When you’ve been married for a long time, it’s easy to slip into a daily routine and familiar lifestyle and forget that you might not necessarily be meeting all of your partner’s needs. Just because someone isn’t vocalizing a complaint doesn’t mean that everything is blissful.

Take the time together to zoom out of the relationship and check in with each other about your marriage.

It’s important to have these check-ins every once in a while (at least once a year). It shows you both that you care about the marriage. Also, you can work on fixing things before they get too deep.

Start off with what is going well and then move into what each of you can do to enhance and enrich the marriage.

Asking questions that begin with “What could I do to…” lets your spouse know you’re willing to take action to change.

Prepare for the conversation, by thinking about questions such as these:
• “What is going well in our marriage?
• “What can I do to make you feel more loved/ honored/ appreciated?
• “How can I support you even better?
• “What can I do to make you feel more understood?
• “What can I do to help you understand me better?
• “If you could change one thing about our marriage, what would it be?
• “Where have we been struggling? What can we do to resolve this?
• “How do you envision our future together? What can we do together to achieve that goal?

Such conversations can strengthen the bond between you and your spouse and makes both of you more aware of what is and isn’t working in your relationship.