5 Questions for Your Weekly Marriage Meeting

Do you have a hard time thinking of things to talk about on your date night other than coordinating logistics, and kids?   Are there conversations you avoid, and conflicts that have gone unresolved for too long? Do you feel like you and your partner are drifting apart and turning into that boring couple you swore you’d never be? Well, it’s probably because you’re not having a weekly Marriage Meeting. A Marriage Meeting is like a Staff Meeting. It’s an opportunity to connect, talk about logistics, calendars, and budgets. It’s also a chance to check the pulse of your relationship. How are things going? What’s going well? What can you improve on. Couples who don’t have regular, effective marriage meetings typically drift apart from each other over time and end up stuck in Roommate Syndrome… or worse. I want to make your Marriage Meetings easy for you. So, here are 5 things you should talk about with your partner every week during your “State of the Union.” 1. Gratitudes A good marriage meeting is one that doesn’t leave either partner dreading the next week’s meeting. So, one of your goals should always be to focus on the positive. That’s why I like to start every Marriage Meeting by expressing gratitude. What are the things your partner did for you this week that made your life easier? What are some of the “expected” things they do that you haven’t acknowledged them for recently? When did you see them at their best? What attitudes, behaviors, and words they said meant the most to you over the last week? Acknowledge them for these things. Not only will it help you feel more attraction and fondness towards your partner, but it will condition you both to always be on the lookout for the good things instead of slipping into the trap we are all susceptible to… only seeing the bad. 2. Celebrations After you’ve expressed gratitude, spend a few minutes celebrating your wins both inside and outside your marriage. Did you handle conflict better than you have in the past? Celebrate!Did you complete a big project at work? Call it out! Were you consistent with a fitness or nutrition goal? Revel in that victory with your partner! Your life is full of wins, both large and small.  Acknowledging them… and even celebrating them is a great way to cultivate a strong bond with your partner. Who doesn’t want to be married to their biggest cheerleader? 3. Plans Logistics are boring, but they’re necessary to talk about when you share a life and a family with someone. If you’ve never done Marriage Meetings before, I’d advice that you initially try to keep this part of the conversation short… especially if one of you is reluctant to have this weekly meeting, or maybe they tend to default to a highly emotionally reactive. Go over your calendars together. Make sure all the important stuff is taken care of. Plan your date (or decide who’s planning it this week). As you get better at having a weekly Marriage Meeting, you can start talking about things like finances, or retirement, or checking in on bigger goals like saving for vacations, or paying off your house.  4. Improvements It’s important to talk about how your marriage can be better. But unless you’ve created a high degree of trust in your relationship, giving each other “feedback” isn’t going to go well. That’s why I recommend people who are new to the Marriage Meeting to skip this phase entirely for the first few months. When you’re ready to start talking about how to improve things in your marriage, be careful not to fall into the common trap of defensiveness. Defensiveness is an instinctual response we all have to when we feel like we’re under attack. So, the goal here is to avoid “attacking” our partner. (Or doing anything that could be perceived as being an attack, a criticism, or an affront on their character.) Complaining about what went wrong in the past is easy. But it’s not very helpful or effective! When you’re talking about “improvements” in your marriage, try to stay future-facing. Ask your partner for things that can help them be better next week, instead of dragging them through all their failures of the last week. Ask your partner what you could do to be a better partner for them in the future instead of how you let them down in the past. Talk about what you will do to handle conflict better in the future rather than trying to rehash who was right and who was wrong during that fight a few days ago. You can’t change the past… But you CAN change the future. And focusing your attention on what you can control will help you and your partner avoid getting defensive… and your Marriage Meetings will be FAR more enjoyable. 5. Affection After you’ve gone through all these steps, make sure you end your Marriage Meeting with some sort of meaningful physical affection. Some couples share a long hug, or a passionate kiss. Some have a special best-friends handshake. Some make love to each other. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you take some time to physically connect. This is a great positive way to wrap up your Marriage Meeting. Follow these 5 steps, and I guarantee your date nights will be more fun, you’ll have more opportunities to play and flirt with each other, and your relationship will improve. It will help you stop feeling like business partners, and start feeling like lovers again.