Solid Foundations: Building a Love that Lasts Podcast Episode

When you have pictures of couples, you have pictures of something about them, and this is that created shared meaning. It’s us. And what makes up us, not just me.

Greetings and welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Wonderful as always to have you along. Kaleb Beyer is with me here in the studio today. Welcome. Thanks, Matt. Good to be with you.

Relationships. So much of life is impacted by relationships. We are relational beings. God has knit that into us really out of himself being relational. Today, you’re going to unpack a tool you use with marital relationships. It’s going to help us understand the components of a good loving relationship. I think that’s hugely important as we all navigate our own data points of one.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, having a road map or you could use different analogies. What are important aspects or principles to think about, to look for, to lean into and if there’s an order what comes first and how do they build on each other and all of those things?

So, the tool itself is referred to as a sound relationship house and it flows out of John Gottman’s research of over 3,000 couples. I think I’ve referenced his research before, but it’s not just a framework that he came up with on his own, but actually was born out of seeing and working with many couples which is more to my point that this is more than a data point. Yes, correct, which I think is also part of the insight Kaleb, that you have seeing lots of marriages, right? And so that’s why I think we perk up and say, okay, well give us some perspective here.

And so, John Gottman has got a resource of thousands. Yes. Yeah. And I found it helpful just to be able to talk through. The model itself is a way of engaging conversation and dialogue with a couple and to be able to understand principles. And so, the framework is, as the title explains, a house.

So, as you think about a house, you have walls, and you have floors. And so that’s the framework. And within this house, there are principles. If we think about a home, there are certain characteristics. And so, think about that in the context of a relationship. So, if you want a sound, healthy relationship, he will say, these are the components that are important to bring into consideration.

And as we go through this, certainly this is based on research and yet, I think we would say all truth is God’s truth. But let’s consider, based on a Christian worldview, does this align with what we would view Scripture to say about healthy relationships? And so, I certainly would encourage that as we walk through this.

Yeah, let’s do it that way. Let’s get right into it then, Kaleb. Let’s just imagine we’re working through this as a couple. Where do we start with the sound relationship house? What are some of the first points that need to be made? So, in the base level, level one is building what he calls love maps, okay?

And so, for each of us, we have within our brain a particular part that’s designated directly for our spouse. And so, this is about intimately knowing who their best friend is. What do they really enjoy? You know, some of these things that really early on in the relationship, even as you think through engagement, a lot of these questions are asked, you know, who is this individual?

What gets them going? And what do they enjoy? You almost get a sense that naturally relationships develop in this way. Yes. Who is this person that I’m very fond of? Yeah. What are similarities? What are the differences? Those sorts of things. And it’s interesting because to that point, Matt, we see that early on in a relationship and engagement, this is something that just happens naturally.

But over time, the critical component is we don’t update them. Meaning, we don’t continue to engage in that way. Think about how you’ve changed since you’ve been married to Rebecca. Yeah, in many ways. Yes, in many ways. That’s right. Yeah. But it requires a real interest in the other. Yes. Doesn’t it? Yes. It does. Maybe an infatuation, right? An infatuation drives it initially. I really want to know you. And we see this perfectly displayed if you look at Psalm 139 or in other places of Scripture that he wants to intimately know us, know when we sit down, when we rise up, and so I think we have this picture of a God who pursues his people, and we’re called as husband and wife to do the same in our church.

Marital relationships make me think of Hosea, where he says, I’ve got one thing against you all, Israel, you don’t know me. Yes. He saw that as just a critical error. Yes. So, this ground level speaks to knowing the other person. You mentioned building love maps. So that’s a phrase that means what?

So, it’s like, what’s the territory around you? It’s describing the environment and the conditions around and the same is true for your spouse. I mean, what does that look like? Again, what are their interests? But as you think about a territory on the map, what’s the elevation and center of the city? Or where is this? And so, it’s describing the environment and the conditions around it. And the same is true for our love map. We have a map of who our spouse is, what they enjoy, what stressors are in their life, what things they’re really looking forward to that are coming up, right?

