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Your marriage
What keeps a marriage well is not the big gestures. It is knowing each other, turning towards each other in ordinary moments, staying regulated when it gets hot, and repairing quickly when it goes wrong. Most of the practices here take under five minutes.
What works for this
Gottman on repair, and emotionally focused therapy
What separates couples who last is not the absence of conflict but what happens in the ordinary moments and whether repair gets through. Emotionally focused therapy works on the pattern the two of you fall into, not the thing being argued about.
One move, today
Notice one small overture from them today and answer it. Not a conversation, just turning towards it rather than past it.
What matches
4 practicesAsk a follow-up question instead of offering your own view.
Curiosity says you are still worth discovering; advice can quietly say the opposite.
Ask what makes them feel most cared for, and then believe the answer.
Our usual gestures are often for the person we imagine, not the one in front of us.
Ask them something you do not already know the answer to.
Today, ask your spouse one question you cannot predict the answer to. Not "how was your day." Something like: what are you quietly worried about this…
Learn how they were comforted as a child.
How someone was soothed long ago still shapes what feels like love now.