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Faith Conversation: Study Your Spouse to Develop Stronger Empathy

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Is your spouse the same person you married? Your spouse keeps changing in preferences and interests. To stay current, study your spouse to understand, serve and love him or her better each day.

Discuss this verse as a couple. Focus your conversation on the following questions.

“The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge.”
Proverbs 15:14

  • What is something you didn’t know about me until after we got married?
  • What has
    changed about you since we were first married?
  • How can we keep learning about each
    other?

This time of year, parents often encourage their kids to work diligently to learn more and become better students — even though final exams are a long way off. Moms and dads hope their kids will acquire knowledge and not just study to pass the test.

Sometimes we can view our wedding day as a final test: Once we’ve learned enough about our spouse to win his or her heart, we may think we’ve already learned everything we need to know about him or her. But your wedding day is more like the first day of school — it’s just the beginning of gaining knowledge and understanding about your spouse.

You and your spouse keep changing — your preferences, interests, knowledge. That means you have to stay current. You need to keep learning about your spouse to understand, serve and love him or her better. And, like in school, that means asking questions. You can routinely ask your spouse about his or her thoughts, emotions, preferences and goals. Carefully observing what he or she does and says can help you learn, too. As you and your spouse become better students of each other, you’ll develop stronger empathy and love for each other.

How strong is your marriage? Find out today with the Focus on Marriage Assessment. This reliable assessment is based on the research and experience of Focus on the Family’s marriage experts Dr. Greg and Erin Smalley. Take this free assessment now. 

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