This is our map. And in some ways, I think you can think of it as a map of loving our spouse better. Because if we know those things, we can be responsive to them, Matt. Yes. But if we don’t, we miss them. At a base level, you can see how that’s fundamental to ongoing loving our spouse well.

And I would guess the remedy for this or the hard work in this area is a lot of face to face. Yes. Sitting down, spending time together, not in logistical conversations, not even about conversations we need to have about finances or even working through conflict.

No, this is more, John Ortberg would say, this is like fun, laughter, friendship. Yes. That’s this part of the relationship. Down to the ground level of the house is friendship. Yeah. For us to just sit down and have an enjoyable conversation together. Enjoyable in the sense that, oh, I get to know you.

So, the next level, if we bump up, is called sheer fondness and admiration. Okay. And so, this is also contained in what we call friendship. But if you think about fondness, you think about a sense of just caring and enjoying the presence and looking at them in a fond, positive way. And admiration is appreciation, what you admire about them, what you are grateful for, the characteristics they have, the things they do, the things they’re gifted in.

And so, this is about sharing in that. So, this level is like, hey, thanks, or wow, I love it when, you know, that sort of thing. It’s almost like the first ground floor was turning towards each other. And now the second one is enjoying that. Yes. Longing to look towards one another. Wanting because you’re admiring. Right. Or fond of the other. Yes. There’s a sense of appreciation and enjoyment with each other. So that’s what the second level is about. Yeah. So, level three would be turning towards rather than turning away. And so, it’s interesting, Matt, that he used this term, bids, that we throughout our day make many bids for our spouse’s attention.

We’re vying for their attention. We’re vying for them to, you know, enjoy a certain post or a certain sunset. or an event that happened. Oh, did you hear about, right? And we’re the first to share it with them. And he would say at moments like that, we have an opportunity to turn towards each other and face each other, which the meaning is like, okay, I’m with you or we turn away.

Which leaves our spouse feeling not responded to and feeling on their own, like they’re parenting on their own, or they’re in life on their own. And so, this level is really about being responsive, making clear signals. Right? Of vying for the attention and then the spouse responding to rather than turning away.

So, there’s a real sharing of life here. You know, as I think about that first level, it was intentional, who are you? Who am I? And then growing in that affection and that fondness towards one another. And now in this third level, it’s almost an interest for me say, hey, I want to share this about me to you. Yes, this was so funny. I heard this joke today. Yes. I want to share it with you Yeah, because I don’t want to just keep it to myself, right? Or I saw this today and I want you to know about it or I was hurt today in this way I want you to know. There is a desire now to give oneself to the other and what I’m catching you say is that can be successfully received or erroneously ignored.

Yes. Is that right? Yes, and to my detriment. Correct. Because they seem like small moments in a day, but they’re actually, John Gottman would say, these points in which we build and cultivate healthy relationships are in the mundane and the boring, if you will. I mean, not all that is boring, some exciting, but the point being is, oh, this is just a snapshot in time and not this wonderful date night or two-hour conversation, which is great. But these are just moments.

Well, I appreciate that you said boring because sometimes life is mundane, right, and we’re sharing things, and we can kind of roll our eyes, like, oh, more of this. Yeah. So, you would probably spot that in couples, and what would that encouragement look like?

Well, I think first is just education around how important those small moments are to your overall relationship. We miss it. We do. We feel like that’s ordinary.  Well, and some of it is we just get caught up in our own lives or stress or don’t hear worries or we miss it. Not in the sense that, oh, you know, don’t be a bother. I think we miss how important they are. Yeah. So, part of that is then beginning to have the language of, hey, this is me reaching out. This is me offering a bid. This is so that their spouse can know, oh, that’s what’s going on here. Yeah. Right. And so that we can increase the responsiveness of those important but small moments in the relationship.

