Seven Key Relationships #3
Your Relationship With Your spouse or partner
Why Order Matters & Why This Relationship Shapes Everything
There’s something powerful that happens when we talk about relationships — especially the ones closest to our hearts.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned through my own marriage, through the families I’ve supported, and through Dr. Paul Jenkins’ decades of experience, it’s this:
👉 Order matters.
Not because some relationships are “more valuable” than others…
But because without the right foundation, everything else becomes unstable.
In the context of the seven key relationships, your spouse or partner comes third — but in your family life, they are your number one family priority.
And that order matters more than most people realize.
🌾 Why Your Spousal Relationship Comes First in the Family
Dr. Paul says it plainly:
Your spouse is the only family relationship you choose.
You didn’t choose your parents.
You didn’t choose your siblings.
You didn’t choose your children.
But you chose this person.
And together, you build the foundational family unit that your children will one day model in their own lives.
When this relationship is strong, steady, and nurtured, everything else in the family rests more securely.
When it’s neglected — or placed lower in the priority list than siblings, parents, work, or even children — small cracks begin to form.
Sometimes tiny.
Sometimes devastating.
Dr. Paul spent 13 years doing child custody evaluations for the courts — witnessing families in their most painful moments.
And over and over again, one pattern repeated:
👉 The relationship order had been disrupted long before the crisis.
One partner prioritized siblings over their spouse.
One put work above the marriage.
One poured everything into the children and left nothing for the relationship that built the family in the first place.
Order matters.
And getting it right can transform a marriage — or save it.
🌼 Three Ways to Strengthen (or Even Save) This Relationship
1. Choose Love — Not the Feeling, the ACTION
Love is not always a warm emotion.
Some days it’s a choice — a decision to show up with kindness, openness, and intentionality.
Dr. Paul teaches that every interaction is a love choice or a hate choice.
There is no neutral.
A hate choice looks like:
❌ Assuming the worst
❌ Clinging to pride
❌ Thinking to destroy, punish, or retaliate
A love choice is the opposite:
✨ Assume the best
✨ Practice humility
✨ Think to create, build, and lift
Choosing love doesn’t mean you ignore problems.
It simply means you show up in a way that makes solutions possible.
2. Learn to Communicate Effectively
Communication isn’t about “talking more.”
It’s about connecting more clearly, calmly, and respectfully.
Here are Dr. Paul’s five quick communication tools — and they’re brilliant:
1. Don’t be a bear.
Your spouse shouldn’t feel like they’re walking into a trap.
2. Don’t see a bear.
Even if they’re prickly, remember:
You’re not married to an enemy.
You’re married to someone you chose to love.
3. Eliminate noise.
Turn off the TV.
Put down your phone.
Remove distractions.
4. Listen to understand.
Not to debate.
Not to rebut.
Not to win.
Just to understand.
5. Express to be understood.
Not to persuade.
Not to correct.
Not to accuse.
Simply to be understood.
Connection begins when someone feels safe, heard, and seen.
3. Memorize the Nine Principles (Your Relationship Toolbox)
Dr. Paul calls these the Nine Principles for Creating and Keeping a Happier Family — a relationship toolbox you want ready before the breakdown happens:
Positivity
Shared Values
Humility
Forgiveness
Respect
Love
Compassion
Work
Wholesome Recreation
These principles are simple, but powerful — especially when practiced intentionally.
Your marriage will face seasons of stress, fatigue, misunderstandings, and change.
Having these principles “on board” gives you the tools to handle whatever comes.
If you’d like a deeper understanding of each principle — and why they matter so much for creating a strong, resilient marriage — I have a simple video that walks you through all nine. It’s one of my favourite teachings from Dr. Paul Jenkins and worth every minute.
🌻 A Personal Reflection
My friend, marriage is beautiful — and it is work.
Not heavy, exhausting work… but intentional, nourishing work.
After almost 50 years with Lynn, I can tell you this:
The days we chose love changed us.
The days we practiced humility changed us.
The days we built instead of battled changed us.
Marriage grows deeper not through perfection, but through presence.
Through choosing each other again and again.
And that, more than anything, is why this relationship matters so deeply.
🌸 Reflection Questions for Your Journal
Where am I placing my spouse in the order of my relationships?
Which love choices could I intentionally practice this week?
Do I communicate to connect — or to correct?
What noise can I eliminate so we can truly understand each other?
Which of the nine principles would strengthen our relationship right now?
🌿 Closing Thought
Your relationship with your spouse or partner is sacred.
It’s the foundation of your family.
It’s the relationship that shapes the emotional climate of your home.
And it’s the one relationship where choosing love — every single day — creates a ripple effect across every other part of your life.
This is the relationship worth protecting.
Worth nurturing.
Worth prioritizing.
Because when the foundation is strong, the whole family grows stronger.
DOWNLOAD your 7 KEY RELATIONSHIPS Journal HERE
🌿 Inspired by Dr. Paul Jenkins, PsychologistHow to Experience Joy in Your Seven Key Relationships
This series draws inspiration from the work of Dr. Paul Jenkins, Positive Psychologist and author of Pathological Positivity. His teachings on the seven foundational relationships—and his mission through Live On Purpose Central—invite us to see life differently, choose joy intentionally, and nurture the connections that shape our fulfillment.