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As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday we focus on seeing and expressing gratitude in our lives. In this episode, Amberly highlights the importance of appreciating your spouse and expressing gratitude in your marriage relationship. She shares tips for how you can express gratitude and ideas for what you might find to appreciate in your relationship. You can use the ideas in this episode to create new habits surrounding gratitude and make it more of a priority in your marriage all year round.
Gratitude, appreciation, acknowledgment, thanks. Are these present in your marriage? Do you regularly thank your spouse and express gratitude or appreciation in your relationship? Are these things that you feel like you receive from your spouse? John Gottman, the father of relationship research, and education found that expressing gratitude is one of the keys to a happy and successful marriage relationship. As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to focus today’s episode on seeing and expressing gratitude in your marriage regularly, and not just this time of year. I hope that you will use the ideas in this episode to create new habits surrounding gratitude. And make it more of a priority in your marriage, even if you feel like you’re doing a pretty good job at it right now.
I took time a while back to intentionally focus on how often I was saying thank you throughout my day, and to whom I was expressing gratitude. At the grocery store, I thanked so many people. I expressed gratitude to someone who passed their cart off to me when they were done using it, so I didn’t have to try and dislodge one from the group of carts that had just been pushed back in from outside. I said thank you when a stranger accepted my bid for help getting something that was tucked back on the top shelf. #shortgirlproblems I thanked the person checking out in front of me for putting the divider after their groceries, the cashier multiple times during my transaction, and the individual who bagged my groceries.
Throughout the day, I found myself waving and shouting thank you to other drivers who followed the rules and let me merge, even though they definitely couldn’t hear me. When the mailman left a package on my porch, I shouted thank you as they ran back to their truck, while I retrieved my delivery. I was thanking people as I hopped off meetings, at the end of emails and texts., and so much more. My life was full of expressions of gratitude, and I was pretty proud. But then I noticed how little I expressed gratitude in my home; specifically to my spouse, but also to my kids.
It’s easy to take things, people, and actions for granted when they are there every day. We come to expect that our partner will take the garbage to the curb every week, that they’ll prepare a meal for the family at the end of the day, that they will show up and support us, and so much more. We also might find ourselves focusing on the needs and requests that aren’t being met or the things we feel our spouse isn’t doing well. While many of those things often need to be addressed and resolved, the focus on them is often greater than the focus on the positive.
John Gottman references the magic ratio of positive to negative feedback in a healthy relationship. The magic ratio is five to one, meaning five positives to every one negative. The ratio comes into play in a lot of different ways, but gratitude is often one of them. Gottman said that couples who look for and acknowledge good in their relationship regularly are happier than those who don’t. The more you find to be grateful for, the happier you and your spouse will be, and the more you will find to be grateful for. Because you find what you look for. It’s not just about regularly verbalizing gratitude for your spouse, but looking for that as well, even when you aren’t expressing it.
So, how can you find more to be grateful for in your marriage and how do you go about expressing it? Do you remember the year that the daily gratitude practice hit social media for November? It started so great and everyone was expressing gratitude for a lot of amazing things in their life. Every day, a new post about what they were grateful for. And then, at least for me, by the end of the month, I was pulling the wildest things out of my pocket to express gratitude for so I could write that status for the internet each day, like I’d committed to on November 1st. And while those things I pulled out of my pocket were things I love and I’m grateful for, felt a little silly and like I was trying too hard and kind of felt insincere.
I don’t want you to get to that point in your marriage where you feel like you’re grasping at straws for something to be grateful for when it comes to the human, you chose to spend your life with. And you don’t want your spouse to feel like you’re doing it just for show, or because this marriage podcast you listen to told you that you should. I want you to be truly grateful for your spouse, for their contributions to your partnership, and for the marriage relationship that you are building.
So I am going to challenge you to use the ideas I share next to help you start thanking your spouse for the things they do for you regularly. When you start to express gratitude for your spouse, not only will they feel more seen and appreciated in the relationship. But you’ll start to notice more of the positive things they do as well. Again, you find what you look for. So, not only am I going to share things you can be grateful for, but also different ways to express that gratitude. Because everything you want to share, you are thankful to your partner for doesn’t need to be a new social media post. You know what I mean?
