A Simple Strategy to Improve Your Marriage

Several friends have started doing this and find it transformative. I had to share.

TGIF, everyone! First things first: In the spirit of holiday giving, I am running a 25% off sale on all subscriptions (including gift subscriptions) through 12/27. Give the gift of good email to yourself or to a friend! Also, it’s not too late to buy a signed copy of my book How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes as a gift from Split Rock Books!

To honor my pledge to dedicate December Fridays to tips that will hopefully make your life better, today, I want to talk about a tradition that several friends have recently started with their partners. It’s something that requires a bit of a time investment — an hour a week or so, ideally — but they have said it has been transformative.

Having just come out of a 15-year marriage, I have a new and profound respect for the importance of open and honest communication. I think a lot of relationships often start this way, but then the stress and grind of daily life (and parenting!) get in the way of maintaining it. Things start to shift, so imperceptibly sometimes that you don’t even notice. New patterns of behavior and engagement (or lack thereof) become habitual and automatic. Then, suddenly, you wake up one day and realize you don’t actually like what your life or your relationship feels like — but you’ve been doing it this way for so long you don’t know how to address it. And you’re not even quite sure how you got there.

The practice that I’m going to share today is exceedingly simple. It’s a spin-off of an approach that has long been recommended by therapists and relationship coaches, including John Gottman, but I find the new framing clever and useful.