Areas › Your marriage › Rituals of connection
Mark one milestone together this month, however small, rather than letting it pass.
The anniversary, the finished project, the hard season survived. Pause and honour it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
If you are grateful, I will give you more (Qur'an 14:7). Marking a blessing is gratitude, and gratitude is met with increase.
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
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Unmarked, the good passes without weight. Pausing to honour a milestone together turns time into a shared story worth remembering.
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
Rituals around milestones weave a couple's shared history and gratitude.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Turn Toward; Rituals of Connection.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.