Cultivate a Culture of Appreciation

Who doesn't love to be appreciated? Even if someone says they don't love it, deep down, they really do J

One important way to build a healthier relationship and marriage is to Cultivate a Culture of Appreciation.

This is how you do it:

“Building a culture of appreciation, fondness, and admiration involves using the things you know about your partner to show that you care and want them to be happy. Positive thoughts invoke positive feelings, and the goal is to turn both into positive actions that help to heal and bring companionship back in your relationship” (Lisitsa, 2014).

I would hope that one of the many reasons you choose to marry your spouse is that you love and appreciate them more than anything. Well, don’t keep those feelings a secret! Do everything you can to let them know that you love and appreciate them. Have them take the Love Languages Quiz if you do not know how they like to be shown love.

One way that Nate helps us cultivate a culture of appreciation is by doing literally anything he can to make me happy. He will say and do the most ridiculous, cute, and funny things to get me to smile and laugh. I feel how much he loves and appreciates me when he does this. It is obvious to me that he cares about me and my happiness. He does what he can to be there for me even during the time when he hasn’t been able to physically be there for me. And when he is physically there for me, he does everything he can to take care of me. I wanted to include the picture you see below because it shows how he makes me feel loved and appreciated. Notice a few things: I am wearing his jacket, he is holding ice cream that he bought because I was craving some, and this is after he took me to the movies. These are all small things, but they mean so much and make me feel so loved and special J

I try to do my part to cultivate our culture of appreciation. It will be so much easier and more rewarding when we are actually living in the same state, but we still have managed from different states. During one conversation Nate was talking about how much he loves the movie “The Incredibles” and how awesome it would be to have the Toy Story series on DVD. A couple of days later I decided to see if those movies were on Amazon. And they were, for a really great price. So, I ordered them and sent them to him without telling him. This action showed that I listen to him, care about him, and think about him.

 “When you take the time to notice and express what your partner does that makes your life easier, makes you smile, or reminds why you were attracted to them in the first place, they feel validated. And validation is a powerful thing: we all love for our actions to be accepted and appreciated, and want to be honored and respected” (Lisitsa, 2014).

I invite each of you to find ways to cultivate a culture of appreciation in your marriage. Tell your spouse how much you love and appreciate them. I promise they will not get tired of hearing it. Think of something special you can do this week that shows how much you love and care about them.

References

Lisitsa, E. (2014). Weekend homework assignment: Building a culture of appreciation. Retrieved from https://www.gottman.com/blog/weekendhomework-assignment-building-a-culture-of-appreciation/.