Do You Have Annual Checkups?

In your marriage, that is... do you have them?

I was checking my Bloglines account and came across a Weekend Kindness article asking readers "When Did You Go On Your Last Date?", and asking us to share what we did on that date. Well, our last date happened to be for our 7th anniversary. As I began sharing what we do on our anniversary dates, I realized that it might be something good to share with all of you.

Each year for our anniversary, we do a kind-of marriage "State of the Union" assessment. It's essentially a "checkup" for our marriage. We talk through various areas of our marriage:

• How are we doing in communication?
• How is our intimacy? Am I meeting your desires and needs?
• Spiritually, are we where we should be, as a family, as a couple, and as individuals?
  
• How are we doing in our parenting?
• Are we still working as a team?
• Is there anything I can do to serve you better in any of these areas?
• Is there anything you need that you're not getting from me?

And we also do the "year in review" thing... talking about the high and low points of the last year. And just generally processing how things are going in our marriage. It gives us a "line in the sand", so to speak. Here's where we are. This is how far we've come. We end that anniversary date confident that we are each aware of what's going on. Aware of what we each need to work on. Aware of any bad patterns we've fallen into that we need to work together to change. Aware of our top parenting issues/challenges.

I love anniversary dates; it's always extra-special to talk through all these things together.



(And no, my hair isn't already that long. That picture is from LAST October, before I chopped off my hair!)