Happy Monday, everyone.
I want you to answer a question:
If I asked you and your spouse today to privately score your marriage on a scale from 1–10, how confident are you that you’d write down the same number?
Don’t answer that too quickly.
I’ve worked with enough couples to know one thing to be true:
Two people can choose to wake up every day in the same bed, be committed to one another, and still be living in two different marriages.
I’m sure you can imagine the scenario…
One spouse thinks:
“Things are fine. We’re fine.”
While the other is quietly thinking:
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
Then you’ve got the broken connection hypothesis: One thinks the problem is the intimate connection and the other the emotional.
And that’s what makes communication so hard to fix. It becomes infinitely harder to repair something when the two of you can’t agree on what’s broken.
And yet, most couples come into my office claiming that if communication was better, their marriage would be better.
But that doesn’t work because they want the medicine, but haven’t agreed on what they’re treating.
So here’s something I want you to do tonight with your spouse.
Ask each other:
“On a scale of 1–10, how chosen do you feel in this marriage right now?”
Then, write your number down, but don’t say it out loud until both of you have a number.
Then show each other.
Whatever number you guys write down, you first need to know that no number is a bad number.
It’s just like taking your pulse. It can – and will – fluctuate.
So resist the urge to feel hurt.
Don’t attack your spouse because you don’t agree with their number.
You want to get curious first. Which leads me to the next question you guys are going to ask:
“What’s a small thing we could do that would move our numbers up? Even if that’s just from a 4 to a 5, or 6 to a 7?”
I’m not asking you to start fixing everything this instant.
What I want you to do is understand: what are the small moments that make your spouse feel chosen and cherished?
And more importantly: what are the things that make them feel happy to be married to you?
When couples start being able to have these conversations, they open up the possibility for movement and repair – or at least clarity around what’s next. And that’s why I created my Marital Inventory.
Before I can help a couple figure out where they’re going, I have to understand where they’re at – and what moves the needle in the right direction.
The Inventory walks you through the different areas of your marriage so you can see what’s working, what’s not, and most importantly, how your marriage feels different to both of you.
Again, the biggest problem in a marriage isn’t the score…
It’s the distance between your scores.
Right now, the Marital Inventory course (normally $250) is included as part of the Choosing Us Pre-Order Experience.
But, on September 1st, the Marital Inventory disappears from the Pre-Order Experience.
After that, anyone preordering the book won’t get access to it.
Meredith and I created the Pre-Order Experience this way intentionally.
We don’t want you to order the book today and have to wait until November 3rd to start working on your marriage.
In my experience, couples in pain want change now – and that’s what I want to help them do.
So if you enjoy my work, and are looking for the best way to support me, nothing would mean more to me than seeing your preorder of Choosing Us come in.
But if you’re going to preorder, do it before September 1st.
Because I want you to have immediate access to the Marital Inventory so the two of you can figure out where your marriage actually stands, where it’s going… And how to get there.
Use this link to preorder your copy of Choosing Us.
