I bet if I could bottle up the secret to having a happy marriage, it would sell like hotcakes. After all there is a lot to be said about a happy marriage and we all aspire to have one. To this end, there is an entire self-help genre related to helping you discover the secrets to a happy marriage. But there is one secret that has found some foundation through a study performed by the Harvard Medical School.
Empathy & Affection
This may not sound like much of a revelation, but couples who express deep empathy and affection for each other – who feel the pain the other feels, who feel the joy the other feels and who express great affection for each other in all things – will have a happier marriage.
This is easier said than done, but it does mean we need to literally feel the pain of our spouse. We need to respect and understand their feelings. That means when they are upset about a topic – even if we don’t feel that same upset ourselves – we need to feel their pain. We need to respect that their feelings are hurt, aggrieved or even angered.
Once, in a conversation with a mutual friend that I was having a disagreement with – my husband told them quite firmly that – right or wrong, whether my feelings were mistaken in origin or exaggerated in some fashion – they were my feelings and he was on my side. Now privately, he let me vent and once he’d expressed that he did understand how I felt, I asked him if he thought I was right.
He told me he could understand my feelings and that while he did see that I was upset, he shared his point of view on the disagreement. Because he could empathize with my perspective and my feelings, I was able to listen to what parts he did not agree with and he helped me to see a viewpoint that I couldn’t.
When we talk about feeling empathy and affection – this is what we mean. Even in the heat of our most vitriolic disagreements – that affection is still there. We still love each other and somewhere in the middle of every disagreement – we begin fighting just as hard to repair the relationship, because we don’t like to fight with each other.
So do you and your spouse have the secret to a happy marriage?
Related Articles:
Don’t Quarrel in Front of the Kids
Problem Solving: Resolving Together