I really like that. Let’s go to the next floor. Okay. The next floor is what is called the positive perspective. And so, this is really when you think about the lens that we wear, right? If someone has a negative perspective on the relationship, then it is easy to attribute their spouse’s behaviors in a negative light.

And as we’ve referenced, these levels kind of build on each other. As you’ve been pulling that in, Matt, if you think about it, the building love maps, sharing fondness and admiration and turning towards instead of away, you cultivate those levels well, it leads to a positive impact in your relationship.

Could you think of this level as being quick to give the benefit of the doubt? Yes. That’s your posture. Your posture is that your spouse is right, or your posture is your spouse has good intent and not that your first response is skepticism or criticism. That’s right. So, when you leave the house, and I’m sure this never happens, Matt, but let’s just say, you leave the house and you forget to give Rebecca a hug and a kiss.

All right. And you walk out the door and Rebecca is like, hmm. In a positive perspective, she’s like, you know what, Matt’s got a lot on his mind right now. There’s this and this going on in his life. The love map. It doesn’t mean this other thing. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t see me, he doesn’t care about me. It’s not a negative tape that’s running in her mind.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, it’s a positive tape, which makes excuses in a way that, oh, you know what? Everybody forgets. I would imagine you work with a fair number of couples who would struggle with the stories that are not even true. Yes. But they are fabricated and reinforced in their own mind and imagination about ill.

It’s certainly not intentionally, but out of hurt and the sense of having bids not responded to, not feeling known, partly because sometimes the absence of the friendship leads to conflict and then ongoing conflict hurt. And so, when we have that kind of environment and we feel that sense of desperation and feel like we can’t work things out, what happens to us?

We start getting a negative perspective. So, it’s not like you show up there overnight, but I think it does happen in relationships where there has been woundedness. And we’ll talk about some other parts of this relationship house that also impacts. One of the ahas I’m having in this moment, Kaleb, is it sounds like these upper levels are really where we walk through conflict well.

The lower levels really are not. Love mats, for example, are a non-conflict zone, but I think that is telling, right? There needs to be a foundation on which healthy conflict can rest and work itself out. Yes. And I think in some ways that’s an aha also, although challenging. Also, for couples who come and want to work on the relationship, what do we think about?

We want to work through conflict. Or we want to be able to communicate better so that we understand each other. And so, we would say, yes, those are important. And also, this friendship. So sometimes we will not necessarily engage the conflict resolution directly while we build and cultivate friendship that then supports working through conflict in a healthy way.

Well, now that takes a ton of foresight, right? To put off a conflict, which is brewing. I mean, that’s in our face, but to recognize we’re not at a place that we can actually address conflict in a healthy way. Yeah. Which has got to be difficult to hear when the conflict is front and center and needs to be solved.

Yeah. It feels like you’re not understanding me. Right. For sure. But you have to go down into the relationship house before you can build up to handle and stomach and support that conflict. Let’s go on to the next. And actually, the next level here is managing conflict, Matt. Okay. And note that he uses the word manage, and that is very intentional.

Often, we’ll talk about resolving conflict, which is really important. But one of the things that is helpful, as you know, you and Rebecca are different in a number of ways. And some of those differences never change. And that can create ongoing, whether you call it conflict or tension which isn’t bad.

And so, what he would say is 69 percent of our problems or our issues are unresolvable. Meaning we don’t sit down and have a conversation like a problem he would call situational. That is, oh, okay, we can come together, make an agreement, and then move forward. These are areas we need to have ongoing dialogue, which is where the management comes.

It’s how are we managing these areas that we’re just really different. How we manage is really reflecting on, okay, are we able to manage our emotions? Regulating our emotions or when we bring up those perpetual problems, is it leading to emotional, what he refers to as flooding or getting overwhelmed or starting to escalate, whether that means withdraw or starting to yell, that sort of thing.

