Making Your Spouse Your Beloved

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17)

What does it means to be beloved? How does it feel to be fully known, fully accepted, and fully cherished?

These are questions this Sunday's Gospel calls on us to ask about our marriages.

Beyond Affection to Deep Knowing

Being beloved is not simply being liked or even loved in a general sense. When your spouse is your beloved, you hold them in a place of unique honor and affection. You see them not just as they appear on their best days, but as they truly are, including their vulnerabilities and imperfections. You choose them, again and again, not despite their humanness but with full awareness of it.

This kind of love requires something we often overlook in our busy lives: the practice of genuine noticing. We must be fully present for our spouses, attending to their words and action, if we want intimate knowledge of who our partner actually is.

Psychologist John Gottman describes this as maintaining detailed "love maps" of our spouse's inner world. Couples in strong marriages can answer questions about their partner's current worries, dreams, friends, and stressors. They know what delights their spouse and what troubles them. They update this knowledge as their partner grows and changes through the seasons of life.

This ongoing knowing is not incidental to love, it is foundational. You cannot deeply cherish someone you do not truly know.

Making Your Spouse Feel Beloved

You might love your spouse deeply, but does your spouse feel beloved?

There is often a gap between the love we feel and the love our partner experiences. Closing this gap requires intentionality.

Consider this practice: Set aside twenty minutes this week for what Gottman calls a "stress-reducing conversation." Ask your spouse about something on their mind outside your relationship, perhaps a work challenge, a friendship, or a personal goal. Your only job is to listen, ask curious questions, and understand. Not to fix or advise, just to know. "What part worries you most?" "What would success look like to you?" "How are you feeling about it today?"

This doesn't need to feel awkward. It can be part of a date night. One can buy card sets or even download an app that will provide you with questions to ask. The crucial step is truly listening, and remembering what's said so that it becomes part of your picture of your spouse.

This practice of seeking to understand your spouse's inner world is crucial to the deep love we are called to as married couples. It says: I see you. I know you. You matter to me.

When we practice this kind of attention, we create what researchers call "felt security" in marriage. Your spouse begins to trust that they are held safely in your regard, that their daily struggles and small victories are seen and valued.

The Gift of Being Known

Part of the grace that can come with marriage is the opportunity to experience what it means to be someone's beloved: to be known fully and loved completely. Our marriages can become spaces where we practice divine love in its most human form.

This week, let your spouse know they are noticed. Let them know they are chosen. Help them feel what it means to be beloved.

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