Many of the couples I see in my practice use their phones in ways that enhance and promote their relationship as well as in ways that are detrimental to it. In this blog post I will describe an iPhone application that you can use to strengthen and deepen your relationship with your partner.
The app is called Love Maps and has been released by The Gottman Relationship Institute. For those of you that don’t know, John Gottman and his wife Julie Schwartz Gottman have been methodically studying couples’ relationships for over 35 years. The Gottmans are responsible for most of what we know today about how marriage and relationships work. They are perhaps most famously known for their ability to predict with 91% accuracy whether a couple will divorce within five minutes of studying them.
Gottman’s book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work describes seven ways to cultivate and fortify your relationship with your partner. The first principle is entitled “Enhance Your Love Maps”. It is this principle that the Love Maps iPhone application can help you with. What are love maps? A love map is your storehouse of intimate knowledge about your partner’s life. Truly knowing about your partner is part of being in a loving relationship. In today’s fast pace world we often find ourselves short on time and energy to be curious about our partners and as a result of this we tend to grow apart. How many times have I heard with sadness whilst counselling couples, “things have changed, we’re just like roommates now”? Almost without realizing it, couples can drift apart.
So how can this iPhone app help you build your love maps? It’s deceptively simple – it provides you with a series of random questions to ask your partner to help you learn about each other. For $2.49 it’s a bargain and fun game to play with your partner.
Do you know what your partner would do if she won Tattslotto? What about some of her dreams or secret ambitions? Do you know her most embarrassing moments or her favorite way to be soothed when she’s upset?
I recommend this iPhone app as a fun way for couples to learn more about each other and strengthen their relationships.
I provide couples counselling and marriage counselling for couples in the Melbourne CBD and Greater Melbourne area. If you or someone you know is interested in undertaking counselling with me please explore the website for more information.
0458 090 687
paulthecounsellor@gmail.com
253 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is great… technology can put so much space between couples, it’s exciting to see it being used to bring them back together again. I’ll definitely be downloading this tonight. Thanks!
This is great! So many books and guides hold these same questions, but in today’s busy age it’s become too inconvenient even for the purpose of saving a relationship. Glad to see tech catching up in these areas!
There really is an app for everything!