Are you ready to have your own marriage meeting?
Last week we discussed why and how a marriage meeting can help your relationship. Today I’ll walk you through a typical marriage meeting to help you prepare for yours:
- I’ll explain the Plan-Do-Review template that will help you navigate the nitty gritty details that, if untended, cause conflict
- Then you’ll see why discussing a Plan at the beginning of the week fends off conflicts before they have a chance to grow
- And you’ll get true to life examples you can borrow
If you’d prefer to read a transcript of this episode, click here.
The power of The Plan in your marriage meeting
In my book I talk about the idea in your marriage meeting of Plan-Do-Review.
Today, we’re focusing on the power of The Plan. Next week we’ll hone in on the power of The Review.
While it’s really important to be able to keep some of your conversations focused and straightforward, the truth of life is that it’s chaotic and messy, right? This is why the marriage meeting can make such a difference in your relationship.
Our job today is to create enough reasons to sit with your partner to make a plan even knowing that plan might go a little awry.
Let’s take 3 typical examples of life’s details and break them down:
- Meal planning
- Extended family coming for a visit
- How do we stay within our budget?
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Marriage Meeting Topic #1: The Meal Plan
The key question if you and your partner are trying to avoid conflict about meals, is “Can we talk about food for the week so we’re not just thinking about food when we’re already hungry?”
It’s a good idea to start with basic questions to figure out what kind of meal plan you need:
- Which meals do we want to share in the course of a week?
- How much shared cooking do we want to do?
You might realize you and your partner have very different expectations when it comes to shared meals. This is good to notice.
Let’s use a hypothetical couple, Tyler and Alia, as and example. When they talk about those questions, they notice:
- Tyler works late 2 evenings
- Alia takes a dance class 1 night
- And Tyler’s sister is coming to town for the weekend.
So, they agree to eat dinner together Tuesday and Thursday. They don’t see each other much, so they agree to make the meals together, using that cooking time as connection time to talk about their days.
What would a plan for you and your partner look like in comparison?
Click here if you’d like a graphic of my list of questions to help you plan meals with your partner.
Marriage Meeting Topic #2: Planning for Guests
Next let’s walk through the extended family member who comes for a visit.
Let’s pretend Tyler told Alia a month ago that his sister is coming for the weekend. Now it’s just about how the weekend might flow.
Here’s some questions Tyler and Alia could discuss to help anticipate moments of struggle so those struggles are avoided in advance.
- How long is the sister staying?
- Where will she sleep?
- What will we feed her?
- What is the expectation for time spent while she’s there?
- Is there an expectation of entertaining her?
These questions will help bring any hidden expectations you and your partner might have to light. When you have a plan, you avid conflict that would keep you from enjoying time with your guests.
Here’s the questions for you and your partner to answer:
- How much guest-time can we tolerate?
- Logistics of feeding/housing guests
- Entertainment and other expectations
Click here to see the graphic to guide you.
Marriage Meeting Topic #3: Budgeting
You can have whole marriage meetings about finances, but for this week, let’s keep it high level and specific to the week.
You’ll be amazed how much your financial lives will improve if you just spend 15 minutes a week talking through your financial expectations.
Use these two basic questions to have your first conversation about money and budgeting:
- How much can we afford to spend this week?
- How do we need to adjust our purchases in order to stay under that dollar number?
Again, if you’d like a graphic to help you, click here.
Try this:
In order to cement this habit of the marriage meeting into your lifestyle, this week’s habit for your happily ever after is to talk about why this meeting makes you happy.
Or, if happiness is too big a stretch, talk about how you can see this meeting help improve your communication.
How about you?
I’d love to know what happened at your Marriage Meeting. Or I’d love to know what topics you’d like to hear me address for a future episode about Marriage Meetings. Text me at 970-210-4480.
Click here to read the full text of this podcast episode.
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