Love Maps: Navigating your mobile relationship
May 1 Written By Bec Buist
Amongst the many things my long suffering husband knows about me are these facts. One, I hate installing technology updates ( I mean I just mastered the old ones), and two, I am chronically lost —they ran out of hippocampus’s/hippocampi, that navigation part of the brain— before they got to me. As you could imagine, these errrr, “minor flaws”, cause trouble when the updates you chronically neglect to install are on your in-car satnav. This is particularly problematic in one of the world’s faster growing cities, Dubai. There, due to the flat terrain, sheer number of road workers, and more favourable night time temperatures, roads literally appear overnight—see, not all my fault. Mind you, they would sometimes disappear too. This was the case with a now abandoned flyover project. Hurriedly built by crews from either end, it failed to line up when it reached the middle by just a couple of metres—woops! I can see the sweat-drenched engineer on the edge of the flyover, proclaiming in his best Maxwell Smart voice, “missed it by that much.” Clearly accurate, up-to-date information is important for navigating the desert, but have you ever stopped to consider it’s importance in your relationship? Revered relationship researcher, Drs. John and Julie Gottman, emphasise that long-term successful relationships/marriages don’t survive because of an absence of conflict, good luck, or an extraordinary sex-life. They survive because the couple “know” each other, which forms the basis of a strong marital friendship. The Gottman’s refer to this intimate knowledge we have of our partners as our “love maps”. Of course they are not physical maps (thank goodness, I’d never be able to fold the jolly thing), but rather the cognitive space we devote to storing all the stuff that is important to our love partners, including their hopes, dreams, fears, and, of course their favourite type of cake (psst, it’s still cheesecake hunny!) But unfortunately, many of us get busy, complacent, or even too comfortable, and forget to run regular updates on our love maps. The result? Well, a relationship about as fun as being lost in the desert.
What are love maps?
Simply put, a “love map” is the knowledge you have about your love partner. It can be deep and meaningful stuff, like their grandest dreams or worst fears; fun stuff such as their favourite ice-cream flavour, favourite holiday or favourite romcom; or intimate stuff like— well, you decide. The Gottman’s suggest it is essentially a “map” of our partner’s inner world. You may remember as a young couple talking all night about everything from your favourite band, and fondest childhood memory, to your five year plan, and biggest insecurities. In these early stages of your relationship you were basically sketching out your partner’s love map. Interestingly, under the haze of romance, lust and hormones, we seemed to hang off each other’s every word. We easily remember our partner’s favourite song, how they like their oatmeal, and where they want to be in five years. We are genuinely curious about each other and make the effort to remember the stuff that is important to our partner. This is love mapping at its finest.
Why are love maps important?
The Gottman’s research has shown that an important feature of successful couples is that they are good friends. Having an accurate love map of your love partner helps build and strengthen this vital friendship. It also helps create a handy blueprint for navigating the inevitable ups and downs of a long-term relationship.
Why is updating our love maps so important?
We all know life happens—kids, mortgages, work deadlines, illness, financial pressures etc. With all this going on, many of us get lazy, or complacent, and don’t run updates on our “love maps”. Continually updating your love map —even with small bits of data e.g. they have a presentation they are worried about, or they have a new favourite TV series—can prevent you from losing touch with who your partner is. People change and grow—their dreams even change. This is a good thing, just so long as your partner-in-crime keeps up with the important changes. We’ve all heard stories of loving couples who have just “grown apart”, right? Staying curious, and continually learning about your partner not only demonstrates you’re invested in the relationship, but can also stave off boredom in your relationship. Trust me, even if you’ve been married for a long time, you can still learn more about your life-partner’s personal opinions, preferences, and errrr, “idiosyncrasies”. Adding more detail to your partner’s love map can strengthen a solid relationship, and even help revive a flailing one.
As the Gottmans point out, “Without a [detailed] love map, you can’t really know your spouse. And if you don’t really know someone, how can you truly love them?”
Signs your love maps might need some updating.
Whilst there are no strict rules about what your love map should contain, here are some signs the love map of your partner might need some attention:
You know your partner has made a new circle of friends but don’t know any of their names, or what they do together
Your partner loves to read but you have no idea what genre they are currently in to
You don’t know your partner’s short-term career aspirations or how they feel about their boss lately
Your partner is really worried about an extended family member but you are pretty sketchy on any of the details
You don’t notice your partner has had their hair done until you check the credit card statement, or get a “heads up” text from your kids (Whoops, sorry hubby. That’s a personal dig. Scrap this one everybody!)
