6-Hours a Week to a Happier Marriage

The Magic Six Hours as shown in the diagram below, is a formula that Gottman developed from years of watching couples in his marriage studio. Following up on those same marriages years later, he made the discovery that the marriages who devoted at least 6 hours a week to doing the following, helped to manage stress and conflict in their marriages because they learned how to work together as a team.

What you do when you part for the day, see each other at the end of a day, how you offer appreciation and admiration for each, how you show affection for each other, how you communicate to each other, and spend time together on date nights, are things you can work on as couple every day/week to bring more harmony, love, appreciation, emotional closeness and fulfillment in your marriage. It only takes 6 hours a week! The six hours are even broken down for you in the above chart! We can all find 6 hours a week to create amazing relationships with our partners. For example, in my own marriage, my husband and I always send each other off with a hug and a kiss, receive each other after work with another hug and kiss and we use this as a check in with each other. We tell each other what we admire, appreciate and are grateful for each day. This keeps affection in our marriage alive and well. We make every Friday night our date night and we connect on an emotional level during our time together. It really is a simple 6 hours a week to a happier marriage!

H. Wallace Goddard’s approach to a healthy, happy marriage from his book “Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage” is to always show love and kindness towards your spouse. He shares a quote from Marvin J. Ashton, who explains this principle well: "Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down." (Goddard 116)

Goddard talks a lot about having charity in our marriages. So, what does it look like in marriage? He shares that “Rather than re-working our partners to our liking, we are invited to cover their weaknesses with our charity! God is serious about cultivating our charity. Irritations with our partners are not a challenge to diplomacy as much as to our charity. There are no right words when our hearts are wrong.”  (Goddard 126) 

A key to having charity in our marriages is our hearts. What shape are our hearts towards our spouse? Are we forgiving, kind, tolerant, and lovable, or critical, demanding, resentful and annoyed? Goddard continues by saying, “We should enjoy and appreciate our partners. We should forgive them of their humanness. The single most promising marriage-fixing effort is not tinkering with our partners' characters; it is in loving, cherishing, and appreciating them!” (Goddard 127) We need to be “…moving from frustration and judgment to appreciation and love-to charity…” (Goddard 129)

We do this by looking for “good qualities and kind deeds” that our partner demonstrates. If we are only looking their imperfections, we lose sight of their goodness. He states, “Notice the good. Appreciate it.” (Goddard 130)

I would add to his statement the importance to focus on and share verbally, the things you appreciate and admire about your spouse, just like Gottman’s chart above encourages us to do.

Goddard shares that if we are struggling to have charity, which is unconditional love for our spouse, we need to “Pray with all the energy of heart for charity. Make it the desire of your heart.  According to the scriptures, we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4: 19). The same can apply to marriage. Our partners will love us because we first love them. Love first. Don't wait to be loved. “(Goddard 130) Charity is the pure love of Christ and when we can love Jesus Christ, we can learn to love others too.

One last thought about charity and how it relates to marriages by Jimmy Townsend, who joked that "marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, meekness and a great many other things you wouldn't need if you had stayed single. We need those qualities whether married or single, but marriage is God's finishing school for the godly soul. Marriage is ordained to stretch and refine us.” (Goddard 133-134)

References

Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (2015). The seven principles for making marriage work (2nd ed.). New York: Harmony Books.

H.W. Goddard. (2009). Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage. Cedar Hills, UT: Joymap Publishing.

Photo Credit: https://www.gottman.com/blog/6-hours-a-week-to-a-better-relationship/