Episode #19: My Husband’s Hand When The Plane Didn’t Land: Invisible Moments that Create Relationship Connection

What’s better than the twitterpation feeling in your relationship?

Bumping around in the sky, getting closer and closer to the ground, when our plane aborted the landing my body began to sweat. My vision blurred.

And then there was my husband’s hand.

Are you and your spouse creating habits to comfort you when crisis strikes?

Relationship habits are invisible until we need them

Comfort, by its very nature, disappears. You don’t notice you’re comfortable snuggled on the couch until the broken spring pokes you in the back. You don’t notice how lovely the temperature is until the door opens and an icy wind blows in. Comfort is something we notice because of contrast.

So how do you know if you’re creating habits in your relationship that foster comfort for your happily ever after?

The slow erosion of an unstable relationship

Comfort is largely invisible.

I was talking to an art professor who mentioned to me she noticed a freedom in the art of her colleagues who were in stable relationships. She told me about colleagues who, when their relationship suffered, their art came to a halt.

Imagine the power this comfort offers to create a firm foundation to your life day after day, month after month, year after year. Your body doesn’t know how to lie. It can’t fake security. When the sweat stopped flooding out of my pores it was because my body’s sympathetic nervous system felt calmed by David’s presence.

Most people find these invisible moments easiest to locate if you imagine the worst: What if your spouse was gone?

I’ve talked to many people who have lost their spouse and it’s always so tender to hear what things they miss most. Mostly it involves the fabric of every day living:

• The noise in the kitchen in the morning
• Seeing their sweetheart’s shoes in the entry
• A smell of perfume wafting on your sweetheart’s hug

What tiny, invisible thing does your spouse do or say that brings your life comfort and stability.

This habit of noticing those invisible moments allows you to skip the bumpy plane ride, but still recognize you’re cultivating a deep connection with your True Companion.

Maybe your story is less dramatic, but noticing matters.

Noticing aloud matters to your spouse. Your spouse feels seen. And when you speak those invisible moments aloud, you feel them, instead of them getting washed away in the everyday rhythm of life.

When you color an invisible moment visible without the catastrophic circumstance to wake you up to it, you strengthen your awareness. You see things you were taking for granted.

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