Episode 31. From Roommates to Soulmates: Reviving Connection Through Daily Rituals
In the fast-paced world of modern relationships, it's easy to lose sight of the small moments that truly matter. This episode of Marriage iQ delves into the critical role of rituals in strengthening marital bonds and fostering a deeper connection between partners.
Discover how seemingly ordinary routines can be transformed into meaningful rituals that enhance intimacy and reinforce your shared identity as a couple. We explore the distinction between habits, traditions, and rituals. We also talk about how rituals create a sense of belonging and security in relationships, and research-backed benefits of incorporating rituals into your marriage.
In this episode we share practical strategies for ritual connection. You will learn how to Identify opportunities in your daily routine for ritual development, craft rituals that resonate with both partners, and utilize rituals to navigate challenging times and strengthen your bond.
-
[00:00:02 - 00:00:08]
Welcome to Marriage iQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse.[00:00:08 - 00:00:10]
I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings.[00:00:10 - 00:00:12]
And I'm Dr. Scott Hastings.[00:00:13 - 00:00:31]
We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose. To transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones. Using intelligence mixed with a little fun.[00:00:34 - 00:01:08]
Hello. We welcome you back with open arms to another exciting episode and are so happy you've decided to take time out of your busy schedule and your busy day to listen to us, your most humble and adorable servants. You are intelligent, you are scintillating, you are becoming, you are loved. And today, we're going to share a story that we love surrounding something you may not have thought of before. Here's a story of a man named Brady. Heidi, would you like to tell a story?[00:01:10 - 00:02:17]
Sure, I would love to. Although in this story, I was like Carol Brady. Yeah, the single mom. But instead of having three girls that were teenagers, I had one precious little four year old daughter. She'd become the center of my life. And I was working at a university up to 60 hours a week, sometimes doing special events, taking a couple of classes each semester, and was close to the end of my degree in communications and public relations. So things were really intense and busy in my life. On occasion, dinner with my daughter consisted of us buying snacks in the vending machine at my office. Because in those days I didn't have a computer in my home. I'd go back to my office at night and do homework while Cassidy played with paperclips or other office supplies under my desk. Scott, unlike Mike Brady, was a single guy, a psychology major, music minor, and an intense pre med program on top of that. We were very serious about our education. But then the magic happened.[00:02:19 - 00:02:20]
What happened?[00:02:21 - 00:02:44]
The magic happened when we met in the mountains at a leadership conference that was sponsored by the university. This is the magic that somehow our lives that had been so packed with everything else was like the Red Sea parting. And somehow we miraculously were able to make time to connect with each other in meaningful ways.[00:02:44 - 00:02:51]
And often, yeah, it wasn't miraculous for me. I'll just tell you right now. I was sold.[00:02:52 - 00:03:07]
As was I. But I just received a pretty large monetary award at work for being the outstanding new employee of the year. So I intentionally made the decision that I was going to use that money to invest in my relationship with Scott to spend meaningful time with him.[00:03:08 - 00:03:09]
Free lunches for months?[00:03:09 - 00:03:16]
Yes. So every Tuesday we'd meet up together on campus for lunch. We went on dates every Friday Night.[00:03:17 - 00:03:21]
I don't know if you know how much I looked forward to those lunches.[00:03:21 - 00:03:22]
Oh, it was amazing.[00:03:22 - 00:03:27]
Every day I was like, oh, were you a starving seer at lunch?[00:03:27 - 00:03:29]
It wasn't that you were a starving student.[00:03:29 - 00:03:34]
I wasn't a starving student, but I just was really, really looking forward to lunchtime.[00:03:34 - 00:03:54]
Me, too. We went on dates every Friday night, and on Saturdays or Sundays, we'd have picnics on the lawn, in my yard or at a nearby park whenever we drove anywhere. Remember your old green truck? We'd listen to music on your cassette tapes and sing to them.[00:03:54 - 00:03:55]
Oh, yeah.[00:03:55 - 00:04:05]
Some of the songs I remember. Unforgettable by Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole. Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera and omd.[00:04:05 - 00:04:07]
Orchestral Maneuvers in the dark.[00:04:07 - 00:05:02]