And then another key upon this kind of floor of managing conflict is the ability to accept influence. When they’re in conflict, can this couple accept influence from one another and so receive that difference and be impacted or changed as a result. Yeah. So, I’ve got this picture in my head that if we are at conflicts and both of us are rigid, that’s not a good recipe, but what I’m hearing you say is each one having the ability to absorb the influence of the other is going to be a path forward. Yes. For conflict. Yes. And even in that, Matt, you can see as we’re talking about that now, in order to receive influence, there needs to be an undergirding of friendship, and of care, and of like, oh, wow, they truly, deeply, care about me.

Not just in my head, but I can point out experiences. I need to know in times of conflict that you’re on my side. Yes. And you need to know that I’m on your side. And all of that is set forward way down in the house. Yes. First couple floors. That’s right, but you can see now why when those are absent and I do feel like I’m alone in the conflict and if I don’t stand up for myself, nobody will. Well, then we dig our heels in, right? Absolutely. Because, yes, it feels like over and over I’m not being heard so this is really important to me. This is where I’m putting my stake in the ground. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, so the next level of the sound relationship house is what’s referred to as make life dreams come true. And so again, you can see how this builds off of love maps. What are your dreams? What are the dreams of your spouse? And does your spouse know your dreams and how can you support an environment where they can pursue and not only pursue, but you help them in the area of pursuing their dreams? How do I help the other spouse achieve this?

I use that lightly, but I think it’s like, how do I encourage them to continue to pursue in the direction in which they’re either gifted, or they have a heart for? We have a beautiful mixture of independence and unity. And what you’re trying to describe here, I think independence in the sense of what are your dreams as a sovereign individual, but also separate from me, but also how can I be a part of that dream?

Yes. Right. And vice versa. Yes. Now, here’s my question. All of the other ones made a lot of sense in terms of the order. Why can’t this one be down at the bottom? Why can’t this one be after fondness and affection? Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. It’s interesting that this one finds its place on the legs of managing conflict.

Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, that’s a good question. So generally, my sense is both of these upper two levels, you’ll notice you can’t see a picture. Our listeners can’t see a picture, but they’re in the attic, right? Which if you think about the attic, I don’t know what your attic looks like, but our attic usually gets things over time. A lot of mousetraps.

Yeah, so maybe that’s not a good analogy, but there is a sense of, oh, we’ve lived life together for a while and we do keep precious things up there that aren’t necessarily pulled out every day, but they’re important and we want to hold on to them. But it’s over time. It’s not like, in the first moments of life and, even as you think about initially getting married and it’s going to the mission field, right?

That happens right away. But I think in the fullness of life. You know what, Kaleb, I’m smiling really big because it just has occurred to me as you explained that a lot of marriages are on anniversaries, and I would guess the later the anniversaries, the more this is true that they celebrate working through hard things.

Yeah. They become the boxes in the attic. They become the molder of dreams. It’s those hard things that were probably laden with conflict at some point beneath them that dreams kind of rest upon. Yeah. I think you’re right. Matt, that actually leads us to the top of the house, which is created share meaning.

And that is really, as you think about getting the photo albums and being able to reflect over time of shared experiences that knit you together. But this is about the culture of the couple, the relationships, whereas knowing love maps is about the individual. So, this is about us. It’s about us and our life together.

And you know, and I think about this, there’s a couple in our church who are a very missional minded couple, but it’s about them together. When I think about them individually, there are certainly aspects of that. And so, I think it’s when you have pictures of couples, you have pictures of something about them.

Yeah. And this is that created shared meaning. It’s us and what makes up us, not just me. There’s something really profound and abstract about that, the way relationships are, just as you said, over time and through all of the work that you’ve laid out here in this sound relational house. You become an entity, a joined entity, is really what I’m hearing you say.

Something completely shared. It’s hard to tease out one from the other. Yes. There is a one that’s there. Yes. And so, I think when couples want to build this and cultivate it, we would go to rituals. And even as you think about our spiritual lives, think of spiritual disciplines, right?

