100 Love Note Prompts (Best Gift Ever!)

Best list of love note prompts on the Internet! Guaranteed to fill your partner’s love tank.

A few years ago, Rich spent two months in Brazil for work.

Since we had two little kids (and I was pregnant!) and alone, our connection normally would have taken a big hit during this time.

Rich was busy and stressed with the responsibility of getting all his experiments to work in rural conditions. I was busy and stressed with a one year old and a three year old.

But despite the busyness, despite the stress we both felt, this two-month was a period of our marriage where we connected more deeply than maybe ever before.

Say WHAT?!

Why?

Two words:

LOVE NOTES!

Rich had the amazing idea to send love letters to each other every day we were separated.

I was SORELY disappointed at what Google had to offer us at the time in ways of love note prompts, so we made up our own.

Some creative, some touching, some reminiscing, others silly.

The list below includes those prompts along with many others we’ve used through the years.

All tried and tested.

All will strengthen your connection to your spouse, guaranteed.

And these aren’t just for when you are apart.

Here are just a few ideas of how to use these love note prompts:

How to Use the Love Note Prompts:

Each year on your anniversary, write them a love letter for each year you’ve been married (use 5 love letter prompts to fill out 5 love letters on your 5th anniversary, 15 on your 15th, etc).
Declare a month of love letters. Pick 30 of your favorite prompts and email your answer to your partner, one each day for the whole month! Think of how full their love tank would be at the end of the month!!
When your partner is feeling down, or you’re in a rut in your marriage, make it a week of love. Pick 7 favorite prompts and text them the answer to the prompts one a day for a week.
Buy a cute notebook. Take a few days or weeks or months to copy and fill out all 100 prompts, then give it to your spouse for an anniversary, birthday Valentine’s day or Christmas present. Wow! What a gift!!
If you are going to be out of town or separated for a chunk of time, start from the top and email each other your answers to the prompts one per day. (Rich and I did this when he was in Brazil for 2 months and our marriage had never been better even though we were apart!)
Go old school and MAIL your partner a love letter (yes even if you live together, everyone loves getting an actual letter in the mail) each week!
Write out 10 love letters using the prompts and seal them each separately in an envelope. For a birthday gift or just when your partner needs some love, hide the letters around the house- in drawers, in their coat pocket, in their car, in the fridge, sky is the limit. How fun to find each one.
Fill out one love letter prompt per day for 14 days leading up to Valentine’s Day. We do this each year on Marriage Laboratory. You can follow along (and get the free printables here, here and here)