Right. Scott would spend hours playing his piano compositions in a practice room in the Fine Arts building. And I'd join him as often, often as I could after work and on weekends because our joint love of classical music was so important to us. We'd talk in person or on the phone, which back then, they were still tied to the wall for hours at a time. Then we got married. We both started working lots of hours. Scott was instantly thrust into parenting at the very same time as learning how to be a spouse. He took care of Cassidy in the mornings and then got her off to school. He went to school. Then he worked nights in the or, er, the or, in the or, operating room. He spent hours on med school applications and preparing for the mcat, which is the exam to get into med school.[00:05:02 - 00:05:03]
Med school.[00:05:04 - 00:05:53]
I was in charge of lots of special events for my job, so I had some pretty stressful times that I worked very long hours, too. And I remember a Spanish class hadn't taken Spanish for several years, and it took hours and hours to look up the words that I couldn't remember. We made the decision also at that time to get pregnant because we both had really good insurance. So I didn't feel very well or I was tired a lot of the time. Then our connection with each other was often focused on the baby once she was born and on our daughter. Then Scott got into med school, so I quit my job. We moved across the country to Kansas City, and we hardly saw each other anymore. We would fall into bed at night exhausted.[00:05:53 - 00:06:06]
Can I just add, I don't want to leave this out every morning. I did Cassidy's hair for years. Or, well, I guess two years maybe. Same thing every day.[00:06:07 - 00:06:08]
That's right.[00:06:09 - 00:06:10]
But it worked.[00:06:10 - 00:06:11]
What did you do?[00:06:11 - 00:06:14]
I just brushed it back and put it in a ponytail.[00:06:15 - 00:07:09]
That was really very, so fun, Very endearing. Well, our story isn't really that much different than other couples. Courtship in those early phases is really packed full of magical moments and exciting, deep connection with each other. It could be things like going on long walks or back rubs or watching movies or having romantic dinners, greeting each other with excitement. But research shows that after a year or two of marriage for many couples, work, hobbies, friends, especially as they enter into parenting. And I can't forget higher education responsibilities, things start to change. Similar to buying a car. We put the big investment up front, hoping that we won't need any maintenance along the way for quite a while. But with cars, after a while, things start breaking down.[00:07:09 - 00:07:10]
They need maintenance.[00:07:10 - 00:07:21]
Yep. And in marriage, the same thing. The decline in feeling connected to each other may be imperceivable. For a while, they may not even notice that they weren't making time to talk with each other.[00:07:22 - 00:07:22]
Yep.[00:07:23 - 00:07:32]
More and more space grows between the partners, and sometimes this causes anxiety and contention, which causes even more disconnection.[00:07:32 - 00:07:32]
Yep.[00:07:33 - 00:08:24]
Then the couple's points of connection are abandoned, sometimes for connecting points with the children, like, oh, yeah, we need to attend the children's ball games. We need to help them with their homework. We need to read them stories. All of the things that help our children feel safe and secure are great, don't get me wrong about that. But it's when we are ignoring that time with our spouse that things continue to escalate into areas that get pretty messy. Often, couples in those stages become more like roommates, only talking when passing through the room or when negotiating household duties. Eventually, they may even wonder why they're still in a relationship that is not fulfilling at all. It's at this point that a lot of couples head for couples therapy, and they may even be considering divorce.[00:08:25 - 00:08:25]
No.[00:08:26 - 00:08:54]
Dr. William Doherty from the University of Minnesota is a professor of marriage and family therapy who's been working with legislators, lawyers, clergy, mediators, and all kinds of people to help couples prevent divorce. And one of the big tools that he uses in his own therapy practice to help couples repair their marriage when it's declined like that, is to teach them how to intentionally create rituals of connection.[00:08:54 - 00:08:56]
I heard the word intentional.[00:08:56 - 00:09:26]
Yes. One of our cornerstones. So for this episode, we're largely leaning on his research, as well as the work of Dr. John Gottman, who we often talk about on our podcast. Both who have researched the role of rituals in creating meaningful and strong marriages. We might even say, you and I, Scott, that Rituals have the capacity to help marriages become scintillating. Yeah.[00:09:27 - 00:09:51]
