Areas › Your marriage › Knowing your partner
Notice one way your spouse has changed lately, and let your picture of them catch up.
People keep becoming someone new. Ask about the new thing rather than assuming the old.
Qur’an and Sunnah
In the remembrance of God hearts find rest (Qur'an 13:28). Attending to who your spouse is becoming is a small, steady remembrance.
ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ وَتَطۡمَئِنُّ قُلُوبُهُم بِذِكۡرِ ٱللَّهِۗ أَلَا بِذِكۡرِ ٱللَّهِ تَطۡمَئِنُّ ٱلۡقُلُوبُ
those who have faith and whose hearts find peace in the remembrance of God- truly it is in the remembrance of God that hearts find peace
Qur’an 13:28read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
The assumption that you already know your partner is usually half right and years out of date. Noticing the change keeps you close to the real person.
John Mordechai Gottman; Nan Silver (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work
Lay presentation of the Gottman Method: Love Maps, fondness and admiration, turning toward, accepting influence, solvable vs perpetual problems, shared meaning.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Partners drift when each stops updating who the other has become.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Build Love Maps.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.