Turn, Turn, Turn

As the weather warms and spring approaches, I am reminded of other cycles in our lives.

Often I hear from couples who say, I just don’t feel the love for him/her that I once did.

I hear this primarily from young couples.

Those older, established marriages that are a commodity, grin at these statements.  “Yeah, that happens.” 

It is a season.

Just like the earth, our marriages have seasons. 

Gary Chapman, the author of The 5 Love Languages also has a book on this topic.

Gary introduces seasons in marriage as:

Hopeful (Spring), Satisfied (Summer), Distant (Fall), and Unsettled (Winter)

These reoccur throughout marriage just like our earthly seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter.  The advantage with marital seasons, however is that you can work to decrease occurrences and length of fall and winter.

Just as we generally know the weather patterns with earthly seasons, we can become aware of indicators in each marital season and learn to navigate effectively. 

If you desire to understand marital seasons and you need strategies, I recommend Gary Chapman’s book, The Four Seasons of Marriage.

For those of you who don't enjoy or have time for reading, below is a chart of the seasonal qualities Gary mentions in the first chapters of his book.

As always, reach out for help when you get stuck.

	Spring	Summer	Fall	Winter
Emotions	Exciting, joyful, hopeful	Happy, satisfied, accomplished	Fearful, discouraged, resentful, unappreciated	Rejected, hurt, lonely
Attitudes	Optimistic, grateful, loving	Trust, striving for growth, comfortable	Concern, uncertainty, blaming	Negative, frustrated, hopeless, numb
Action	Planning, communicating, nurturing	Constructive communication, acceptance of differences, continued education in marriage	Neglect, failure to deal with problems	Blaming, destructive, critical, physical
Climate	New beginnings, focused on the future, caring, intimate	Supportive, understanding, relaxed, sense of togetherness, intimate	Disengaged, focused on self	Volatile, bitter, detached

*based on Gary Chapman’s Four Seasons of Marriage