How Love Maps Can Keep Your Relationship Vibrant
Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher hold the Guinness World Record for the longest marriage ever. They got married in 1924 at the ages of 16 and 18 and were together for 87 years until Herbert died in 2011 at the age of 105. Zelmyra lived another 2 years until she died at age 105. Read about their secrets to success in this interview, including being friends with your partner.
We don’t recommend marriage as teenagers! But their advice is applicable for all of us: “Everyone who plants a seed and harvests the crop celebrates together. We are individuals but accomplish more together.”
What the research says
Dr. John Gottman summarizes his lifelong research on successful couples in his ground-breaking book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.” He has found that “if you don’t start off with a deep knowledge of each other, it’s easy for your marriage to lose its way when your lives shift so suddenly and dramatically.” The first principle for building friendship and intimacy in a relationship or marriage is building love maps.
What’s a love map?
A love map is simply this: getting to know your partner and their life. When you commit to another person, you give them a map to your inner world, including your memories, what’s happening in your life right now, and your hopes, fears, and dreams.
Putting it into practice
You can create and strengthen your love map right now! Answer the following questions about each other and find out how much you know about your partner’s love map. Discuss your answers.
Who were your partner’s closest friends during childhood?
What is a physical attribute your partner loves about you?
What does your partner like to do for fun?
What causes stress in your partner?
Describe what your partner did yesterday.
If money were no object, what is your partner’s ideal vacation?
What is your partner’s greatest fears?
How does your partner like to spend Saturday night?
What is one of your partner’s pet peeves?
What is their favorite song?
Who is someone they dislike?
If they could earn $150,000 a year to have any career, what would they do?
What does your partner worry about?
What makes your partner laugh? Cry?
Asking these questions and comparing answers is a start, but don’t stop there! Updating your love map regularly is an important activity. Spend time together and get caught up.
We know Herbert and Zelmyra knew each other’s love maps thoroughly!