We are really, really grateful for the rituals that we've kept during our early years in med school that kept us from becoming disconnected. Our weekly dates, I held onto them tightly. Sometimes we'd get weekend getaways just overnight and we usually had a baby toting along with us.[00:09:51 - 00:09:52]
Yeah.[00:09:53 - 00:10:12]
And just those times together, listening to music together, taking a walk down the park together, that became kind of a ritual. There was a beautiful park down in Parkville. We take time to do that, and that was very meaningful.[00:10:13 - 00:10:31]
So what are rituals from a more broad perspective? Well, rituals shape the human experience and develop in us a sense of belonging. So there are two aspects to rituals. The first is a physical aspect and the second is a psychological aspect.[00:10:31 - 00:10:32]
Okay.[00:10:32 - 00:11:29]
Physically, a ritual typically has a prescribed set of steps or of actions that are formal and repetitive. They're going to be done over and over. So this is structured and you can count on it happening. You know when it's going to happen and you know what it is that's going to happen. Their performance doesn't change. So think of, for example, a football team that listens to that same pump you up song from Eye of the Tigers. Thrill of the fight before running onto the field or not washing their game day socks. You might think of a business who has a morning huddle to get everyone motivated to work. Or that gives awards for employees to celebrate their accomplishments. Those can be considered rituals. They have purpose in religion. Rituals might include activities such as baptism or prayer or passover dinners.[00:11:30 - 00:11:31]
Yeah.[00:11:31 - 00:11:56]
Family rituals might also include things like saying, return with honor when your children leave for school or having hot chocolate chip cookies ready for them when they get off the bus. I remember when our kids were really young. Yeah. I'd make big batches of chocolate chip cookie dough and then make them into little balls and throw them in the freezer. And then every day I'd take out four, throw them in the oven.[00:11:56 - 00:11:59]
Our children have the idyllic childhood. Let's just be honest here.[00:11:59 - 00:12:02]
Parts of it are pretty idyllic, for sure.[00:12:02 - 00:12:18]
And at bedtime, I remember I would read to the kids. And we read out of several different books. I think most recently the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We would just howl and laugh. I think they enjoyed hearing me laugh more than they actually liked the book.[00:12:19 - 00:12:21]
Because when you laugh really hard, you snort.[00:12:21 - 00:12:24]
Oh, the kids love to kick out of that.[00:12:24 - 00:12:33]
Yeah, that was a great family ritual. And then I remember also we made up a little saying when we'd Put him in bed. Good night.[00:12:33 - 00:12:42]
Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite. I love you and I like you. I like you and I love you. Angels on your pillow.[00:12:46 - 00:12:50]
We built on it phrase by phrase, and then the last phrase was happy.[00:12:50 - 00:12:51]
Whatever the next holiday is.[00:12:51 - 00:13:18]
Yeah. So we let the kids be involved in creating that ritual. Each of these actions that we do in a ritual has very specific purpose or meaning associated with it. The exact same actions to someone else could look silly with no meaning. Like when you think of saying that little thing that we said, if it wasn't a term of endearment, they'd think, oh my gosh, you guys are so weird.[00:13:18 - 00:13:24]
You're weird. Yeah, well, we're weird anyway. But I mean, you know, it's just piles on.[00:13:24 - 00:14:03]
It is. So then psychologically, on the other hand, rituals can bring a sense of security and belonging. There's research by Hobson et al from the University of Toronto in 2017 that shows that rituals can decrease anxiety, OCD and distress. Think about it. When people are anxious or when they have ocd, they often start performing ritualistic types of behaviors to help them self soothe. So if we put rituals intentionally into our family life, it can help them cope with that.[00:14:03 - 00:14:05]
Very interesting. I had not thought of that.[00:14:05 - 00:14:33]
Yeah. Rituals also help with social connection by helping the group, whether it be a football team, a religious congregation, a business, a family or a marriage, be more unified and better participate within the culture of that social group. Research also shows that rituals create connection. They bring confidence, they dispel anxieties, they bring discipline. Rituals also help define our identity.[00:14:34 - 00:14:39]
They help us identify, oh, another of the four cornerstones, identity.[00:14:40 - 00:14:48]
Do we have any rituals you can think of that we have used to help identify who we are as a family?[00:14:48 - 00:15:09]
