Ready for a Marriage Check-up?
If someone asks, “How’s your marriage?” how would you answer? It’s hard to give an objective answer. This week, we offer a short quiz you can take to evaluate how things are going in your marriage.Before we can move toward the goal of a better marriage, we need to know where we are currently. Doing this Marriage Check-up exercise helped us take stock of how we were doing. Here’s what we learned…
We had a couple areas where Ken’s scores were higher than Janine’s (or vice-versa) – Parenting and Spirituality. We agreed the area where we struggle the most as a couple was Conflict Resolution. This all led to some good discussion. We were careful not to place blame on each other and were pleasantly surprised at how talking about these areas brought us to a sense of ‘being on the same team.’
Your turn! Complete the “Marriage check-up” below individually. After you’re done, exchange with your spouse and see how they rated each item. Remember…THIS is NOT an evaluation of YOU. Every marriage has strengths and weaknesses. In order to improve, we need to identify the areas of weakness. No marriage is perfect… we can all strive for improvement.
After briefly discussing the results with your spouse, answers the questions at the end – together.
CAUTION: do NOT fall into the trap of letting this become a weapon against your spouse. This is a tool the two of you can use TOGETHER to help you make positive changes (remember…you’re on the SAME TEAM!).
Marriage Check-up Exercise
On a scale of 1 –10 (1 = needs significant work, 10 = awesome) rate your satisfaction with each area of your marriage below. These results should be used as a compass for further exploration.
NOTE: this is your satisfaction with these areas of your Relationship, NOT satisfaction with yourself or your spouse.
| Area of our relationship | Rate
1-10 |
| How well do we express Appreciation for each other? | |
| How would I rate our Communication? | |
| How are we doing in the area of Conflict Resolution? | |
| How are we doing in our Sexual Relationship? | |
| How would I rate our Spirituality/Faith? | |
| How good are we at Money Management? | |
| How satisfied am I with our Recreation as a couple (having fun!)? | |
| How satisfied am I with how we Make Decisions as a couple? | |
| How are we doing in the area of Parenting? | |
| How would I rate how we share Household chores? | |
| How satisfied am I with how our Careers affect our relationship? | |
| How good are we at Balancing Time spent together versus apart? | |
Briefly share the results above with each other, THEN answer the questions below:
1. What areas are strong in our relationship?
____________________________________________________________
2. What areas did we rate quite differently? (Three or more points apart)
____________________________________________________________
3. What one area do we need to focus onmostto improve our relationship?
______________________________________________________________
4. Which areas do we not often talk about, but should?
______________________________________________________________
Click here for a printer friendly version of the: Marriage Check-up Exercise
