Five Important Conversations to Deepen Marriages
Conversations to deepen marriages…As couples nurture their life together, struggles can pop up around how certain situations are handled in your home. This is why it’s important to have these deepening conversations to deepen your marriage.
(Throughout this relationship blog article, I’ll refer to these struggles around how certain situations are handles as your “house” or “family rules.”)
Learning about how your spouse grew up can be helpful as you begin to develop your own family rules and what works for you and your relationship.
5 Helpful Conversation Topics for Couples
The following five conversation topics are intended to simply begin a dialogue between you and your spouse. To begin learning more about how each of you grew up and the rules that guided your behavior while living at home.
It is intended to open and enhance the lines of communication between you, to learn more about one another, and to learn what “rules” you’d like to develop as a couple moving forward.
Sometimes discussing these topics can be helpful when done with a couples therapist during couples therapy.
Having a therapist can help facilitate a safe, open, and confidential space to explore issues surrounding these topics and can help identify and work through other areas that might be of interest to your relationship.
Conversation Starter #1: Family Rules
- What rules did you have growing up?
- How did you know they were rules?
- Were there certain spoken and unspoken rules you had to follow? (Unspoken rules are those that were just simply known within your household and were usually “spoken” through a look or some other type of non-verbal communication).
- In what ways do these “rules” impact your relationship
How to Integrate into Your Marriage
Based on these conversations, it’s important for you both to then move into talks around:
- How will you decide what your “family or house rules” will be?
- How will what you shared through the questions above influence or impact the way you decide these things moving forward?
- What do you want to carry with you? What do you want to leave behind?
Conversation Starter #2: Emotions
- How were disagreements or arguments handled in your home growing up?
- Did your parents or guardians disagree or argue in front of you? Or, behind closed doors?
- Was it ok to show when you were frustrated, angry, or sad?
- Was it ok to cry? What were the “rules” or messages around this?
Integration Into Your Marriage Question
- How does this impact your relationship?
- How do you want your marriage to be around this?
Conversation Starter #3: Accomplishments
- How were accomplishments celebrated or acknowledged? Or were they minimized, not made into a big deal?
Integration Into Your Marriage Questions
- How do you celebrate accomplishments in your relationship?
- How would you like them to be acknowledged / celebrated?
Conversation Starter #4: Affection
- How was affection shown (such as hand holding, hugging, kissing)?
- Did your parents or guardians show affection toward one another?
- Was affection shown publicly or only in private?
- Was it ok in your home to show outward signs of affection such as hugging, holding hands, etc.
- How is affection shown in your relationship?
Integration Into Your Marriage
- How would you like it to be shown?
Conversation Starter #5: Finances
- How was money handled in your home?
- What were the rules around spending?
- Around acquiring debt?
- Who typically paid the bills?
Integration Into Your Marriage
- How will you decide how to handle the finances in your relationship?
Please contact me if you’d like more information or to schedule an appointment,
By: Anna McElearney, LMFT, LPC, NCC
Blog is intended for educational and informational purposes only.
