The world renown Clinical Psychologist and Marriage and Family Researchers John Gottman and Nan Silver wrote the book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” that I believe todays couples are well advised to try as much as possible to live by. The principles are: Enhance your love map. A love map is a person’s knowledge of the inner world of his or her partner. How well a person knows his or her partner’s history, worries, stresses, joys, and hopes denotes how detailed a love map is. The couples who make their marriages work have a richly detailed love map of each other. Nurture your fondness and admiration. The happy couples have an admiration, fondness, and overall positive view of each other. Admiration and fondness are two of the most important dynamics in successful marriages. If these are absent from a marriage, the marriage cannot be saved. Turn toward each other instead of away. There is great importance of real-life romance in marriages that work. Real-life romance is expressed in the everyday little things such as letting your partner know he or she is valued. Calling your partner and encouraging him or her, for example, or choosing to listen to your partner’s difficulties can make the difference between a happy marriage and an unhappy one. Let your partner influence you. This is the principle that happy couples work together and form a team based on consideration for each other’s feelings and perspective. Allowing your partner to influence you is a sign of respect and shared control. This is particularly important for men as normally women will easily allow men they respect to influence them. Gottman rightly observes that “ an emotionally intelligent husband accepts his wife’s influence”! Solve your solvable problems. Some problems can’t be solved but many can and knowing the difference is crucial to good marriages. Some problems are solvable and some are perpetual. Solvable problems are less painful or intense than perpetual problems. Solvable problems are situational and are usually based in arguments about housecleaning, sex, or parenting. Perpetual problems are deeper and are often based on significant differences in personality, values, and lifestyle. Perpetual problems include feeling rejected by your partner; one or both partners being critical, harsh, belittling, and stubborn; feeling like nothing ever changes, and the couple finds themselves gridlocked. Overcome gridlock. This gridlock comes from unfulfilled dreams that are not being addressed or respected by each other. The goal is to begin discussing the issues underlying the unfulfilled dreams and helping the other partner to move toward making those dreams come true. Create shared meaning. Gottman teaches that marriage is more than the tasks and goals of raising a family and living together. Couples in marriages that work create a shared inner life, develop a shared family culture, are open to each other’s perspective, and share an appreciation for the roles and goals that link them together. At the heart of the Seven Principles approach is the simple truth that happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company. These couples tend to know each other intimately—they are well versed in each other’s likes, dislikes, personality quirks, hopes, and dreams. They have an abiding regard for each other and express this fondness not just in the big ways but through small gestures day in and day out. Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse. Such a strong friendship helps the marriage survive despite the inevitable disagreements and irritations of married life, as they are experiencing what is known technically as “positive sentiment override”. This means that their positive thoughts about each other and their marriage are so pervasive that they tend to supersede their negative feelings. It takes a much more significant conflict for them to lose their equilibrium as a couple than it would otherwise. Their positivity causes them to feel optimistic about each other and their marriage, to have positive expectations about their lives together, and to give each other the benefit of the doubt. As couples therefore let us ensure we keep our marriages “set” at a high degree of positivity as it will take far more negativity to harm our relationships than if our “set point” is much lower as this would mean our marriage relationships become overwhelmingly negative and it will be more difficult to maintain or even repair. Peter Mugi Kuruga Marriage and Family Counsellor/Therapist FIVE WAYS A HUSBAND CAN MAKE HIS WIFE APPRECIATE HIM SEXUALLY Published: 04 October 2021Written by Peter MugiCategory: Our Blog / Counselling of couples FIVE WAYS A HUSBAND CAN MAKE HIS WIFE APPRECIATE HIM SEXUALLY In a marriage relationship, the attitudes spouses have toward each other can be powerful, especially with sex. And while our desire as men is often to try igniting passion into our relationship, the main goal no matter what should be how to love your wife well. The way a husband carries himself with his wife sexually can be crucial to her feelings of love and self-worth. And our wives should always feel loved and appreciated, never used. Here are 5 ways a husband can make his wife feel good about sex that can have a huge impact on her, for either good or bad. A husband has the power and ability to make his wife feel good by: Cherished Remember how you wanted to treat your wife on your honeymoon? The soft kisses on the forehead, the polite manners at the table, and the intentional intimacy and physical touch you cultivated between the two of you throughout each day? And then the closing climax of full sexual intimacy at night? You were on your best behavior because your aim was to please. And this made your wife feel cherished. Many of those same things still make her feel cherished today. Are you doing them? Beautiful “A husband needs to express how beautiful his wife is both inside and out on a regular basis.” Nowhere other than the marriage relationship does God give permission for such full exposure and transparency. A husband needs to express how beautiful his wife is both inside and out on a regular basis. Introduce her to your friends as, “My awesome, beautiful wife.” Communicate how valuable she is. Nothing does the job like unconditional, generous, spontaneous love. Make sure your kids know how special and lovely their mother is. They will repackage those sentiments. The truth will leak out and do its work. And it’s not just enough for him to say it; she needs to believe it, both when she is clothed and when she is not. Sufficient Most wives sincerely desire to be sufficient sexually for their husbands, but often, a guy fails to clearly express to his wife that she is everything he wants. Men, our wives need to know that they are sufficient to meet our every sexual desire, and we need to tell them that. Yes, as a man, your drive is often higher than hers, which can lead to some natural tension. But we also need to remember that while sex meets primarily a physical need for us, it often meets more of an emotional need for her. While sex is more about the act for us, for her, it’s more about how we treat her beyond just the act, both before and after. Objectified Sometimes, without even realizing it, a husband can give the wrong vibes to his wife, like when he brings unrealistic expectations into the marriage and treats sex like something he’s owed. This can quickly cause his wife to feel objectified rather than cherished. Just as a husband longs for his wife to know and understand his needs and desires, it is equally important that he is seeking to do the same for her. Abused While no husband should ever abuse his wife in any way, it sadly happens. One of the ways we can make sure to avoid it ever happening through us is to remember that wives are not sexual servants of whom we get to make demands. Sex is a beautiful and consensual gift that should be treated as such. And physical touch within a marriage should often be sexual, but never forceful. Our wives have been given to us to love and cherish. The way we treat them verbally, physically, and sexually plays a huge role in that.