There are a lot of different ways you can express gratitude and I’m sure you can easily think of most of them. A simple verbal, “thank you for taking charge of the homework for the kids every night” can go a long way. You could also send a simple text during the day when something strikes you that you are grateful for. Like I might find myself taking the garbage cans to the curb the night before garbage day while my husband is out of town and send him a text, thanking him for having that on his mental load so I don’t have to think about it every week. When you’re feeling extra grateful for your spouse, or maybe at certain times of the year, like Thanksgiving, your anniversary, or their birthday, you could write a letter or note that focuses on gratitude for your spouse and give it to them.
I love the idea of keeping a gratitude journal specifically for your marriage. So not just “three things I was grateful for today”, but “these are the things I was grateful to you for or grateful for about our relationship.” And maybe you pass that back and forth, leave it somewhere for your spouse to find and read each day, or share your insights for the week during your marriage meeting on the weekend.
Another simple thing you can do. Is add gratitude to your requests. When you ask your spouse for help with something, add some gratitude. Instead of saying, “I need you to take the garbage out tonight,
or “you are in charge of the dishes tonight,” say, “would you be willing to help me out with the dishes tonight? I would appreciate it.” Or you could say, “it helps me out a lot anytime you do ____ because ____. Would you be willing to help me out again today?” Your spouse will be more eager to help with things and maybe even excited to do their part in the household when they know their everyday actions are seen and appreciated by you.
I’m going to share a few general things that might get you thinking in the direction of what specifically you are grateful to your spouse for. And then I’m going to link a post in the show notes of 20 things you can thank your spouse for every day. It’s a helpful list if you’re struggling to find something, to be grateful for. Not to give you something to just list off. But to get you thinking in that direction and focusing on the good in your marriage that you might be grateful for.
The first thing; Thank your spouse for who they are. It sounds so simple, but your spouse’s personality traits and the things that they do were what attracted you to them in the first place. And the way they have grown and progressed to be the person they are now is probably what attracts you to them today. Those things that made you want to marry them and that make you a great team today are important. Verbalize or write down what you’re grateful to your spouse for being, and share that with them regularly so that they know and are reminded.
The second thing; Thank your spouse for taking on the day-to-day responsibilities they handle. How often do you thank your spouse for the things you’ve come to expect they will do every day? Do you thank them for the work they do to contribute to the family’s income and well-being? Do you thank them for everything they do to help keep your shared household and family running smoothly? Do you thank then for the little things they do around the house that are expected of them? Maybe your spouse is on eternal toilet cleaning duty or is the one who gets up in the morning to let the dog out every day. You may feel that it’s a fair trade for you to cook dinner every night or always be the one to do the dusting. Those things might have even been discussed between the two of you as you split up the “adulting tasks” you would each do. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t think your spouse every once in a while, or even more than once in a while for those things they do regularly. Like your spouse know that you notice their efforts and that you appreciate them. Even if you aren’t thanking your spouse every single time the task gets done, they’ll still think about those times when you’ve expressed gratitude as they are scrubbing the toilet or letting the dog out in the cold.
The third thing; Thank your spouse for being your life partner. Recognize everything that your spouse brings to your marriage and your life. How do they fill in your gaps and vice versa? Don’t demand and expect and assume they’re going to do all of the things for you in life. Be grateful and look for ways to support and compliment them in all that they do as well.
Expressing gratitude is a simple and impactful way to make your spouse a priority and show them you notice and don’t take what they do for granted. As you start to show gratitude to your spouse and appreciate everything they contribute to your life, your outlook on your spouse and your marriage will change. You will start to see more of what you are looking for, which are all of the things your spouse is doing, rather than what they are not.
I hope you’ll take this episode and apply it to your marriage, not just with Thanksgiving coming up, but as you go throughout the next year, head into a busy holiday season, and continue with your life together. I’d encourage you to come back and listen to this every around Thanksgiving. And I may republish it every year so that you can do that. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving. And I’m grateful to all of you for being here and supporting the Prioritize Your Marriage podcast and A Prioritized Marriage.