Getting to Know your Spouse Through Q&A

“It’s a trap!” my husband warns himself.

“No, it isn’t. I mean it when I say I don’t care to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I’m really that girl, and you married me. Thank you for marrying me…”

There is a pretty good reason why I don’t care to celebrate Valentine’s Day with my husband. We met four days after Valentine’s Day, and every year, that day, that’s the important day. It’s my favorite day of the year—the day-that-we-met day. I would so much rather celebrate our day than Valentine’s Day.

Like a broken record, I repeatedly wonder what I ever did to wind up so lucky to have met my husband. I know the answer is nothing. We’re celebrating seven years of having met each other this month!

Both my husband and I have the same important memory of when we first met. I know because we were both asked this question, “What do you remember about the day you met?” and we both answered before being allowed to view each other’s answer. Naturally and hysterically, I answered with a giant detailed paragraph, and my husband answered with one sentence. At least it was a compound sentence! The thing we both remember about that day is a huge factor in our relationship.

We both said that it was easy to talk to each other—me in my many words and him in his straightforward answer.

I promise I’m not writing this month to only say that communication is important to relationships. Except, along my wordy way, I’m saying exactly that.

Communication is important to relationships!

This communication thing is not a new concept to me, and it’s probably not a new concept to you either. Growing up, my two best friends and I played a little game we called “Circle Talk,” which I now smirk at because three people don’t really form a circle. “Triangle Talk” never occurred to us, apparently. The idea of the game is that you sit around and ask questions and everyone has to—absolutely has to—answer the question. Then, the next person asks a question, and you talk and talk and talk, in this question-and-everyone-answers format. We made up our own questions, probably aimed at all kinds of things that we thought people wouldn’t want to answer, so we could know each other’s best secrets.

I still love this form of communication—get to know you with questions and answers—even as an adult.

Yes, my husband and I met four days after Valentine’s Day.  Then somewhere around two months or so after that he deployed for six months. Talk about getting to know you by talking! For those six months there were no movie dates, no dinner dates, no activity-themed dates like bowling, concerts, or shooting pool. There was a lot of communication though. Facebook messages or chats, Skype calls, and care packages.

In one of those care packages, I decided the question and answer format could resurface. I had found a little book and it had several hundred get to know you type questions in it. I made up these nerdy and cute matching his and hers notebooks.

Before sending off his notebook and the question book to him, I typed up all of those questions so I could have a copy to work from, too. From this was born our “Project Discover,” another way we could get to know each other, even while he was away.

At the end of his deployment, he brought his notebook home and we got to trade and read each other’s answers together.

A few months ago, we decided to play with questions and answers again. I had listened to a presentation about Military One Source as a resource for spouses. Through the presentation, I learned about a free app that was available called Love Every Day.

The idea of the app was that for 21 days, you and your spouse would receive a question to answer via text link. Once you click the link for the day, you could view and answer the day’s question. Then, whenever your spouse answered, you would get another text letting you know, and you could go back into the link and see their answer, too.

We really had fun with those questions over the 21 days! It sure beat the “Please bring home milk,” or “What are my leave dates again?” type texts.

We had brand new things to talk about on those days via texts and when we got home from work in the evenings. Some of the questions were just for fun, such as which super power we thought our spouse would like to have, and others pertained to our relationship.

What you may notice about our Project Discover notebooks and the Love Every Day app is that both offered chances to answer questions and share with another person, but you could count on finding out their first response—the one before they gained knowledge of your answer. To me, this is a big help in opening up communication. You can chat after knowing each other’s answers and wind up saying things like, “Oh, I agree,” or, “Yeah I remember that, too,” but those cannot be the only responses. Each person gets a fair, unfiltered shot at providing an answer. Though you may have had the other person in mind while answering, you wouldn’t be able to just bounce off of their response.

Whether you celebrate your relationship on Valentine’s Day or not, I invite you to try connecting through questions and answers. You are welcome to try our Project Discover or adapt it any way you see fit. If you would like to try the Love Every Day app, here is a link to more information and how you can get started signing-up.

What are some of your favorite days to celebrate with your spouse? How do you connect with each other?