Improve your relationship with these 3 simple questions

Improve your relationship

Lots of couples want to improve their relationship, but how?  Anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows that they take time and effort.  Some recent research has shown that couples whom ponder but a mere 3 questions about their relationship, can actually significantly improve their degree of relationship contentment.  And it only takes 21 minutes…a year!   

What are the Effect?

Couples whom consider the three questions showed that they argued less, had less relationship stress, and reported higher levels of happiness and passion! Go figure.

This is good news and can be helpful for couples in long-term relationships as often relationship satisfaction declines over time.  Taking a proactive approach, and simply considering the following questions can help.

21 minutes a year, Three questions, three times a year for 7 minutes

1. How would a neutral 3rd party perceive your most recent relationship fight?
2. Moving forward, what gets in the way of thinking like this 3rd party in the next argument with your spouse?
3. How will you attempt to think like this 3rd party during conflicts and how would it help your relationship?

Why does it work to improve your relationship?

What happens is these questions create ‘cognitive room’, putting the relationship on the map.  Relationship researcher John Gottman found that couples who have more ‘cognitive room’ (ie., the more the relationship is on the map inside each partners head), are generally more satisfied.

When folks begin to honestly ask themselves the above three questions, people begin to realize both the value of their relationship, but also that they are in a position to (continuously) improve upon it.  And when you consider how to improve it, it creates more cognitive room, and hence a strong positive cycle begins to take shape.

The effects are like a pebble in a pond, it is a small ripple that becomes widespread. Best Regards.