Assessing Partnership in your Marriage

The following is a tool that you and your spouse can use to get a sense of the degree of partnership in different areas of your life.  First, find some time in your calendars to have this conversation. Get together and talk about how you know when your partnership is strong. For instance, you both may feel that your partnership is strong when you are able to:

• Understand each other
• Agree to disagree
• Know what your partner needs
• Avoid blame and criticism
• Have a shared vision
• Align on goals and ambitions
• Utilize each other’s strengths and abilities
• Create a plan of action

Next, identify areas of your relationship where you both can agree that partnership is required or needed. Here are some examples of a number of areas you could consider:

• Finances
• Recreation
• Home Care
• Vacations
• Parenting
• Health
• Friends

In each life area that you choose, individually rate the degree to which partnership is present. Your ratings will be completely subjective. Rate what you feel is the degree of partnership in each life area on a scale of 1 to 10 with a “1” being “experience no partnership” and “10” being “experience full partnership.” A “5” might be “experience some partnership.”

Once you have each rated all areas individually, share your ratings with each other. You can come up with a “couple rating” for each area by averaging your individual ratings. A rating of “4” and another rating of “8” would provide a couple rating of “6.”

Once you have determined your couple rating of partnership in each of the areas you initially identified, talk about what you see. You might find that you experience great partnership in parenting, but not so much in caring for your home or in planning vacations.

Choose an area where you are both committed to expanding a sense of partnership in your lives. Imagine what new future you could create in that area of your lives if you worked as full partners. What difference would that make to the quality of your marriage?

Step into that future you see. Share what you would need, make requests of one another and make a note of your promises to each other. Plan to get into action over the next week and periodically share how things are going.  Finally, acknowledge yourselves for your commitment to creating a life you both love…in partnership!

Posted in Partnership Marriage