Marriage Moats-Bubble
Published: Wed, 02/02/11
| Marriage Moats | Caring for Marriage |
|
This photograph is flat, but the bubble is round. How is it that we can represent something with depth, and volume through a medium that cannot support those dimensions?
Experience helps here. If we have seen bubbles before, the remembrance fills in the blank when we try to make sense of the visual information.
Marriage is deeper than any page of script can encompass, richer than any camera can capture. If I repeat the same sweet dialogue as the elderly couple I overheard in a restaurant, will I be happily married too? There are plenty of marriage books and classes that can tell you the right words to say or the wrong words to not say. John Gottman is one ground breaking researcher who reports that sarcasm and rolling your eyes are strong predictors of divorce. But he is describing a three dimensional phenomenon with a two dimensional one. It is not the rolling of the eyes, per say, it is the feeling that infills that gesture. I have tried to resist poking John with those pointy comments that can make his good feelings disappear. No actual blood or guts hit the floor when I do, but the loss of his buoyant spirit is reason enough to keep my fingers to myself.
Photo by Andy Sullivan
www.caringformarriage.org | |
