Today we are going to unpack the virtue of admiration. By the way, did you know that admiration has a dark side?  I had no idea until we tackled this subject too, but it does make a lot of sense!

If you’ve ever read the Song of Solomon in the Bible I think you have a pretty clear example there of how admiration is so helpful for fostering love and affection between lovers.

What is Admiration?

I imagine everyone knows what admiration is, generally. But actually describing it might be a little harder. Sometimes it can be hard to differentiate admiration from other similar positive emotions in marriage. Here’s a helpful quote from a study we reviewed: “Admiration is a feeling of delighted approval of the accomplishment or character of another person[i]”

A lot of the time admiration comes from pleasant surprises: when someone does something or shows characteristics that prompt feelings of fondness, awe, approval and respect[ii]. I think that we can also benefit from being intentional about admiration though, and seek to notice and focus on those attributes in others and in our spouse in particular.

But there are other emotions linked to admiration. These include[iii]:

Gratitude: thankfulness for someone's actions and who they are. Strongly linked to feelings of admiration and often naturally follows on from it. Both have positive effects for relationships

Elevation: researchers describe this as a specific form of admiration felt in response to "witnessing an act of virtue or moral beauty". It’s like when you see your spouse do something especially incredible you “elevate” them in your mind.

Envy: now this is the dark side of admiration, where instead of approving of the qualities of others, you feel bad about your lack of these qualities. Or you desire to take those qualities for yourself. Envy is desiring the good others have rather than just admiring them. You see, admiration is wholly focused on the other person, while envy is more introspective

Joy: feelings of admiration are physically and psychologically similar to feeling joy. We often experience these together.

Admiration Impacts Marriage

Stability and Satisfaction

Here’s a neat, long-term study. Shapiro et al[iv] interviewed 43 newlywed couples and then observed them for 6 years of their marriage. They found that the key qualities which predicted a stable, happy marriage were:

Fondness and admiration expressed. Expressed is the keyword there: not just felt.

Awareness of your spouse's needs and their world

Amount of unity expressed through use of phrases including "we" and "us" rather than "I"

These factors were strongly linked to both marital satisfaction for husbands and wives, and marital stability. Using these factors they were able to predict stability/divorce 6 years later with 94% accuracy.

How fascinating is that? From one conversation the researchers could predict the trajectory of a marriage with almost total success. By the way — we worked really hard in designing our content for our marriage retreat on The Marriage Cruise for Smart Couples to build these three items up in the couples who attended.

Buffering

Fondness and admiration were also seen as a buffer which protected couples from the stress of major life events such as the birth of the first child.

This was especially true for husbands expressing admiration for their wives: "The fondness and admiration system in a couple's relationship can be thought of as the glue that holds the relationship together... The more fondness for his wife the husband expresses, or the more glue he puts into the relationship, the more satisfied the wife is with the marriage.[v]" (Shapiro et al, 2000)

Inspiration

Admiration for someone can inspire you to want to be a better person yourself. This kind of inspiration “involves the transcendence of the ordinary preoccupations or limitations of human agency[vi]”,