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Your marriage
What keeps a marriage well is not the big gestures. It is knowing each other, turning towards each other in ordinary moments, staying regulated when it gets hot, and repairing quickly when it goes wrong. Most of the practices here take under five minutes.
Narrowed down
7 practicesApproach · Core
When they are upset, move physically closer before you say anything.
Nearness often comforts before any words can, and asks nothing in return.
Ask which kind of support they want today rather than deciding for them.
Sometimes it is help, sometimes only company; asking spares you both the wrong gift.
Before you respond, say back what you heard them mean.
Being understood, even before being agreed with, settles almost everything.
Say out loud which part of today belongs to work, not to them.
Before you walk in, name it: this is the deadline, not my marriage. Then tell them you arrived depleted, so they do not read your flatness as…
Before you reply to something that stung, quietly rate how stirred up you are, one to ten.
Naming the number makes the feeling something you are watching, rather than something driving you.
Breathe out for longer than you breathe in, six slow times, before you answer.
A longer out-breath settles the body first, so your words come from a calmer place.
Give any reply to a difficult message a full hour before you send it.
An hour is usually enough for the sting to fade and your kinder, clearer self to return.