What does a healthy love map look like?
The Gottmans stress that couples with healthy “love maps” are “in touch not just with the outlines of each other’s lives — their favorite hobbies, sports, and so on — but with each other’s deepest longings, beliefs, and fears.” In other words, for real personal insight, a love map needs to extend beyond just the superficial stuff. So basically, it’s not enough for hubby to know my favourite meal is spaghetti, and my favourite colour is blue, he needs to know all my (latest) secret stuff too —hence why I have to keep him around. Healthy love maps might include things such as:
Knowing important events coming up in your partner’s life and how they feel about them.
Understanding stories from your partner’s childhood and how they may influence who your partner is as a person, or partner.
Knowing who, outside your intimate partnership, is important to your spouse and why
Knowing what your partner values most.
Interestingly, many affairs are kindled when an innocent friendship progresses to something akin to love mapping. That is, when personal thoughts, secrets and worries are primarily, and consistently, shared with someone outside the romantic partnership.
How to keep your love maps updated
Update regularly- to keep your love maps updated it needs to be a life-long process, not something that is ditched once the honeymoon period wears off.
Update regardless of relationship status- updating our love maps is something that should be done intentionally, even when our relationship is humming along nicely. Don’t just use it as a tool just to rescue a floundering relationship. Look at it as an investment in your relationship.
“Create the time” if you have to- Of course “date nights” are a great opportunity to update our love maps via lots of thoughtful questions and attentive listening! In the perfect world we’d have a couple a week. But the pressure to orchestrate “frequent” date nights can also put a lot of pressure on couples, especially young families. Opportunities to update your love maps can be as simple as checking in to see how your partner’s day was whilst cooking dinner, turning off the TV for an hour and just talking, or putting your phone away when your partner has something important to share. Pillow talk is also a great way to update your love map. Regardless of where you “make time” to priortise your relationship, remember love mapping is not just a chance to quickly check your partner still likes cheesecake and prefers geraniums to roses. Sure these might be fun warm-up questions, but the conversation needs goes deeper.
Use open ended questions- open-ended questions, that is, ones that can’t be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” but require your partner to provide more detail, are the best for updating your love map. An example might be, “How are you feeling about parenthood at the moment?” If you don’t fully understand an answer —say, your partner responds with, “I’ve put both kids up for adoption”— use a clarifying question such as, “just, let me check, what you are saying is…?”
Have fun with it- you could make a playful game of it by taking turns to ask each other questions, such as, “Who is my current best friend”, “What is my idea of a perfect day”, “What do I like best and least about my job?” Just remember it is not a competition. Don’t keep score. Don’t criticise your partner if they don’t know an answer. Just fill them in. But if you have to have some” playful “competition, see who can ask the most creative question. Here I’m thinking, “Who was my favourite sesame street character and why?”—btw, mine was Burt and Ernie as they were always sharing their peanut butter and bread.
Make your own questions or find some resources
You can have fun making up your own love map questions, or find some to get you started on The Gottman Institute’s The Marriage Minute blog. There is also a “Love Map and Open-Ended Card Deck” available from The Gottman Institute’s on-line store. There have been a lot of potential love map worthy questions scattered throughout this article but here are a few more good ones to get your started.
What is your favorite memory of a date, activity, we have shared?
What is a secret you have never told anyone?
What is the best thing that has happened to you in the last week?
Who is someone you really admire and why?
How would you like to be remembered?
What beloved pet did I hock so I could go skiing in New Zealand (oh, sorry! Again with the private questions. BTW it was his horse)!
It’s easy for a couple to get “lost” over the years, what with all the things life throws at us. Like a properly updated sat nav, love maps are a tool that can keep you, and your relationship, traveling in the right direction. Updating your love maps can also provide gentle guidance if you get off track—hopefully before you’re too bogged down in the sand. So intentionally commit effort to running your regular love map updates. Don’t risk wandering into a strange and unfamiliar neighbourhood when, with a little more attention, a more scenic route is available.
“You can spend a lifetime being curious about the inner world of your partner, and being brave enough to share your own inner world, and never be done discovering all there is to know about each other. It’s exciting.”- Dr. John Gottman, Eight dates: A plan for making love last forever
