Creating A Safe Emotional Environment In Your Marriage

Learn how to create a safe emotional environment in your marriage to support social and emotional well-being. Find out why it’s important and how to plan for it.

Article At A Glance

1. Diversify Together: Engage in varied activities and interests as a couple to keep the relationship dynamic and resilient, akin to diversifying an investment portfolio.
2. Regular Relationship Check-Ins: Schedule consistent discussions to assess and address the health of the relationship, similar to how investors regularly review their portfolios.
3. Balance Emotional Investment: Maintain a healthy balance between giving to the relationship and personal well-being, ensuring emotional safety and avoiding burnout.
4. Plan and Adapt Together: Set long-term goals for the relationship, but remain flexible to adapt to life’s changes, mirroring the strategy of long-term planning with short-term adjustments in investing.

We’ve all heard of Warren Buffett, but few have heard of Charlie Munger. He was Buffett’s partner.

Charlie was a brilliant investor. He amassed a fortune worth over 2.4 billion. With a ‘B.’

Guys like Buffett and Munger aren’t just lucky. They have a system in place that helps them make decisions.

Charlie especially had several rules for life he used as his bumper guards.

One of those rules was ‘Be Safe.’

Here’s how he explained it.

In engineering, people have a big margin of safety. But in the financial world, people don’t give a damn about safety. When you build a bridge, you insist it can carry 30,000 pounds, but you only drive 10,000-pound trucks across it. And the same idea works in investing.”

For Charlie this meant he wouldn’t sell junk stocks to people. He only invested in and sold the best.

Can you see how this might relate to marriage? I hope so.

Here are a couple of takeaways I learned…

1. Build Into Your Relationship Some Guardrails That Keep You From Getting Off Track

Most couples disconnect because they allowed other things to get in the way of their personal and marriage growth.

If you put some boundaries in place, you can avoid a lot of the things cause couples to run into trouble.

We did an entire series on boundaries. You can find it here.

2. Safety Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Try New Things. It’s About Calculated Risk, Not Crazy Ones.

Safe doesn’t mean you can’t try new things, or move out of your comfort zone.

On the contrary, being safe is often demanding. It requires discipline to ‘not do things.’ To not do the things that hurt you in the long run.

I’ve made some bold moves over the years. 

At 50, I stopped pastoring and launched a business with two friends.

At 60, I made another shift. My wife and I launched a new media and publishing company.

Both of these actions involved risk. But they were calculated risk. We didn’t blindly jump into these without prayer, thinking things through, and understanding the possibilities.

Just like an investor diversifies their portfolio to manage risk, couples can diversify their interests and activities together. This might involve trying new hobbies, traveling to different places, or learning new skills together. This introduces new experiences into the relationship without risking its core stability. It’s about adding variety while maintaining a strong foundation of common values and shared goals.

My point is, it is okay to try new things.

When it comes to your marriage, safety doesn’t mean you have to be boring, dull, or lazy. In fact, it may REQUIRE you to get out of your comfort zone to connect with your spouse on a deeper level.

3. Safe Means You Don’t Put Undo Stress On Your Marriage

Just as Munger emphasizes the importance of a margin of safety in investments, couples can apply this concept to their emotional investments. This means not overextending themselves to the point of emotional exhaustion.

It involves maintaining a balance between giving to the relationship and preserving personal well-being. For instance, setting aside time for individual relaxation and self-care can prevent burnout and resentment.

Charlie uses the engineering example. When you build a bridge, you build it to withstand way more than you think it will require.

For example, you build it to withstand bad weather (tornado type weather), heavy loads, and high winds. You do not just make it strong enough to carry a light load. That’s a formula for disaster. You make it stronger than it needs to be.

Same with marriage.

It needs to be stronger than you think it needs to be.

Stuff happens in life. Challenges. Hardship. Crisis. Pain. You name it.

If you build your marriage right, it will be stronger than it needs to be, so it can withstand the worst of what life dishes out.

That takes courage. It takes strength. And it takes a game plan. 

It doesn’t happen by accident.

One of the best things you can do for your relationship is lay the right foundation.

Similar to how a strong bridge is built to withstand unexpected challenges, couples can build a strong foundation in their relationship by developing strong communication skills, trust, and mutual respect. This foundation acts as a buffer against the inevitable challenges and conflicts that arise in any relationship.

4. Safe Means Doing Regular Performance Reviews

In the investment world, regular reviews of portfolio performance are crucial. Similarly, couples can schedule regular check-ins to discuss their relationship.

These can be monthly or quarterly ‘meetings’ where they openly discuss their feelings, challenges they’re facing, and areas where they feel particularly fulfilled or neglected. This practice ensures that small issues are addressed before they become big problems.

My wife and I have quarterly ‘get-aways’ so we can plan, review, and check-in with each other. 

These are not always over-night get-aways. Most of the time we book a conference room at a library near us. We will take at least the afternoon (most of the time it’s all day), so we can discuss things that need to be discussed.

As I mentioned, we plan our calendar and map out our writing projects. But we also ask each other, ‘how am I doing?’ (meaning, how am I doing as a husband/wife).

This is a very important time for us. It opens the door for conversation and serves as a check point so we never get too far off course.

By asking each other ‘how we are doing’ we give permission to our spouse to be honest and allow them to make their needs, wants and desires be known.

I find that couples who regularly practice this, are more healthy, and have a higher rate of marriage satisfaction.

Performance reviews are necessary in the business world; why not apply that to marriage. It helps keep you connected, and moving in the right direction.

If we allow things to go ‘unchecked’ for too long, we run the risk of having to do major damage control later on. The sooner problem issues are addressed and resolved, the smoother the marriage runs.

5. Safe Means Long-term Planning and Short-term Adjustments

Any good financial plan has the future in mind. Long term plans are necessary so you can be prepared and disciplined to reach your goals.

That said, we all know that life happens. Whether it’s the housing crash of 2008, or COVID in 2020, things happen that throw even the best of plans off.

That’s why it is necessary to make short term adjustments.

This means we should be flexible enough to make short-term adjustments based on changing circumstances, much like how investors adjust their portfolios in response to market changes.

For example, if a couple plans to have children or buy a house, they should also be prepared to adapt these plans in case of unexpected events like job changes or health issues.

Even ‘small’ things can throw your plans off. This is why having ‘check-in’ times (mentioned above) can help you make these short term adjustments.

Healthy marriages make sure things do not grow out of proportion. They create a safe emotional environment that allows both partners to express their feelings, and work together to make adjustments that keep their relationship alive.

What’s Next?

We’ve discussed how a safe emotional enviorment in your marriage is a necessity. We related this to investment prinicples practiced by Charile Munger and Warren Buffet. These principles are timeless, and they apply to many areas of our life.

These 5 key principles will help you create an enviorment where trust, love, and acceptance is easy.

If this is an area where you struggle, we have programs and courses we recommend.

Here’s where to start.

If you are in crisis, start here.

If you want to fine tune your relationship, do this.