Marriage Matters: Wholehearted Marriages
This past weekend we hosted a marriage retreat at the beautiful Whitestone Country Inn in East Tennessee. We were joined by 16 couples who desire to grow their marriage and live more connected from the inside out by living wholeheartedly.
During our time, we talked about emotional intelligence and discovered a simple language that allows us to talk about our feelings, wants and desires. One of my favorite moments at our retreats is watching couples turn toward each other and honestly discuss where they are and where they would like to be. Lora and I are hopeful that we are offering them new categories to better tend to their marriage and develop rituals of deeper connection with each other.
One of the first areas we discussed this weekend was the impact of emotions in our marriages. Emotions tend to fall in one of two categories for many people: either they are everything or they are incredibly dangerous and should be ignored. The truth is that emotions are like nitroglycerin - in one form they can be used to blow up bridges (dynamite) or to mend hearts (by treating angina in a prescription pill form).
Here are five statements about emotions that create a foundation for growing wholehearted marriages:
God created us as rational and emotional beings; it’s part of His divine design of each of us. We have the ability to reason and feel.
A lack of understanding about our emotional life can lead to dangerous and destructive behavior.
Connected marriages embrace emotions and work to understand them, regulate them and connect through them.
Emotional connection requires an environment of safety and trust.
Emotions are neutral, they are primal responses to an external situation. What we choose to do with those emotions can be very positive or negative.
Wholehearted marriages are not merely made up of emotional expression. However, it’s not simply a rational and logical endeavor either. As researcher David Caruso has said: “It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence (reason), it is not the triumph of heart over head; it is the unique intersection of both.