Areas › Your marriage › Shared spiritual life
Speak about the future today as we, not I, in one thing you mention to your spouse.
When we are older, the home we are making. Language that assumes a shared road ahead.
Qur’an and Sunnah
They pray, our Lord, grant us joy in our spouses and offspring (Qur'an 25:74). To speak of a shared future is to pray it, softly.
وَٱلَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا هَبۡ لَنَا مِنۡ أَزۡوَٰجِنَا وَذُرِّيَّٰتِنَا قُرَّةَ أَعۡيُنࣲ وَٱجۡعَلۡنَا لِلۡمُتَّقِينَ إِمَامًا
those who pray, ‘Our Lord, give us joy in our spouses and offspring. Make us good examples to those who are aware of You’
Qur’an 25:74read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
How a couple talks about the future quietly shapes it. Saying we, and meaning it, tells your partner the road ahead is one you are walking together.
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
Speaking of a shared future signals and strengthens commitment.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Create Shared Meaning.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.