Yes. Just off the top of my head, we review our family proclamation. Every marriage retreat that's hanging in our main room in our house, framed, this is who we are. That's a ritual. And I really love it, actually. It's really sounds awesome every time we read it.[00:15:09 - 00:15:25]
I think we have lots of rituals surrounding music in our family. You know, we had a period of time where we would sing together before bedtime. We've had rituals where we do karaoke every time we get together, even now. So that's who we are and that's what we are.[00:15:25 - 00:15:29]
That's helping us to identify, define our identity.[00:15:30 - 00:15:49]
Other ways that that might happen is for a couple or a family to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Are they just going through the motions Doing it because it's funny or it's fun or is it intentionally to help them stay grounded in Hispanic heritage? That's what makes it a ritual.[00:15:50 - 00:15:50]
Okay.[00:15:50 - 00:16:21]
Rituals are an important and meaningful way also to celebrate rites of passage, like marriages, like starting school, children leaving for college, birthdays, Mother's days, and important holidays. Hobson also found that rituals are the antidote for disconnection and overreactivity. I don't know why this would be. I mean, I do know the disconnection, but the overreactivity. Do you think it's just because they feel safer?[00:16:21 - 00:16:24]
Yeah, it has, like, a grounding effect.[00:16:24 - 00:16:27]
It just helps them feel stable.[00:16:27 - 00:17:23]
Yeah, stable grounding in their family. That makes sense. That makes me think of the history. I was just thinking about this earlier. The thousands of years of human history, how different cultures, different groups, different tribes, different ethnicities, languages. These people over the years had this common thread of creating rituals. Whether it's being married in the Jewish tradition under a canopy, whether it's a tradition of attending a religious service on Sunday, whether it's a tradition of praying to a pagan God by the Mayans or these tribes in Africa. They have these rituals that create meaning and order in their life.[00:17:23 - 00:17:51]
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And rituals are grounded with purpose and meaning. There's a difference, though, between traditions and rituals. And rituals can be part of a tradition, but traditions are passing down beliefs or culture to the next generation, doing things generation by generation. And habits are. We do the same things over and over, but it's not really having meaning.[00:17:51 - 00:17:55]
Right. Habits may not be with meaning.[00:17:55 - 00:17:57]
Right. But rituals have meaning.[00:17:57 - 00:17:58]
Deep meaning.[00:17:58 - 00:18:06]
Deep meaning. They're done over and over. They may or may not be passed down to the next generation. It might just be between you and I. Mm.[00:18:06 - 00:18:11]
Okay. So traditions and rituals maybe have a little overlay there.[00:18:11 - 00:18:36]
Right, Right. I would say so for an example, Thanksgiving dinner could be either a ritual or a tradition. Do we just get together with our family and eat and watch football? That might be a tradition. But if we make it a meaningful discussion about what we're thankful for and we intentionally reestablish relationships with extended family, then it could be considered a ritual. Okay, so it's kind of looking at why do we do what we do.[00:18:36 - 00:18:37]
The why.[00:18:37 - 00:18:40]
If we can attach shared meaning to it, then it can become a ritual.[00:18:40 - 00:18:41]
I love that.[00:18:42 - 00:18:52]
Celebrating an anniversary by going out to eat in a movie could be a tradition. But if we're intentional about this celebration and we do so with meaning, then it becomes a ritual.[00:18:53 - 00:19:30]
Let Me see if I understand this correctly, because this is kind of a new concept for me with rituals. I think I understood it a little bit from the outset before this, but I really know a lot more now, or think I do. It really creates a purpose and meaning for you in your marriage and your family. By having rituals. It creates a feeling, a sense of security and belonging to a group, a identity that's bigger than yourself. And that group, in this case is marriage.[00:19:30 - 00:19:31]
Right.[00:19:32 - 00:19:53]
These rituals create a connection and sometimes a connection that only you have and no one else. It's a private connection that loops you into this feeling of exclusivity. It really helps kind of define our identity as a man or a woman in our marriage.[00:19:54 - 00:19:55]
Or as a couple.[00:19:55 - 00:19:55]
Yes.[00:19:55 - 00:19:58]
Together as a couple or as a family.[00:19:59 - 00:20:08]
And rituals are important to really celebrate at times, at meaningful times in your life.[00:20:08 - 00:20:25]
That's a fantastic synopsis of that. I want to just include here a brief questionnaire that John Gottman includes in his books, the seven Principles of making Marriage Work to help, you know, if you are connected through rituals in your marriage.[00:20:25 - 00:20:26]
