Turning Toward One Another

Turning toward one another in a marriage is very important. This is something my husband and I have always done, not really realizing we did it. The first time I noticed we did this and how important it was for our marriage was during his first deployment on a submarine. All deployments are hard, but the hardships differ depending on the deployment. The hardest thing about having my husband on a submarine for five months was that he wasn’t able to contact us in any way at all. No phone, email, or real mail. After a while, it took a toll on me. He is my best friend and I missed talking with him. I missed parenting with him. I missed being intimate with him. I missed doing all of the day to day things we did together, like making dinner, getting the kids ready for bed and putting them to bed, date nights, and family time. It was really hard. John M. Gottman talks about the importance of turning toward one another in a marriage, in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. He says, 

“Every time partners turn toward each other, they are funding what I’ve come to call their emotional bank account. They are building up savings that, like money in the bank, can serve as a cushion when times get rough, when they’re faced with a major life stress or conflict. Because they have stored an abundance of goodwill, such couples are less likely to teeter over into distrust and chronic negativity during hard time.”

I think one reason my husband and I made it through his deployments was because of our emotional bank account and the savings we already had in it. But, it took a really long time after his deployments to build that back up. I hope my husband and I always continue to turn toward each other in our marriage.