Daniel and Christina discuss strategies for deepening love in your relationship. They explore how to address complaints constructively, repair conflicts, and avoid contempt. They also highlight the role of physical touch, expressing gratitude, and the power of forgiveness in strengthening marital bonds. The episode provides practical advice and personal insights for couples looking to enhance their relationship and foster a deeper connection.
In This Episode, You'll Hear About The Following:
- Addressing complaints without blame in a marriage
- Repairing conflicts and distinguishing between solvable and perpetual conflicts
- Sticking to the issues during arguments and avoiding contemptuous behaviour
- Understanding underlying emotions and addressing unmet needs in relationships
- Extending the time between feeling, thinking, and speaking in a relationship
- The significance of physical touch and the impact of oxytocin on reducing stress hormones
- Growing fondness and admiration in a marriage through gratitude and appreciation
- Seeking to understand before seeking to be understood and the role of forgiveness
- Practicing apologizing and forgiving in a marriage
Timestamps:
Share your complaint without pointing fingers (00:07:41) Discussing the difference between sharing complaints and criticizing your spouse, emphasizing the importance of addressing specific issues.
Repair conflicts with skill (00:11:14) Exploring the concept of solvable and perpetual conflicts in relationships and the significance of addressing and bouncing back from disagreements.
Stick to talking about the issues at hand (00:12:37) Emphasizing the importance of avoiding name-calling, personal attacks, and contempt in arguments, and the need to understand underlying emotions.
The impact of contempt on relationships (00:15:07) Exploring the destructive nature of contempt in relationships, its role as a predictor of divorce, and the need to avoid displaying contemptuous behavior.
Recognizing and addressing signs of contempt (00:16:26) Discussing how contempt can develop over time in relationships and the importance of recognizing and addressing signs of contemptuous behavior.
Moving toward reconciliation and repairing (00:17:26) Highlighting the significance of acknowledging and apologizing for displaying contemptuous behavior and moving towards reconciliation and repairing the relationship.
Extending the space between feelings and thoughts (00:17:48) Discussing how to extend the time between feeling anger and reacting, to respond instead.
Showing love through physical touch (00:19:26) Exploring the benefits of physical touch in relationships and the impact of a six-second kiss.
Growing fondness and admiration (00:21:18) Encouraging the practice of expressing gratitude and appreciation for one's spouse's positive qualities.
Seeking first to understand and then to be understood (00:23:04) Emphasizing the importance of active listening and understanding in communication.
Practicing apologizing and forgiving (00:28:19) Discussing the significance of forgiveness and the process of seeking and granting forgiveness in relationships.
Conclusion and episode recap (00:31:56) Summarizing the six ways to deepen love in marriage and expressing gratitude to the audience.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Learn the difference between perpetual and solvable conflicts and how to handle each of them:
- A Conflict-Free Marriage Is Not The Goal
- How To Fight With Your Spouse Without Ruining Your Marriage
- How To Repair Your Relationship After A Big Fight
Learn about the importance of turning toward your spouse and responding to their "bids"
For the full show notes, including discussion prompts for you as a couple about this episode, go to IMbetween.org/episode179
Connect with us on:
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.