What in the world is a Love Map? In his book, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” (2015) Gottman describes them as a portion of your brain that is dedicated to the most important person in your life: your spouse (p. 54). Page 56 and 57 of his book continue with a questionnaire regarding this intricate map of memory. Questions include things such as their favorite music (question 8) and thoughts of your spouses knowledge about yourself.
I have this thing with new books where I immediately begin flicking through them the moment they enter my hands. I also sniff the pages, but that is irrelevant. When the Gottman book entered my hands, there was no difference (yes, even the sniffing). I happened to turn to this questionnaire on my first opening of the book. For fun, I did it with my husband and was surprised of how close we had become in 5 years of marriage.
In the last five years, I have learned that my new best friend in life had become this quirky weirdo I fell in love with. Why do I still fight with my best friend? No, our marriage isn’t perfect. I think the biggest reason lies in this love map proposed by Gottman. While we have grown more in love and more deeply involved in every aspect of our lives, we have stopped striving to learn those gnitty gritty details about each other.
In exercise 3 of the same book, beginning on page 62, we find a questionnaire about you. While looking at this, I learned that after having kids, I lost myself. My husband figured this out about me as well. I found the questions extremely difficult to answer from my heart. I found that my interest in my marriage had become stagnant because my interest in myself had done the same.
Marriage is so important and I value and love mine. Gottman taught me that I also need to value the “me” portion of my marriage. I don’t mean going off some adventure or going on a crazed spending spree to to do so. I mean valuing and finding time to not only asking and seeking more information about every inch of your spouse’s mind, as well as pondering your own thoughts.
To Eternity and Beyond 