Spring Clean Your Relationship

Now that winter is coming to an end and the first day of spring is here, it’s time to get to the spring cleaning. No, this isn’t a blog about chores and cleaning out the garage, but rather a great time of the year to do some spring cleaning in your relationship. The winter months can be cold and dreary. With the decrease in sunshine comes an increase in depression. The bad weather mixed with a lack of vitamin D can significantly affect your psychological health and that can impact your relationship.

The first day is spring is a great time to do spring cleaning for your relationship and do a “relationship check-in.” Relationship check-ins provide you and your spouse the opportunity to talk and make sure everything is going as it should be.

How do I spring clean my relationship?

On Psychology Today, it’s discussed how important a relationship check-up is, just like maintenance on a car, or an annual doctor’s appointment. So how do you go about checking-in on your relationship?

Here are the 5 steps to spring clean your relationship:

Evaluate the daily life.

During this spring cleaning it is a good time to check in on things like chores, finances, bills, sex, work, family, dating, faith, etc. It’s important to answer and ask your parter, Do you we like how they are going? What do we do well? What do we slack on? Do you feel overwhelmed by one specific chore? Is there something you could be willing to do more of?

Discuss potential emotional hangups.

It is important to ask yourself and your partner some of these questions to get the conversation going: Can we solve our fights? Are there issues that seem to come up a lot this year? Are there fights we still feel hurt by? Do we look forward to seeing each other at the end of the day? Do you feel criticized? Does it seem or feel like you are constantly blamed for issues? Does life seem chaotic? What positive praise do you have for your marriage?

Rate the following strengths in your marriage on a scale of 1 to 5.

We are good friends.

Our marriage is a high priority for both of us.

We chat, touch base, or check in regularly about what’s going on in our separate day-to-day lives.

My partner and I laugh or smile together.

We are a good team when it comes to parenting.

Rate the following concerning factors about your marriage on a scale of 1 to 5.

We don’t regularly spend enough quality time together.

My partner and I don’t clearly and effectively communicate our wants and needs to each other.

We are unhappy with our sex life.

My partner and I tend to disagree more than agree when it comes to money issues.

Work stress can be an issue for us.

Identify one thing in your marriage you would like to improve.

Use any of these talking points to decide on something that you want to improve. List the ways you intend to meet your objective, hear each others ideas and identify how you will measure your success.