Couple Forward

An Ongoing Inquiry

On the Inherited.

The deepest work in any relationship is not the cycle. It is the maps each person inherited before they had words.

The Tool

The MAPSS Check

The MAPSS Check is the structured tool. Five layers, descended one at a time, applied to one inherited map you are questioning right now. About thirty minutes if you move steadily. Ends with a downloadable card of your record, in your own words.

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One map at a time. Examination, not installation. The work is to make the map visible. What you do with it after is yours.

What Gets Inherited

We do not arrive at our relationships clean. We arrive with maps. Maps handed to us about who we are supposed to be, who we are supposed to love, who we are supposed to become. Some of those maps still fit. Some no longer fit. Some never did. The work begins when we examine which is which.

People who do this work stop being controlled by maps they did not choose. They reclaim the territory the maps were pointing at. Marriages re-stabilize. Identities clarify. Old loyalties get honest. Some maps stay. Some go. Some get redrawn. All of them stop running unconsciously.

Identity Maps

  • Maps of manhood
  • Maps of womanhood
  • Maps of being a partner
  • Maps of being a parent

Relational Maps

  • Maps of love
  • Maps of marriage
  • Maps of fatherhood
  • Maps of motherhood
  • Maps of friendship and loyalty

Cultural Maps

  • Maps of success
  • Maps of faith and meaning
  • Maps of work and worth

Pick whichever one is loudest right now.