100 Love Note Prompts:

Describe a meaningful gift you’ve received from your partner.
When did you first know you were falling in love?
What is something you are proud of your partner for overcoming?
Describe a favorite vacation you’ve taken together.
What is a life lesson you’ve learned from being with your partner?
Reminisce about some of the best stay-at-home dates you’ve had.
What activity makes you feel closest to your partner?
If you were to create a couple’s bucket list- what would be on it?
What are three things your partner does that make you feel loved?
What song reminds you of your partner? Why? Write out the lyrics.
Describe a favorite movie-watching experience with your partner.
What life events have brought you closer together? Maybe even unexpectedly?
What is your favorite outfit of your partner’s? Which outfit brings back fond memories?
What is a text message or email your partner has sent lately that made you feel loved?
What is something your partner does that gets you in the mood?
Describe a time you thought your partner was an especially hard worker.
How is your spouse different from others you’ve dated in the past?
Name a fear you’ve seen your partner overcome.
Tell about a fun memory from your honeymoon. Or the best vacation you’ve had together.
What are your favorite three ways your partner shows you they love you?
Describe a time in your history where you were not on the same page as your partner and then how you resolved that together.
Tell your partner something about yourself that you’ve never told them before.
In what ways is your partner easy to live with?
Have you ever experienced a miracle together? What was it?
If you have an unscheduled lazy, Saturday afternoon, what would be your favorite way to pass the time with your partner?
How has your partner spoken your love language recently? Throughout your relationship?
What milestones are you most looking forward to in your future together?
What is the worst meal you’ve had together that you can laugh about now?
What was a time you felt perfectly understood by your partner?
When was a time your partner honored one of your dreams?
Describe a favorite memory you have with another couple.
If you could make one wish for your partner’s future what would it be?
Who is your partner’s celebrity doppleganger? List one for looks and another for personality.
Has your partner ever given you butterflies in your stomach? Describe when.
List your top five reasons you are most grateful to be together with your partner.
Type out your earliest memories of each other.
Go back and re-send some of your earliest emails and texts or transcribe early notes and letters.
Word association. Open a book- the nearest one to you will work. Flip it open at random, close your eyes and point to a word on the page. Write down the word and a random memory or thought you have with or about your partner associated with that word.
Provide a detailed description of how your partner has made you a better person.
What song would you describe as “your song” together with your partner? Write about how and why it became your song.
Write about all the things you miss about having your partner with you when they are out of town.
When was a time you felt perfectly accepted, despite your flaws, by your partner?
Describe various dream dates – a dream romantic date, fun date, expensive date, etc.
Write out your love story as a short story.
Write out a quote from a book that reminds you of your partner. Explain why.
Explain why you love your partner now and why you loved them at the beginning of your relationship. Any differences? Similarities?
Describe little moments in the day TODAY when you missed them/thought of them/were grateful for them that day.
Play two truths and a lie.
List a few times in your life you wish you would have had your partner with you.
Dream time. Describe what you will be doing with your partner in two years, five years, ten years, twenty years.
Talk about your favorite scripture or inspirational quote that makes you think of your partner.
Pitch a movie about your love story complete with tag line and description.
Write an acrostic poem for your names.
You have a time machine. Which points in your partner’s life would you go back and visit- just as an observer?
Talk about a favorite trip you took together.
Write about times or things in your relationship/marriage that were disappointing or awful and then how you got over them or learned from them.
Plan out real future date nights you want to go on this year.
Reminisce about the first time you said, “I love you.”
Write about how your partner has changed you since you’ve met them. Be specific.
Talk about traits you think you’ve inherited from your parents and what traits your partner has inherited from theirs.
Write a short poem about your partner (could be silly, could be serious, lean into the awkward).
Record all first impressions of each other you can remember.
Top 10 lists: Top 10 favorite memories together, Top 10 moments I loved you most, Top 10 events I’m looking forward to spending with you this year, Top 10 reasons I love you.
Fill out these Newly Wed Game questions. Answer them for both you and your spouse. Have your spouse do the same. Compare answers.
What characteristics of your partner do you hope your children will inherit? If you don’t have kids, what would you hope a hypothetical child would inherit from your partner?
Write about the funniest memory you have together.
Since you’ve been together, has your partner challenged any preconceptions you had about life?
If you had to commit a crime together, what would it be? Aliases encouraged.
What about your partner do you feel you know the least about? What about yourself do you think your partner knows the least about?
If you could go back and give yourself advice about marriage when you were dating, what would you say? What have you learned?
Transform your story into a Disney-esque fairy tale. Start with once upon a time . . .
What are the physical aspects of your spouse you find most attractive?
What do you think your partner’s greatest strengths and talents are?
Share a childhood memory you’ve never shared with them before.
When did you first know they were the one for you? How?
What is a skill they’ve developed that they should be proud of?
What makes your partner different from everyone else?
When was a time they made you blush? (in a good way)
Tell how they make you feel good about yourself (be specific).
What is something your partner does that you think is sexy?
When is a time you were very proud to be with your partner?
What have they helped you accept about yourself? How?
What are a few little things they do that just make you smile?
Describe a date you’ve been on when you had a lot of fun.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell them about how awesome they turn out?
What is a quirk your partner has that you find endearing?
What is your favorite memory with your partner this past year?
What could you do today to make your partner happier?
Describe a past good deed from your partner that meant a lot.
What do you think is your partner’s best quality?
Reminisce about a favorite date you’ve had with your partner.
Share your favorite picture of your partner and why its your favorite.
Describe a few times you and your partner deep belly laughed together.
Name a time when your partner was there for you when you really needed it
What is your favorite physical feature of your partner?
Describe a time when you were really impressed with your partner.
What was it that initially attracted you to your partner?
Name a favorite memory from your wedding day. Or if you are not married, the day you decided to be together.
Reminisce about the first time you said, “I love you.”
What was something your partner did this week that you appreciated?

