Areas › Your marriage › Fondness and admiration
When your spouse comes up in conversation today, say something good, or say nothing.
The affectionate word behind their back becomes what you feel to their face. Guard it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Those who love to see indecency spread among the believers will have a painful punishment (Qur'an 24:19). Guarding a spouse's name is the opposite, and a mercy.
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ يُحِبُّونَ أَن تَشِيعَ ٱلۡفَٰحِشَةُ فِي ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ لَهُمۡ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمࣱ فِي ٱلدُّنۡيَا وَٱلۡأٓخِرَةِۚ وَٱللَّهُ يَعۡلَمُ وَأَنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ
A painful punishment waits in this world and the next for those who like indecency to spread among the believers: God knows and you do not
Qur’an 24:19read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
What you say about your spouse when they are absent slowly becomes what you feel when they are present. Protecting their name protects your own affection.
Gottman, J.; Levenson, R. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: Behavior, physiology, and health.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology doi
Interaction patterns and physiological arousal predicting dissolution.
Strength of evidence: research links. Replicated observational or longitudinal work.
Why it works
How you speak of a partner to others shapes your own private regard for them.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Share Fondness and Admiration.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.