What is the healthiest thing you've done for your marriage?

The first year of our married life was hard. Even though I wanted to be with Jon, things weren’t working out. I was mad at him for not pulling his weight around the house and he was unhappy that I didn’t like his daily TV watching habit. It is amazing how seemingly simple things like these can pull you apart.

We were headed for either a bad marriage or a divorce.

At the end of the year, I had a review at work. This was my first real job after college. I was asked what my accomplishments were for the year, where I saw myself going, what I wanted to do, what I liked and didn’t like about my work.

That got me thinking.

If I put in this effort to evaluate my work that I have not much allegiance to, why not do the same with my relationship?

If these questions can help me have a better work life, then why not see if they can help me have a better relationship at home.

I came home and suggested we do the same for our marriage. Jon wasn’t excited, but he played along. It was awkward and too clinical in the beginning, to say the least!

Here are the questions we both answered:

1.What has been my contribution(s) to the marriage in the past year?
2.What is something that I bring to the marriage that doesn’t help the marriage?
3.What has been my partner’s contribution(s) to the marriage in the past year?
4.What is something that my partner brings to the marriage that doesn’t help the marriage?
5.What is the one thing that I should work to be better at in the coming year?
6.What is the one thing that my partner should work to be better at in the coming year?

We write these answers in a notebook taking turns. The only condition is that the number of points in #1 should be greater than the number of items in #2. And number of points in #3 should be greater than the number of items in #4.

This is so that we come away feeling appreciated, not judged.

We then read out loud and explain to our partner what we mean by what we wrote.

At the end, we decide what each of us should work on in the coming year.

We just celebrated 24 years of marriage. Now, we make the ‘review’ day a romantic one so we look forward to it. Since we have written our reviews in the same notebook, we have the fun of reading how we have evolved together over the years.

Nowadays we literally have to find things to complain about in each other because we have resolved most of the pesky issues. And we are genuinely happily married.