How to Create a Marriage of Appreciation

How to create a marriage of appreciation in your marriage…by saying, noticing, and expressing affection and respect for all the little (and big) things each of you do. This matters!

Dr. John Gottman has researched successful relationships and what he found is that marriages with an environment of appreciation are able to ward off disrespect and contempt in their relationship.

I’ll focus another relationship article on disrespect and contempt. But for today, I’d like to focus on creating a relationship that focuses on building appreciation in your marriage. It’s just so important and can really help couples struggling in this area.

Let’s look at a creating a marriage of appreciation through adding affection in your marriage:

Affectionate appreciation can look like – just one possible example:

“Honey, this morning when you made me coffee even though you were in a hurry, was such a lovely and kind gesture.”

Let’s look at creating a marriage of appreciation through adding respect in your marriage:

” Honey, you are so courageous each and every day with how you can say directly what’s on your mind. I really admire you.”

Changing the Focus to Help Create a Marriage of Appreciation

What you focus on matters. There is a saying that what you focus on tends to grow…same is true in your marriage. If you are focused on seeing all that you do for each other, the positivity you feel toward each other will grow.

If you look for all the things you admire in your spouse, this will grow too. And if you make a ritual of expressing this appreciation toward each other, it will grow too.

Marriage Counseling & Couples Therapy Can Help

Please reach out if you are struggling with this. Once you have the tools needed to construct your marital house wrapped in appreciation, you can begin to see changes that can have the potential to improve your marriage.