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Areas › Your marriage › Listening and understanding
Hiding your reality to protect them keeps you strangers. Let them know you.
God brought their hearts together (Quran 8:63). Hearts are joined by opening to one another, a closeness only He fully makes.
الأنفال
وَأَلَّفَ بَيۡنَ قُلُوبِهِمۡۚ لَوۡ أَنفَقۡتَ مَا فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ جَمِيعࣰ ا مَّآ أَلَّفۡتَ بَيۡنَ قُلُوبِهِمۡ وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ أَلَّفَ بَيۡنَهُمۡۚ إِنَّهُۥ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمࣱ
and with the believers, and brought their hearts together. Even if you had given away everything in the earth you could not have done this, but God brought them together: God is mighty and wise
Qur’an 8:63read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Gottman's love maps run in both directions, so telling your partner about your day and your worries matters as much as asking about theirs. Hiding your inner world to protect them is what keeps two people strangers.
John M. Gottman; Nan Silver (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Crown
Principle 1, Enhance Your Love Map. Emotionally intelligent couples keep a detailed internal map of the partner's world, their worries, hopes, history and daily pressures, and that stored knowledge is what keeps them oriented to each other when life changes.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Ongoing honest self-disclosure is what keeps two people knowing, and bonded to, each other.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Build Love Maps (self-disclosure); How to Be a Great Listener.