The Importance of Adapting to the Different Seasons of Marriage

I recently read The Four Seasons of Marriage. It’s another great book by Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages.

The premise of the book is quite simple: husbands and wives can experience four different seasons of marriage.

• Spring – where most marriages begin. There’s excitement and anticipation of good things to come. Of course, a marriage doesn’t remain in spring. But it’s possible to come back to optimism, enthusiasm, and the joy of spring over and over again.
• Summer – where life is fun and beautiful. Everything may not be perfect, but there’s a feeling of happiness, satisfaction, accomplishment, and connection. It’s a time to reap the benefits of the hard efforts to understand each other and to work together as a team to fulfill the dreams of spring.
• Fall – where the marriage might look fine on the outside, but inside the marriage is changing. When the chilling winds begin to blow, the deterioration of the marriage becomes evident, just as leaves on trees turn color and fall away.
• Winter – where coldness, harshness, and bitterness prevails. Chapman suggests “rigidity” is what brings a couple to the winter season. It’s the unwillingness to consider the other person’s perspective and to work towards a meaningful compromise.

An important message of the book is that husbands and wives can and should adapt to the changing seasons of their marriage. In other words, adaptability is an essential value to ensure a lasting and happy marriage.

Strategies for Adapting

As a differentiation value, Adaptability means ability to change and maintain effectiveness in a changing environment. .

To help couples navigate through the seasons, Chapman outlines seven different strategies. Each strategy has the potential to help a couple successfully change from fall/winter to spring/summer while maintaining – and even enhancing – effectiveness of growing together.

You can read more about my review of The Four Seasons of Marriage on Leadership Couples.

 

How have you learned to successfully adapt through the different seasons of marriage?

 

Today’s value was selected from the “Diversity-Flexibility” category, based on the e-book Developing Your Differentiating Values.