So that's John Gottman, right?[00:20:26 - 00:20:26]
Yeah.[00:20:26 - 00:20:30]
The seven what? Seven principles for making marriage work. Okay.[00:20:30 - 00:20:38]
Right. They're all true or false. Number one, we see eye to eye about the rituals that involve family dinner times in our home.[00:20:39 - 00:20:39]
Okay.[00:20:40 - 00:25:05]
Number two, Holiday meals such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and Passover are very special and happy times for us. Or we both hate them. Three, end of the day reunions in our home are generally special times. Four, we see eye to eye about the role of TV in our home. I thought that was very interesting. Five, bedtimes are generally good times for being close. Six, during the weekends, we do a lot of things together that we enjoy and value. Seven, we have the same values about entertaining in our home. We have friends over. We have parties or we don't like doing anything. Eight, we both value or both dislike special celebrations like birthdays, anniversaries and family reunions. Nine, when I become sick, I feel taken care of and loved by my spouse. 10, I really look forward to and enjoy our vacations and the travel we do together. 11, spending our morning time together is really special to us. 12, when we do errands together, we generally have a good time. And 13, we have ways of becoming renewed and refreshed when we're burned out or fatigued. So scoring yourself, you get one point for each answer. If you scored below a three, your relationship could use some improvements by putting some rituals in there. If it's over three, and that's a pretty low bar. That's how he scores it. I say it can probably use some help if you don't have several of those. Marital rituals can create this sense of unity and connection and provide structure, predictability, and do so especially in times that are really stressful. In fact, there's research that shows families who are highly ritualistic and also flexible that they've learned to master. Both of those are the most resilient families in times of crisis. That was something that we taught in the family crisis class I used to teach. So, like Dr. Gottman talked about, we can create rituals surrounding when we wake up, when we go to bed, when we leave the house, and when we return to the house. And I know there was a great story I read about a guy that decided early in his marriage he wanted to make time every morning before leaving for his wife. So they ate breakfast together, and then they talked during that time, just a few minutes. It wasn't very long. And then when they finished their breakfast, he'd pat on his lap, she'd go sit on his lap and put her arms around his neck. And they would take two minutes where he'd just say, honey, what do you have going on today? And then she would say the same to him. And then they'd kiss each other and he'd leave. And that was it. That was not a very long ritual, but it happened every day for many years and really increased their intimacy with each other, not only through physical touch, but also because they knew what was going on in each other's day, so they could later question each other about that. Anything we can do to create talk time rituals is really beneficial. To have at least 15 minutes of talk time during the day with each other is most desirable. But even if it can be a couple of minutes, like what he had while they were eating, it was very intentional. They could have had breakfast together without it being intentional. But the purpose behind it, the meaning behind it, was to connect with each other, to talk about feelings. We can create rituals around sex, not only about when or how or different types, but also how to say in a gentle way, I'm not feeling it today, so you're not feeling rejected or I'm really feeling it today. So it's not mind reading, just having rituals formed around those are a good idea. One of our previous guests talked about a couple of rituals that she said there was research on that I did do a little bit of a dive into, and that was going to bed together at the same time.[00:25:06 - 00:25:06]
Ah.[00:25:06 - 00:25:36]
So research shows that Couples who go to bed at the same time are much more satisfied with their marriage. So bedtime is the perfect time to create some kinds of rituals, because if we're going to bed together, then we can have those points of connection, whether it's just snuggling for a few minutes or having our talk time. Then. One of my favorite bedtime rituals is when you play two or three minutes from.[00:25:36 - 00:25:37]
From the movie Forrest Gump.[00:25:37 - 00:26:04]