I’m SO excited for you guys to fill out these love note prompts! I’m confident even the act of filling them out will fill YOUR love tank. And giving them will fill your partner’s. Full love tanks all around!

March 8, 2018March 17, 2018

42 Love Letter Prompts

The best collection of love letter prompts on the web. 42 love letter prompts to be exact.

I mentioned in my last post Four Ways To Emotionally Connect With Your Spouse While You’re Apart that Rich is currently in Brazil and we are apart for the month. While we’re away for extended periods of time like this, Rich came up with the great idea to write each other love letters.

Since we find ourselves writing quite a few of these, we ran out of love letter prompts fairly quickly and were unsatisfied with the love letter ideas we found online (C’mon Google- I thought we were beyond this. Can’t you solve ALL my problems yet??).

So, we figured we’d help old Google out and throw some of our tried and true love letter prompts out into the interwebs. Rich is the creative writer type and I’m the nostalgic sap type, so you’ll find a little of both in the prompts.

Last year after we did this for two months our marriage was stronger than ever! Even after being apart that long. In fact, when we came back to the humdrum of everyday life and busy schedules, we were both feeling a bit empty in comparison to the daily soul-bearing we had grown accustomed to while we were apart.

On one such day, I thought, “Man, I miss the love letters!” Then thought, “Wait a minute, I still have email don’t I?” So I up and wrote Rich a love letter while he was at work. I know! My life is oozing spontaneity. And it was a great way to remind each other that we like each other.

So, if you find yourself away from your spouse for a while, or you just need to vamp up your love tanks, I HIGHLY recommend emailing each other love letters. Or if you want to print them out and give the love letters to your partner as a gift, I’ve made a handy-dandy free printable for you with space to answer each prompt available at the bottom of this post.

These prompts make the perfect anniversary, birthday, Valentine’s Day or Christmas presents. Seriously, imagine their face after reading letters answering these questions.

And don’t worry, I’ll spare you the barf bag you would need from reading examples of our sap-infested, soul-bearing love letters. Though, I am tempted . . .

Love Letter Prompts | Perfect for Valentine's, birthdays and anniversaries. Click through to see them all.

42 tried and true love letter prompts:

Type out your earliest memories of each other.
Go back and re-send some of your earliest emails and texts or transcribe early notes and letters.
Word association. This one was our favorite. Open a book- the nearest one to you will work. Flip it open at random, close your eyes and point to a word on the page. Write down the word and a random memory or thought you have with or about your spouse associated with that word.**** (example at the bottom of this post) Pick another one if it’s a lame word like “and, but, the, it, in, etc”
If you had to make a marital bucket list what would be on it?
Provide a detailed description of how your spouse has made you a better person.
Write about a song that reminds you of your spouse when you hear it. Type out the lyrics.
Write about all the things you miss about having your spouse with you. Or if you’re together- what you have missed the most when you have been apart.
Describe various dream dates – a dream romantic date, fun date, expensive date, etc. (Rich did one where he described a dream laugh-so-hard-we-cry date with a few of our favorite comedians. We played board games with Amy Poehler and Kristin Wiig, went for some mini golf with Melissa McCarthy and Demitri Martin, dinner date with Mike Birbiglia and Tina Fey- we had ourselves a fantastic time with our imaginary best friends).
Write out your love story- blog post style (then consider emailing it to me so I can post it).
Ok, you know that part in Sleepless in Seattle when Tom Hanks is describing his dead wife to the radio host and he laughs and describes the way she used to peel an orange in all one piece? If you were describing your spouse to a radio host (they can be alive in this scenario) like that, what would be that weird, quirky thing about them you’d describe?
Write out a quote from a book that reminds you of your spouse (Rich and I conveniently both read A Fault In Our Stars during this trip, so this was easy 😉
Explain why you love your spouse now and why you loved them at the beginning of your relationship. Any differences? Similarities?
Describe little moments in the day when you missed them/thought of them/were grateful for them that day.
Play two truths and a lie.
List a few times in your life you wish you would have had your spouse with you.
Describe what you’ll be doing (ideally) in two years, five years, ten years, twenty years.
Talk about your favorite scripture or inspirational quote that makes you think of your spouse.
Pitch a movie about your love story complete with tag line and description. Rich pitched “An Engagement With China” “Boot. Scooter. Boogie.” And “Snow Way!”
Write an acrostic poem for your names.
You have a time machine. Which points in your spouse’s life would you go back and visit- just as an observer? I was flattered reading some of the random moments of my early life I’ve described to Rich that he actually remembered 🙂
Talk about a favorite trip you took together.
Write about times or things in your relationship/marriage that were disappointing or awful and then how you got over them or learned from them. I actually found this one to be very strengthening.
Plan out real future date nights.
Reminisce about the first time you said, “I love you.”

