of asking for space to calm down
- Apologize and make amends quickly when you’ve hurt your partner (even accidentally). It’s not about who’s right or wrong, but being safe enough to solve the problem together.
- Reassure your partner that you care about his/her feelings and that you are committed to communicating in a non-hurtful way. Let your partner explain what s/he needs in order to feel safe while discussing this conflict with you.
- Ask for what will make you feel safe, after doing what it takes to help your partner feel safe first.
- Voice and take a time out (20 min to 2 hr) to calm down if you’re too angry to communicate safely.
- Reengage after the time out to finish the discussion safely.
According to master therapist Dan Wile, when you argue harshly without regard to your partner’s feelings, you turn your spouse into an enemy. Gottman’s research shows that these marriages dissolve quickly, in an average of 5.6 years.
I want us both to win.
In a healthy marriage there is only one viable solution to any conflict between you and your spouse: both of you must get your needs met–may be not perfectly, but at least good enough. Refuse to win at your partner’s expense.
How to live this out:
- Believe.
- Believe that, in God’s abundance, there will be a way for both of you to get your needs met adequately–even if it seems impossible right now.
- Don’t deceive.
- Commit to not keeping secrets from your spouse, especially about things you fear would make your partner feel hurt, angry, or afraid.
- Dig deep.
- Get curious about why you and your spouse each want what you want, especially when those desires seem opposed.
- What needs are underneath?
- What values?
- What dreams?
- Where do these come from? What earlier experiences made these so important?
- Exercise your creativity.
- Generate as many possible solutions as you can, without caring about how practical they seem.
- Pick one both of you can live with.
- Revisit the issue periodically and generate more ideas as needed.
- Stick to your guns.
- Refuse to feel good about any solution unless your partner feels good about it too.
The opposite attitude, believing that you win an argument when your partner loses, makes your marriage vulnerable to affairs. In fact, this attitude is so toxic that Gottman and his research partners observed that husbands in win-lose marriages actually died significantly earlier than those in other kinds of marriages. You can read more about Gottman’s fascinating research in Principia Amoris.
I will do whatever it takes.
Commit to grow. In their book Tell Me No Lies, leading marriage therapists Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson note from their experience that a person who commits to doing “whatever I can” to save a marriage often fails, because what is needed may be beyond his/her current abilities. The person who promises to do “whatever it takes” is willing to do the excruciating work of looking at his/her own shortcomings and developing new skills through painful, patient practice. This kind of love requires both determination and hope. As the Bible says, love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NIV)
Sometimes, doing “whatever it takes” means committing time and resources to regular marriage therapy. If you notice resentments or hurts that have lingered longer than 6 months or worsened over time, it’s time to take action to gain the skills to handle conflict without hurting your relationship.
The power of these promises
These promises form the backbone of what psychologists call a Secure Attachment. It is linked to healthy marriage as well as physical wellness. According to the book Attached, research shows that when even one person in a relationship loves in this way, it creates such safety that the other partner often learns to reciprocate and provide secure love in return.
The ultimate love of God
The good news is that God loves you in this way! Even if you’ve never received this kind of love from your partner or your parents, you can experience and learn secure love from the One who has known you before the beginning of time. Here’s what the Bible says about God’s stance toward you.
- I am here with you.
- “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matt 28:20)
- “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18)
- “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” (Hebrews 13:5)
- I am safe for you.
- “For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.” (Isaiah 25:4)
- “But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” (Psalm 3:3)
- “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” (Isaiah 40:11)
- I want us both to win.
- “Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” (Psalm 37:4)
- “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)
- “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:7)
- “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)
- I will do whatever it takes.
- “[Christ Jesus] humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:8)
- “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32)
You can learn how to love your partner securely by letting God first love you. As my seminary professor Dr. David Eckman loves to proclaim, God’s love is the ultimate love you were intended for. And God always has more than enough love to go around!
An easy reminder
If you’d like to encourage yourself or a loved one with a reminder of what healthy love is like, I’ve created a customizable wooden wall plaque with these four love promises. Or, you can download a FREE printable poster below.
May you live deeply and love deeply, friend.
Related posts
Want to read more about love? Check out my post about how to experience God’s love deeply. You can also learn more about marital risk factors or take the free Marriage Fitness Test to see how your relationship is doing.
Thank you for writing this! This post is amazing.
Thanks, Melody! 🙂 Glad it was helpful.