Yeah. When we write in our journals for a few minutes. Again, this is another place where we can put rituals around. Just saying, this was the best part of my day. This is the hardest part of my day. Some people call it rose and thorn. In our family, we call it poopsicles and popsicles. There are also a lot of benefits to creating rituals around prayer. Studies show that couples who pray together also report higher sexual satisfaction. Isn't that interesting?[00:26:04 - 00:26:05]
Yeah. Indeed.[00:26:06 - 00:26:30]
They have improved communication. They have better cardiovascular functioning. And in that particular study, they compared people who pray to people who meditate and people who read positive news stories. And those who had prayer together had significantly better cardiovascular functioning than the other ones did.[00:26:31 - 00:26:33]
We'll all be praying.[00:26:33 - 00:27:07]
Couples also report that prayer helps them have the desire to change for the better, to be more humble and positive, to be able to resolve their conflicts. Because their hearts become softened, they experience healing from the conflict when they pray about it. And sometimes they gain the perspective of their partner. So that's interesting how that one ritual alone has so many benefits that have been studied. How do we make rituals work, you might ask. We recommend tying them to something that you're already doing, like waking up, going to sleep.[00:27:07 - 00:27:07]
Yeah.[00:27:08 - 00:27:08]
Brushing your teeth.[00:27:08 - 00:27:09]
Yep.[00:27:09 - 00:27:25]
Walking in the door, Walking out the door. If you can tie it to eating breakfast. If we can tie it to something that we're already doing each day, it becomes automatic. And we don't have to make that decision about whether we're going to do it or not. It just will happen.[00:27:25 - 00:27:26]
I like that.[00:27:26 - 00:28:04]
We do want to recommend to people that they're aware of how they ritualize things. Here's an example that I was thinking of you every year for our anniversary, give me lingerie. And I really struggle with body image. I really struggle with our sexual relationship. That might be more hurtful than it is connecting for us. So for that reason, I recommend that couples make these decisions together, maybe in couples counseling, about what kinds of rituals they can create together. It's important that both people love the ritual.[00:28:04 - 00:28:05]
Yes.[00:28:05 - 00:28:09]
And find joy in that. So for this week, what are some things we could do?[00:28:09 - 00:28:12]
Yeah. What routines do you do regularly?[00:28:13 - 00:28:14]
Ask yourself that.[00:28:14 - 00:29:07]
Yeah, just ask yourself. We talked about some here. There's some obvious ones like what Heidi said, going to bed, waking up, eating. And just think maybe what are some things you can add on to that that are meaningful to you? Just sit down with yourself and then sit down with your spouse. What do you both do on a regular basis? Routine basis. What can you identify that you already doing now that you can just start calling a ritual? It can be as crazy as you'd like. Like, we both eat pizza and watch our favorite show on Thursday nights. Awesome. Can you intentionally sit down with each other and make meaning out of that and maybe create some new ones surrounding that?[00:29:07 - 00:29:10]
And they don't even have to be things that take a lot of time.[00:29:10 - 00:29:11]
Yeah.[00:29:11 - 00:29:21]
I think if we just have multiple things throughout the day, the week, the month, the year that bring us to a point of deep connection that has meaning.[00:29:21 - 00:29:22]
Yeah.[00:29:22 - 00:29:25]
That's more important than the amount of time it takes.[00:29:25 - 00:29:59]
I love that. Let's bring this back to how this relates to identity, intentionality, and intimacy. Today with identity, we talked about developing rituals that help define us as an individual and define our identity as a couple and as a family. And with intentionality, these rituals can be shortcuts to helping us remember the longer, bigger meaning of things that are really important to us.[00:29:59 - 00:30:02]
Yeah, that takes a ton of intentionality to do that.[00:30:02 - 00:30:26]
Yeah. And then intimacy. These rituals create further deepening emotional bonds in our relationships with each other over years and decades. And with that, we hope you have a great week. And remember, the intelligent spouse knows that to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves.[00:30:27 - 00:31:04]
Thank you all for tuning into Marriage iq. We hope today's episode has sparked valuable insights. Remember, the conversation doesn't end here. If you are interested in more information on this topic, or to learn more about what we do, check out our website, drhidihastings.com and if you get the chance, we'd love to have you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. It really helps us get the word out about Marriage iq. Thanks again for listening. Keep exploring and we'll catch you next time on another exciting episode of Marriage IQ.