We first said the L word somewhere around this point in our lives.

25.   Write about how your spouse has changed you since you’ve met them. Be specific.
26.   Talk about traits you think you’ve inherited from your parents and what traits your spouse has inherited from theirs. Their answers may surprise you 😉
27.   Write poems to each other. (note: Rich could have been a poet. Seriously. And I never knew until love letters . . .)
28.   Record all first impressions of each other you can remember.
29.   Top 10 lists (Rich did top 10 reasons Celeste is awesome at Valentine’s day). Other Top 10 lists could include: Top 10 favorite memories together, Top 10 moments I loved you most, Top 10 events I’m looking forward to spending with you this year.
30.   Post and talk about your favorite pictures of each other.
31.    Google newly wed questions and answer them for both you and your spouse. Have your spouse do the same. Compare answers.
32.   Write out your favorite things about your kids. Or, if you don’t have kids, what characteristics of your spouse you’d hope your hypothetical children would have.
33.   Write about the funniest memory you have together. Or that might be too hard to pick just one, so write about some times when you deep-belly laughed together.
34.   Tell your spouse something you honestly don’t think they know about you.
35.   Since you’ve been married, has your spouse challenged any preconceptions you had about life?
36.   If you had to commit a crime together, what would it be? Aliases encouraged.
37.   What about your spouse do you feel you know the least about?  What about yourself do you think your spouse knows the least about?
38.   If you could go back and give yourself advice about marriage when you were dating, what would you say?  What have you learned?
39.   Transform your story into a Disney-esque fairy tale. Start with once upon a time . . .
40.   What are the physical aspects of your spouse you find most attractive?
41.    What do you think they’re greatest strengths and talents are?
42.   Share a childhood memory you’ve never shared with them before.

Love letter prompts

Speaking of childhood memories . . . look at little Richard!! Isn’t he adorable? He can’t get mad at me, he’s not in the country. heh heh heh.

**** Ok, I know I promised I wouldn’t subject you to our love letters, but I just wanted to include two word association examples since they were our fave. The first is from Rich, the second from me.

“SLOW” When we started running . . . stop. Let me start over. When YOU started running, I know it made you self conscious sometimes (and maybe frustrated) that I went from zero to being able to run much faster than you were. And that when you were able to run without stopping, you were slow, or at least slower than you wanted to be. But babe, I love, love that you made that goal and stayed with it. Slow and steady (you) really did win that race over fast and unreliable (me), because you stuck with it and did it. – Rich
“DAD” Hmm. A lot of places this one could go – your dad, my dad. I think I’ll choose you becoming a dad. One of my favorite memories of you becoming a dad was when we were in the hospital with Ellia- like a day after I had her and she was being a little fussy (remember when we thought fussy meant a little newborn whimper?) Anyway, I guess I was in the shower or getting ready or something, but I came out to you rocking her and singing “Who Knows How Long I’ve Loved You” by The Beatles. It was so sweet! And then when we brought her home you used to sing to her a lot- even when she wasn’t fussy. I knew you’d be such a great dad even from the first few weeks of our first child’s birth. -Celeste

Are you now SO pumped to fill your partner with love? Let’s do it.

If you’d like for these prompts to magically appear in your email inbox all ready to fill out, then you’re in luck! Just put your email in that box down there and it will happen!

The printable looks like this (first page):

Want more reminders and helpful tips on how to love your spouse more fully?

