Friendship: Level One - Build Love Maps

​In this subchapter, we’ll cover the first principle or level of becoming friends in marriage by building love maps.

Friendship
“The foundation of a strong relationship is friendship. The first three levels of the Sound Relationship House describe different aspects of friendship.” -  Penner, p. 13 

Friend Defined
A friend is a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.
 
“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.”  - Gottman, p.21
 

Level One: Build Love Maps
“The first level is “Build Love Maps.” This is how well you know one another; how well you know your partner’s inner psychological world, his or her worries, stresses, joys, and dreams. Good friends share their lives with each other and ask open-ended questions to find out about important events in each other’s lives and how their partner feels about them. Building love maps is about communicating and listening to one another in order to stay connected. As time goes by, likes may turn into dislikes, favorite pastimes may have lost interest, and circumstances may have changed life dreams. Having a detailed love map is the ability to understand these changes and to maintain a detailed familiarity of each other’s world.”  - Penner, p. 13
 
“Without such a love map, you can’t really know your spouse. And if you don’t really know someone, how can you truly love them? – Gottman, p. 54
 
Scriptures: Psalms 139; Matthew 6:31-32; Matthew 10:30
 
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Exercises
Beginning on page 56 of Gottman’s Seven Principles are the exercises to build love maps.
                Love Map Questionnaire
                Exercise I: The Love Map 20 Questions Game
                Exercise II: Asking Open-Ended Questions
                Exercise III: Who Am I?
                                My Triumphs and Strivings
                                Injuries and Healing
                                My Emotional World
                                My Mission and Legacy
                                Who I Want to Become