Areas › Your marriage › Gratitude
Send them a message today naming one thing you are grateful for, with no occasion.
Unprompted gratitude, arriving in the middle of an ordinary day, lands especially softly.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Gratitude to people, in the Prophet ﷺ's teaching, is bound up with gratitude to God. A word of thanks needs no occasion to be worth sending.
وَإِذۡ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمۡ لَئِن شَكَرۡتُمۡ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمۡۖ وَلَئِن كَفَرۡتُمۡ إِنَّ عَذَابِي لَشَدِيدࣱ
Remember that He promised, “If you are thankful, I will give you more, but if you are thankless, My punishment is terrible indeed.” ’
Qur’an 14:7read it in the library
Narrated Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: He who does not thank the people is not thankful to Allah
Sunan Abi Dawud 4811graded sound, albanifull report
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Appreciation that arrives out of nowhere, on an ordinary afternoon, lands more softly than any scheduled kindness. Send it before the feeling passes.
ALGOE, S.; GABLE, S.; MAISEL, N. (2010). It's the little things: Everyday gratitude as a booster shot for romantic relationships. Personal Relationships doi
Daily-diary evidence for everyday gratitude effects.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Spontaneous appreciation refreshes the bond.
Where this sits: Gottman method, The Positive Perspective.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.