Follow along with us on Facebook here, on Pinterest here or sign up for our monthly emails to hear all about my marriage wins (don’t worry, I don’t bite. Or worse try to sell you things):

February 14, 2018February 19, 2018

An Expert’s Guide to Better Communication with your Partner

I’ve polled my audience four times now in order to determine the relationship problems YOU are struggling with.

Every time, one problem comes up again and again and again and again:

COMMUNICATION!

So when Jamie emailed me about guest posting on how to have better communication with your partner (based on an interview she conducted with Louis Venter), I didn’t hesitate to say YES!

Thanks Jamie! -Celeste

Better Communication with your Partner

Communication is one of the most important aspects of any romantic relationship. That said, the majority of couples do not communicate as effectively as they should.

Louis Venter is a relationship expert and counsellor in South Africa. He regularly teaches couples how to communicate effectively with one another.

We have asked Louis how couples can learn to communicate effectively, rather than becoming frustrated with one another and leaving conflict to go unresolved.

More than just words

What many couples do not realize is that effective communication with your partner involves far more than just talking; it is feeling, seeing and hearing each other.

Communication is connection; it’s not just the sharing of information, but two separate worlds becoming visible to each other. It is showing up with aliveness and availability to the story that your partner has to tell.

One way in which you can make yourself more available to hearing what your partner has to say is by sitting very close to each other while facing each other and holding hands.

While this may seem specific, experts have argued that by doing this you open yourself up to hear what your other half has to say. Try this technique and see if it helps.

Being physically close during communication is important. Physical closeness in communication helps couples to bridge the distance between two separate and different worlds.

Make Time

One of the biggest causes of divorce across the world is the busy lifestyle many people lead.

Often, couples struggle to prioritize their relationship over other aspects of their lives. Those who are not willing to make the effort in their relationship may believe that connection and intimacy will happen without time, energy and intentional deeds to develop intimacy and connection.

False.

Making time to communicate is vitally important. Being busy with something else doesn’t help communication and connection. Rather, being pre-occupied while trying to communicate can cause more harm than good.

Make time to communicate with your partner on a deep level. Practice communicating deeply for at least 10 minutes a day. Talk about every aspect of your lives – not just conflict. If you aren’t sure about what you should communicate about, we provide you with some good starting points at the end of this article.

Talking

It’s no surprise that talking is an important aspect of communication. However, few couples know how they can use speech to enhance their relationship and feelings towards one another.

It’s important to always communicate feelings, fears and desires to your partner. In a relationship, you should always be open and honest with your partner.

Stay clear of blaming and shaming your partner, this will only have a negative impact on both you and your partner. Instead, try communicating true needs.

Communicate with vulnerability, softness and kindness. Stay patient with your partner, while they try to understand you. Know that listening and understanding someone else is difficult, so be sure to appreciate when your partner is trying.

Listening

In relationships people often focus on talking rather than listening. We’re so caught up on talking about how we feel without really focusing on what our partner is saying and processing their words effectively.

Louis Venter explains that when having deep communication with your partner, after each sentence you should repeat your partner’s words. Use exactly the words your partner used.

Check in if you understood your partner with saying “Did I get you?” We call this mirroring. Our deepest desire is to be understood with fullness. Practice listening to the words, but also to see the world behind the words.

Listen to the tone of voice, see the tears and become conscious of the hurt. Stretch yourself into feeling the emotions of your partner. True listening is not just listening to the word of your partner but validating their feelings by allowing yourself to be touched by it.

Continued Listening

Commit to develop deep listening and talking skills with your partner. Read books and attend seminars on communication skills for couples. Most people haven’t learned to voice our deepest needs and deepest fears in ways that our partners can understand.

Conversation Starters to Deepen Communication

Deep, honest communication is a vitally important aspect of any relationship, but it can be difficult to know where to start. Here are a few conversation starters you can use to get started:

– “What I need the most from you in the next few weeks to feel love is …”
– “One thing about me I haven’t that I have not shared with you lately is …”
– “I want to tell you how I am doing …”
– “The most precious thing about our relationship for me is …”
– “What I enjoy the most doing with you is …”

Deep, intimate and satisfying relationships with good communication are absolutely possible. If you are struggling to communicate effectively with your partner, try out some of these suggestions and let us know how it goes.

