We tried Adam Lane Smith's “Marriage Check-In”, and Loved it

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I don’t know how it first happened that we listened to Mind Pump—my husband really likes to listen to podcasts in the morning, and once, just curious as to what he was listening to, I popped one of his earbuds into my ear. That’s how we both became acquainted with Adam Lane Smith, attachment specialist.

Adam Lane Smith was doing a series on attachment with the Mind Pump guys, discussing all the major relationships: self, friendships, marriage, and parenting. In the one on marriage, he argues that “any marriage can be fixed, as long as both partners are willing to do the work to fix it.”

How to fix a marriage?

Use the marriage check-in, Smith argues.

So we decided to try it out.

It went a little like this:

My husband, always the enthusiast, started first: “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate our relationship?”

I gave my number but then proceeded to make a lengthy explanation, diving into the ins and outs of our relationship.

“Stop,” he said, “That’s not the exercise. Now name one positive thing that I can do to bring the relationship up a notch.”

(According to the exercise rules, the purpose of the rating was not to initiate a discussion or rehash the past, just a chance to pause and assess the present.)

I fumbled for a moment and then came up with an answer.

And now it was my turn to step up to the plate: “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate our relationship?”

He gave a number, and feeling encouraged by his answer, I asked him what was one that I could do to bring our relationship up a notch. I had been nervous before, but the pause before his answer was terrifying. Except for my kids, I’m no longer used to facing real-life criticism since I graduated post-secondary. Facebook trolls, yes, but in your face, no.

I braced myself and waited for his answer.

Although he said it kindly, it felt terrible. This first trial was an overall horrible experience. But I had committed to it, and so the experiment was on.

One Week to a Better Marriage

Some say that the beginning of love is humility and vulnerability. I certainly felt humbled when I acknowledged that we were not living out our best marriage. As I made the effort to live up to the challenge presented to me, I felt a lot of inner resistance. Every effort I made to improve made me feel so vulnerable. But my husband noticed, and with his reassurance, I improved.

Pro: The single task I had to do was very concrete. It was nice not to have something vague, which seemed the usual turn of an argument. Sometimes we ask for things like “attention,” “affection,” and “respect.” But those ideas are vague, and sometimes each person has their own interpretation of them, let alone whether or not our instantiation of it can be so noted.

Con: The concreteness made me wonder how many other things I was doing to rub my husband the wrong way. I felt a sudden desire to become perfect and never rub him the wrong way again.

Over time, and seeing how my effort seemed to be paying off, I got braver about facing my defects. By the end of the first week, I felt really good about the positive changes I was seeing in my life and our relationship. My husband was too.

And my husband? He said he was happy to have something concrete to work on. Though it was difficult, he did it because I mattered to him and “I’m worth it.” This reframing of my criticism allowed him to feel like he was facing an opportunity rather than just getting stuck on how he was falling short.

3 Weeks from Start

The first few days of the challenge were the hardest. But when tensions arose between us I found they dissipated quickly because we both now knew that problems have a space in our marriage where they can be calmly addressed and readily received. As the days went on and different problems sprang up, I became less nervous and more hopeful: I would ask myself, is this a problem I will address this week or the following?

In the first three weeks, I felt super eager to iron out all the wrinkles in our marriage, but I realized it was better to be patient and felt certain that the problems would be attended to eventually.

6 Weeks from Start

After six weeks, we felt less pressure to resolve our relationship issues within the time frame of a week. We realized we had to start looking at the bigger picture of how our relationship could improve over a bigger chunk of time. We saw that some of the changes we wanted had to be broken down into smaller, more manageable steps. It’s not only about what should be done now but also about what can be done eventually.

Sometimes it felt easy to judge and look externally at the other person and to assume that they weren’t really making an effort. We discussed working to trust each other’s “work in progress.”

3 Months from Start

To make sure we stayed consisted, we decided to pick a night that would be our “check-in” night—a night that also wasn’t our date night. It seemed best to us to place it instead on the night that we also pray together. In this context, after praying together, we both seem to be in the mood for a new challenge.

The concrete suggestion that we make to each other, which was such a cause of anxiety for me at the start, has become commonplace to me now. I’m neither surprised nor anxious when my husband makes his suggestion about what I need to improve. This exercise has been a great tool for our marriage, I feel that our relationship is more open and communicative. Though criticisms can be hard, having a designated time and place for them ensures that they don’t need to sneak up on us so easily—which I find can be part of their stress.

Adam Lane Smith’s Key to Marriage

One stunning point that Smith makes is that we should treat marriage like a business: he claims marriage is not about feelings or “a piece of paper” or even love—marriage is about creating a legacy together, that is, a legacy of attachment that can be passed on to our kids and grandkids.

What he means by this statement is that the bonds we create with our spouse and our children are lasting through generations. The way we live out our marriage now is how our children will likely emulate their marriages in the future. If we were building a business, Smith argues, we wouldn’t squabble over what she did or what he did, we would come together as a team and make positive forward-thinking decisions. And all our decisions would be based on making each other more secure in the marriage, and our children feel more secure in the family unit.

Relating “Marriage as a Business” to Other Key Relationship Strategies

Smith’s argument about marriage reminds me of a concept from the book Crucial Conversations called mutual purpose. People create a mutual purpose to ensure that they are moving forward together. But to create this bilateral movement forward, two attitudes are necessary: that you care about the other person and that you respect them.

It comes back down to love and respect, the two most elementary needs of every husband and wife, according to Shaunti Feldhahn in her research for the books For Men Only and For Women Only. A husband’s number one need is respect. A wife's number one need is reassurance in love.

Here’s another connection: coming up with a business strategy or mutual purpose is akin to discovering a win-win, to speak in another writer’s terms—Stephen Covey of Seven Habits for Highly Effective People. Thinking win-win is about thinking positively about where you want to go as a couple and how you can both benefit from decision making.

Check out Adam Lane Smith’s podcast episode “How To Create A Thriving Marriage In A Modern World” that we listened to in order to dive deeper into the mechanics and the neuroscience of the marriage check-in.