6 Questions to ask your spouse every week to improve your relationship

Today we welcome Diana Indries, co-inventor of Better Topics, The World’s First Replayable Card Game For Couples. I saw this card game for couples and fell in love with the concept of building strong marriages by using a game to encourage meaningful communication. Marriage should be so much more than co-existing or managing life admin together. To avoid joining the upsetting amount of marriages that end in divorce it is important to invest time and effort in your loved partner. I asked Diana to share 6 questions you can ask your spouse every week to improve your relationship! So grab a cuppa and share with your spouse (or on social media so you can easily find the link later) and make a time to chat!

If we are to look at statistics it is quite upsetting so see how many marriages end up in divorce. And those are only numbers we can keep track of. We have no idea how many relationships come to an end every day. 

But why is that?

Well, we all know the biggest problem of them all is communication, or more specifically, the lack of quality communication. 

Once couples settle into a certain routine and the initial spark fades away, most people think they don’t need to actively and consciously work on their relationship. They feel the ‘chase’ is over and they can “relax.” (Just to be clear, in many cases, this is unconscious) 

Well…that isn’t the case! If the initial efforts from the time when we are dating would be enough to have a long happy relationship, nobody would ever break up! 

There is no such thing as stagnation. Relationships are either getting better or getting worse. They never stay in the exact same place if we don’t work on them. 

Therefore IF we want to keep our relationship alive and interesting, we need to invest time and conscious effort into it. In other words, we should block time to take care of our relationship AT LEAST once every week.

Whatever doesn’t get booked… gets missed

Firstly you should set a time for date night every week and DON’T miss it… unless something truly extraordinary happens. 

I know it might sound a bit too ‘planned’ and like there isn’t any spontaneity if you have a set schedule of when to have your ‘us’ time. 

However, for most of us, career, kids, family, and other things tend to get in the way of taking care of our relationship, if we don’t deliberately block a specific time for it. 

We tend to think that other things are more important, but are they really? 

How can we take care of others and offer love if we are not happy and not living in a great relationship? How can we expect others to be open with us and communicate if we don’t do that with our own partner; someone we live with and share a bed with?

Date nights don’t need to be too long, even an hour or two, at the same time every week, should help discuss things and connect or reconnect with your partner. (My husband and I, actually block 4 hours every Tuesday)

What to discuss? Where to start?

Here are some questions that you could use, to shift focus from the day-to-day onto meaningful conversations that can grow your relationship: 

1. Are you happy with how much we socialized last week?

This can mean anything from going out together or with friends and family. Once you have your answer, follow it up with another question asking for more details. For example, if your partner says no, then you could ask ‘Why?’, or ‘What type or how much socializing you would like in a week?’ and so on. You can have an entire conversation around this and maybe use the ideas to plan for next week. 

2. What was your favorite thing we did together last week?

This question will help you understand what interests your partner has and what matters most to them. 

It is a good question even for couples who have been together for years, as our partner’s interests might change over time and we don’t even realize… unless we ask :). 

3. What is one trait about me you noticed recently, that you would want me to keep?

Let’s focus on the positives. Often we are too quick to notice something wrong, especially in other people, but whatever we focus on and direct our attention to gets bigger and bigger. 

Therefore why not focus on positives and expand those things, rather than the negatives?

We all would rather be appreciated than criticized, right? 

You can follow up your answer with a positive trait that you noticed about your partner. Make them feel good about themselves and let them know you notice the little things they do. 

4. What is one thing we could do next week to keep the spark in our relationship?

Now that you have a short recap of the past week, you can focus on planning for the next one. As you took the decision to improve your relationship and work on it (Yes you did – when you decided to book that ‘Date Night’ time – wink wink), this will give you the exact next step to focus on. 

Although it might seem as lacking spontaneity, in fact, this allows us to prepare, mentally and physically, and it also gives us something to look forward to, other than our usual ‘chores’.

5. Is there any household chore you would want to swap for a week?

This is a great question as it gets both partners involved in household chores and both can feel they are helping each other. If only one of you is doing household chores, now is a good time to split them, even if just for 1 day.

It will give our partner another perspective of what our chores are like and how much time it takes to complete them. It works the other way around as well. It is a good eye-opener, and at the end of the day, we are becoming more understanding of each other. 

6. What is one habit you would like to be kept accountable for next week?

We should all aim to improve ourselves and sometimes we might not give enough importance to the negative habits that are slowly creeping in or even cementing themselves in our rituals. 

This is why it’s important to keep alert and make sure we’re actually becoming better as individuals every week, and who best to help keep us accountable (at least a little bit) than our partner?

Give it a try. See what works and adapt!

Obviously, there are dozens of other questions that you would ask your partner and your partner would ask you, but these can be a great start. As time goes on, you can build on these and add some more questions. 

What’s important is that you make spending quality time and having meaningful conversations with your partner a priority.

Hope this helps. Thanks for reading and God bless,

Diana 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Diana Indries is the co-inventor of Better Topics, The World’s First Replayable Card Game For Couples. A super fun card game that helps couples enjoy regular, meaningful conversation that strengthens their relationship!

At the time of this writing, Diana and Robert have a Kickstarter going on to help raise awareness to their mission of helping 1,000,000 couples experience even more love, joy, and connection, and to take the game to mass production. If you want to show your support, please contribute on their Kickstarter page and also share it with others!

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