This article has been created with the help of Louis Venter from Couples Help. Louis is a leading relationship and marriage expert who is based in South Africa.

April 6, 2017April 6, 2017

Quality Time Love Language Guide

Five keys to speaking the love language of quality time.

I hope I’ve gotten the message across clearly in this blog that I am no marriage expert. I am a FAR cry from a perfect spouse and find it very difficult to put most of what I learn from researching these articles into practice.

You said it kid.

BUT.

There is one area where I am becoming quite an expert and that is how I feel loved. I’m able to articulate how I want Rich to treat me to make me feel the most love. Knowing this is actually a huge blessing to both Rich and me, and Gary Chapman and his 5 Love Languages [amazon link] book helped to define better what I felt.

Now it happens to be quality time month on the blog and lucky for you my love language is QUALITY TIME! What an excellent coincidence.

Most of these ideas come from Dr. Gary Chapman himself, but are also backed up by my nine years of experience in what helps and doesn’t help in filling up the love tank of a quality time love language spouse.

You may think quality time is all about spending A LOT o f time together, or going out and doing a lot of things together. Maybe that sounds exhausting. Or expensive. But as you can see below, loving a quality time love language spouse actually has very little to do with the actual amount of time together and everything to do with how you spend the time you do have together.

5 Keys to Loving a Quality Time Love Language Spouse:

1 Give them your UNDIVIDED attention (ie: Put the phone down!)

“Nothing says ‘I love you’ like full, undivided attention.” – Gary Chapman

YES! Yes, yes yes yes yes.

For quality timers, undivided attention is the name of the game. If your spouse’s love language is quality time, don’t talk to them while you are focused on something else, it will drive them bonkers. Not while you’re watching something, not while you’re Facebooking, not while you’re gaming.

If you are in the middle of something and they want to talk, it is better to say, “Just a sec, I’m almost done,” and then give them your full attention when you talk rather than trying to have a conversation while you are distracted.

Not that I am speaking from experience here . . . (but I’m totally speaking from experience here).

2 Maintain eye contact.

Oh my gosh guys. If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: eye contact is important! It is the gateway to loving a quality time spouse.

As I was re-listening to the 5 Love Languages recently, I was surprised to hear just how much Gary Chapman talked about eye contact with a quality time love language. But it was honestly like he was reading my mind. Like he was articulating something I had never thought to articulate.

I think I audibly said, “YES!” when I heard him say that maintaining eye contact tells your spouse that you have their full attention and will make them feel loved and understood.

Quality conversation with sustained eye contact is the key to my heart. It fills me up like nothing else can and when I don’t have it for a while, I always feel disconnected from Rich and start to feel unloved.

This is probably one of the reasons I love companionship inventory so much. Sunday nights we don’t watch anything, and we block out at least an hour to just chat. Even if the topics are hard sometimes, my love tank gets filled up every Sunday night just by having focused one-on-one conversation.

quality time love language — Al knows what I’m talking about.

3 If you don’t have much time, make the most out of the time you do have.

Even if it is only 10 minutes a day- make those 10 minutes count! Focus on each other. Talk, connect, express love, snuggle, have sex, whatever, just make it intentional and focused. Ten minutes of pure connection will yield much better results in way of connecting than two hours of being together without focused attention on each other (Netflix, I’m giving you the shifty side eye here).

4 Actively listen without interrupting.

A quick reminder on how to actively listen with the F.L.A.P. method: focus, lean, affirm (paraphrase) and probe (ask thoughtful questions).

Active listening is one of the most loving things you can do for your partner regardless of their love language, but unfortunately it’s not intuitive. Most of us go to stating our opinion, jumping to conclusions and interrupting more naturally than active listening in our conversations.

In short, we think of ourselves and our thoughts, words and opinions more than we think of our partner’s when we’re talking to them. This takes conscious effort to reverse, and there is no better time than the present to start practicing!

Perhaps the quickest mind trick is to actively try putting yourself in their shoes- try to see the world how they see it and feel the things they feel- while your partner is talking to you.

Interrupting is like nails on a chalkboard for someone whose love language is quality time. It makes them feel unheard and uncared for.

