3 Tiny Marriage Habits That Will Make You More Committed Than 99% Of Couples
How to show your partner the love they deserve.
Tani Eisenstein | Unsplash Our committed love relationships are the greatest tools of spirituality we have.
As a relationship coach who is also married, I believe that our most important relationships can be the greatest tools we have to help us become our best selves.
Doesn’t it make sense that in committed relationships, where trust and loyalty are central, endless opportunities for genuine growth would naturally emerge?
The real measure of our spiritual life is most evident in how we love and commit to our partners in our healthy relationships.
We all like to see ourselves as loving people, who care about the environment and the future of the planet. We can convince ourselves that we are doing well, emotionally and spiritually, because we pray, meditate regularly, or volunteer at the local soup kitchen.
But, the real measure of our emotional and spiritual health lies in the way we treat and love the people in our most important relationships.
Let's face it, it is so much easier to love the world ideologically than it is to love a real husband who is snoring on the couch or a wife who is nagging about the dishes.
But, it is precisely why with these people, at those moments, that we can clearly see how loving, forgiving, kind, and accepting we really are.
Our partners act as mirrors by reflecting back to us the best and the worst in ourselves.
We see ourselves most honestly when we're confronted by another person who has expectations and needs that require our investment, effort, and commitment to meet.
We see who we are in the choices we make all day long — choices like whether or not to follow our conscience, to prefer the needs of another before our own, or to give when we just don’t feel like it.
It is only in a relationship that is committed and healthy that we can see how capable we are of genuinely loving and respecting another person.
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Noticing, appreciating, and embracing these opportunities allow us to recognize how our partnerships can function in very real and substantial ways as part of our spiritual practice and growth.
How we look at our relationships often determines what we experience and what we learn.
What would it be like if we saw our most important relationships as the actual path to our wholeness? What would happen if we saw our healthy relationship and marriage as transformative practices?
First of all, we might treat our partners very differently! Secondly, if we looked at healthy relationships as central to our spiritual growth, we would naturally begin to pay more attention to our actions and attitudes.
Paying attention is the essence of having a spiritual perspective. When we see our relationships as central to our growth, challenges morph into opportunities, and our partnerships become the places where our most significant growth occurs.
Our goal is to become more loving and accepting of the people we love the most, and there are 3 simple ways to show our commitment.
Here are 3 tiny habits that will make you more committed than most couples:
1. Choose to act in ways that move us in the direction of connection and love
2. Treat our relationships as laboratories for our daily spiritual practice
3. View our relationships as opportunities for us to move closer to the spiritual people we are trying to become
Connection and intimacy require huge amounts of honesty and courage.
The things that we want the most, like connection and intimacy, require huge amounts of honesty and courage.
Courage is essential to spiritual growth. To truly live life well, and to build partnerships with our core values at their center, vulnerability and courage are essential ingredients.
When we approach our relationships in this way, we become true spiritual partners, who are both working on themselves and encouraging and supporting growth in each other.
Viewed in this way, our spiritual and emotional growth can't exist separately from our important relationships.
Rather, it becomes an integral part of it. In a loving, committed relationship, we practice intentionality, restraint, and appreciation of each other every day.
As spiritual people, we work at providing support, validation, and love to our partners.
In this very practical and substantial way, our partnerships naturally become an essential part of our authentic spiritual practice.
Debby Gullery is a speaker and relationship coach with over 25 years of experience coaching and teaching relationship and marriage seminars. She is the author of Small Steps to Bigger Love.