Map of love...well, a Love Map

In the reading this week, I was able to relate to the importance of love maps, or being intimately familiar with what is going on in your spouses life. When my husband and I got married we did not have kids for five years. We worked through the infertility, the bed rest when I was pregnant, and then the triplets came. My husband was working fulltime and going to nursing school full time, finances were tight and we had three preemie newborns that were our greatest joy but also our greatest struggle. We both went into survival mode; our lives became shifts around each other to meet the needs of our babies. Eventually, my husband finished school and was working hours that allowed him to be home more and the babies became more independent. It was at this time our marriage began to struggle. One day after a large argument, we just looked at each other and realized we did not really know the people standing in front of each other like we used to. Our love maps had lost their detail and direction.

The two of us had been in survival mode for a long time, not recognizing the changes and growth happening in each other’s lives. As we came to this realization we began to remember what was most important and that was our relationship. We began to spend more time together, without the kids, have meaningful conversations again and remembered the covenants that we had made and drew strength from them.

I love the quote by Elder Bruce C. Hafen used in Goddard’s book “Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage”, he states, “When troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they’re receiving what they bargained for. But when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through. They marry to give and to grow, bound by the covenants to each other, to the community, and to God (Goddard, 46).”

The concept of a love map helps us truly know our spouses, strengthening the friendship and then the love, thus making it possible to get through the challenging times without seeing the need to walk away as the solution.