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Areas › Your marriage › Knowing your partner
Someone has to move first. Let it be you, with one honest, undefended sentence.
Believers are told to speak in a direct fashion and to good purpose. Going first with one honest, undefended sentence is that command taken at its word.
طه
فَقُولَا لَهُۥ قَوۡلࣰ ا لَّيِّنࣰ ا لَّعَلَّهُۥ يَتَذَكَّرُ أَوۡ يَخۡشَىٰ
Speak to him gently so that he may take heed, or show respect.’
Qur’an 20:44read it in the library
الأحزاب
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَقُولُواْ قَوۡلࣰ ا سَدِيدࣰ ا
Believers, be mindful of God, speak in a direct fashion and to good purpose
Qur’an 33:70read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
The bonding conversation only starts when one partner risks something soft before it feels safe to. One honest, undefended sentence gives your spouse a way to meet you, since a standoff holds for as long as you both wait.
Susan M. Johnson (2008). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Little, Brown
Conversation 4, Hold Me Tight. The bonding conversation: each partner states the attachment need plainly, hold me, tell me I matter, and the other answers it. Johnson holds this reach and response is the change event of the therapy, not a by-product of it.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
One partner risking vulnerability invites the other to do the same.
Where this sits: EFT, Hold Me Tight Conversation 4: taking the first undefended risk.