5 Offer sympathy, not advice.

“We are often trained to analyze problems and create solutions. We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve. A relationship calls for sympathetic listening with a view to understanding the other person’s thoughts, feelings and desires. We must be willing to give advice but only when it is requested and never in a condescending manner.” – Gary Chapman

If your love language is quality time, you are surely nodding along on this one. We just want to talk to be heard and understood NOT evaluated and instructed. Rich and I misunderstood this for years, and it was rough. We are both guilty. Now, often we’ll ask, “Wait, do you want advice on this?” And that is a great question because most of the time the other one says no.

So if you are married to someone whose love language is quality time- make eye contact, make the most of the time you have together, put the phone down and actively listen while they are talking.

And if you really want to take your relationship to the next level- join our love experiment this month: connection with your spouse for 10 minutes every night as explained here.

March 23, 2017

Setting Boundaries in Marriage: What Does that Look Like?

What does setting healthy boundaries in marriage look like? We’re often good at getting mad or resentfully accommodating, but usually not so good at setting healthy boundaries.

Boundaries.

That is a topic I’ve never really addressed on the blog because in all honesty I don’t really know how to think about them.

Oh I know how to lay down my desires to get what I want, but I’ve never really had a firm grasp on what setting healthy boundaries looks like exactly.

That is, until I’ve spent a lot of time researching it for my upcoming book about mixed-faith marriages (sign up here if you are interested in that). I’ve thought A TON about this topic recently.

Some people I’ve interviewed for my book are in a situation where they legitimately need to set down some boundaries in their marriage.

And its hard.

Because our knee-jerk reactions in these tough situations are generally either to get really mad or to withdraw.

Now, it should be said that perhaps I don’t understand about boundaries because I’ve never been in a serious situation where I’ve needed to set some.

The credit there all goes to Rich. Realizing that gosh, Rich really doesn’t make demands of me filled me right up with love and appreciation for him.

But some people do make demands of their spouse. Some people make a lot of demands.

We aren’t in control of how demanding our spouse is, but we are in control of how we react. Do we get upset? Resentful? Vengeful? Do we withdraw? Do we let them have their way but disconnect emotionally?

Brene Brown (bless that woman!) says when you are faced with a demand that violates your personal integrity (which is when a boundary needs to be set), you don’t puff up and you don’t shrink. You stand your sacred ground.

Brene defines boundaries as knowing what is ok and what is not ok. When you are faced with something that is not ok, you don’t start fighting and yelling (although this is a natural reaction, it’s not helpful) and you don’t shrink (resentful accommodation). You don’t become a doormat to accepting things that violate your personal integrity.

You stand your sacred ground and you do it with love.

If you are wondering (as I did) if you are in need of setting a boundary– ask yourself, “Would this boundary come from the best in me or the worst in me? Who would benefit from this boundary- just me or both of us?” A good boundary should actually benefit both parties, and should be coming from the best in you.

When asked this, it became clear to me that I’m not in a position where I need to set any boundaries in my marriage. Sometimes I don’t get my way and I want to “put my foot down” (that would result in me getting my way), but that is coming from the worst in me, not the best in me.

For example, I would love to get rid of stuff Rich wants to keep, but I know that that is not coming from my personal integrity- it’s coming from wanting to get my way. Keeping stuff around that Rich wants to keep does not violate my morals or harm me in any way other than bothering me. So we’ll keep talking about it and compromising, but its not worth setting a line in the sand over.

Setting lines in the sand always comes with a consequence, and your friendship and connection is what will take a hit.

While I couldn’t find anything in my marriage that needs a boundary, I actually did find a few behaviors in my parenting that did. I think I have unintentionally become a bit of a doormat to my kids’ demands, which often causes me to be resentful towards them.

So I lovingly set some boundaries recently that would benefit BOTH me and my kids. And for maybe the first time, I didn’t create boundaries out of anger (I formerly didn’t know that could happen). I set them calmly and lovingly. And I’m happy to report, it’s been working wonderfully. I feel like I have more respect for myself and have been less resentful toward them.

Win!

So if you need to set some boundaries, don’t puff up, don’t shrink, just stand your sacred ground.

Category Archives: To Say