Things that we engage in on a regular basis. And this is true also of us. I’m sure you have rituals with you and Rebecca that you do, whether it’s birthday parties or whether it’s pizza and Pepsi night, it’s something that you do over time that you come to enjoy. But by doing that consistently, it weaves the two of you together in a way that, like you said, you can’t pull apart. Yeah, so on the first floor, where we have complete uniqueness. What do you like, honey? What do I like, right? Complete uniqueness in that love map floor. Here, you have a real we going on. Yeah. This is who we are. Yes. And then, of course, whenever you have a house, you need to have walls.

Walls are the external kind of protection, but they’re weight bearing walls. And so really, in a sense, the floors rest on these walls, Matt. And so, the sound relationship house is made up by two walls, trust and commitment. And so certainly we think about a covenantal relationship that this is something we promise, right?

Through rich, poor, through sickness or health, that we’re going to be faithful. This is lifelong. This is a commitment. That is a weight bearing wall that holds these floors together. Right? And protects us in a sense from the storms outside our relationship that can want to creep in or affect our sound relationship house.

Are these the two prerequisites of everything then? Can you see it that way? Without trust and commitment, we have nothing that we can work on. Yes. In a healthy way, for sure. Yes. The commitment part and then the trust is really the best interest of our spouse and even knowing that our spouse really thinks about us as they’re living their life.

And so consequently, when there are behaviors that have led to broken trusts, you can see how it affects and reverberates throughout the whole house. So, is this the first thing that you have an eye or an ear to, is there commitment here? Yes. And is there trust here? You nail it initially just in talking, right?

Those are some of the questions that I’ll try to ask. How committed are both individuals to the relationship but also working on the relationship because those are prerequisites to engaging in the other floors of the house and vice versa. Trust. If trust isn’t there, then obviously we have a negative perspective, right?

Already out of the gate. And then managing conflict is really difficult. Yes. Accepting influence doesn’t happen. Right. Because I’m not safe. Correct. And so, then we’re trying to build safety and a sense of truth as we move into a place of rebuilding trust that then can lead to, again, this is not linear, right?

I’m talking about this in a way that’s linear, but it goes together with building friendship and then being able to manage conflict well. Okay. Kaleb, you’ve really given us a set of drawings. And you think of house drawings or building drawings. Those are helpful to the builder. They say a couple of things. One, they tell the builder where they’re at in the process. And two, they tell the builder where they’re going. And that’s really helpful for relationships.

How would you envision a couple using this knowledge of the Sound Relational House? Yeah, it’s a good question, Matt. Certainly, just the awareness of the principles is helpful, but also just as an assessment tool. And sometimes I’ll engage that with couples or encourage them. So, okay, if you were to look at building love maps, or just how you would say, what are strengths in your relationship?

And what are areas that you might want to grow? Right? So, let’s take the level of love maps. How would you rate that or score that on a one to 10 where 10 is great. Is this solid or is this about a three? And I think this is something that I would find helpful to grow in.

And that in itself can be instructive and insightful to know. Oh, if my spouse looks at this plan, how would they reflect on where we’re at as far as strengths, areas of growth? And then how can we focus in on one floor and build? And we don’t have time to go into it, but I’m assuming there’s good work to be done on each floor that a couple can step into and say, I want to build conflict management, for example. Yeah. Or I want to learn how to better turn towards my spouse. There are good practical things to do to build those things. Right. There are many skills and tools and interventions through this work that are available, but others as well, that can be part of that journey as you’re continuing to build a sound relationship or a healthy relationship.

And that’s what we all want. And our listeners want that too. We want a sound relational house. We want our marriages not only just to exist, but we also want them to thrive. And Kaleb, I think you’ve provided a bit of a template for what that can look like and teasing that out here with these different levels, I think is really, really helpful.

This document that John Gottman has created is there in the show notes and I invite you to look at it to help bring this together. Thanks, each one for listening in. We trust that this is helpful. I’m sure it’s stirred your thoughts as you reflect on your own marriage. But also, hopefully, it has given you a bit of a map to say, where can we go from here and how can we shore up our own relational house?

Thanks for being on.