Before You Commit: Tapestry Recommended Conversations + Practices
Frequently, being in a relationship means creating routines. These routines contain expectations for your partner’s behavior rather than engaging in active curiosity. Meanwhile, marriage requires curiosity for both partners to remain on the same wavelength as each other. Each partner may have different tools and comfort levels with sharing and getting vulnerable. All levels of comfort can have a successful marriage, but the important part is that you do the work and remain curious. To help you and your partner stay present, we compiled conversation starters and tools for you to show up for one another in an equitable and holistic way.
SOME RELATIONSHIPS ARE AN OPEN BOOK, SOME TAKE A LITTLE MORE WORK.
Some relationships are an open book. You and your partner are natural storytellers and feel comfortable opening up about past, present, and future. Other relationships are more introverted; the process of life happens inside of your head and heart and only certain parts are shared with the outside world. Both personalities can have very successful relationships, and one is no better prepared for marriage than the other.
I myself am an introvert drawn to a life of extroversion mediated by my wonderful partner. When we met, I still processed a lot of my life on the inside. My thoughts, feelings, and reactions all happened in a conversation with the voice inside of my head and rarely came out of my mouth. I wasn't used to sharing the universe inside of me with someone outside of me. When I look back and ask him how the heck we got together, one of the things he cites from the early days is: “I could see that you enjoyed life by the looks in your eyes. There was a lot going on in there. I wanted to know what was going on inside that head and be in on the story or the joke. So I poked you until you went out with me so I could find out more.”
Whatever camp you fall in (including an in-between camp or different camps on different days), make an ongoing effort to connect with your partner. To quote the Dowager Countess of Grantham, “Marriage is a long business.”* Fostering connection spans the life of your relationship. Whether you’ve been together one, ten, or twenty years before you commit to your partnership, you’ll want to develop and flex the muscles of honest connection from day one to a billion.
INVITING CURIOSITY INTO YOUR RELATIONSHIP.
Curiosity is often at its peak in a relationship during the first year or two. It tends to slowly fade away in the years following as familiarity and routine develop. Our brains create new neural pathways that help us process our partner’s role in our world, faster. But our partners are ever-changing, evolving, and dynamic humans. So while those fancy new neural pathways make recognizing our partner and their place in our lives easier, they can also make us lazy and incurious.
Time to spark the curiosity machine up! Especially if you want to stay present to who your partner is TODAY, and not just who they were when you first met. Don’t worry if you don’t know where to start, or if it feels awkward, or if you haven’t made time for each other in this way in a long time. There are seasons to life and it’s all normal. Making the effort to strengthen your connection and stay on the same page is worth overcoming any initial awkwardness that might arise.
If you’re looking for some inspiration and ideas to (re)establish the habits of curiosity, honesty, and open connection — especially as you take meaningful steps towards and commit to a marriage — we’ve compiled some of our favorite questions and prompts to help you get (re)acquainted with your partner as they are today. We’ve also recommended some topics of conversation to activate and go deeper into how you are choosing to build your lives together. Some of these may be topics you’ve addressed partially in the past; we think it’s important to have complete conversations together. These conversation narratives will set up equitable expectations for both of you, as well as an invitation revisit these topics as your relationship evolves. All of these conversations will celebrate who you are as dynamic individuals, as well as lovingly clarify the terms of your partnership and marriage.
LEARN ABOUT YOUR PARTNER’S INNER LANDSCAPE.
For those of us in long-term relationships, these questions take us back to the beginning. We may have learned some of these foundational facts about our partners early on in the relationship. If that’s the case, revisiting them and listening for the things you might have missed the first time will bring you closer. There may be some topics that were overlooked. Some answers may have changed. We may not have heard the whole answer the first time. Get back in touch with the foundational elements of who you are by getting curious about each other’s inner landscape.
Who are their closest friends?
What is their favorite musical group, composer, or instrument?
What are their hobbies?
What stresses are facing them in the immediate future?
Describe in detail your partner’s day.
Who is their favorite relative?
What is their fondest, achieved dream?
What is their worst fear?
What makes them feel most competent?
What turns them on sexually?
What is their favorite way to spend an evening?
What improvements do they want to make in their lives?
What was one of their best childhood experiences?
What is one of their favorite ways of being soothed?
EXPRESS WHAT YOU NEED IN A POSITIVE, NON-DEMANDING WAY.
Every human could use more practice expressing their needs. By embracing the fact that your emotional awareness influences the lives around you, you own how you communicate your needs. Your partnership is a space where you can practice expressing your needs. When you are better able to listen for each other’s needs, you are best able to coexist with one another.
I need you to touch me affectionately more often.
I need to talk more about our kids.
I need you to ask me about my hopes and aspirations.
I need to talk to you about my day.
I need you to put down your phone when I want to talk.
I need for you to offer to do a household chore so I can get some relief.
I need for us to have an adventure together.
I need some time alone for myself.
I want to talk about how I’ve changed.
MAKE EACH OTHER FEEL HEARD + UNDERSTOOD.
The best communicators are the ones who listen first. If your neural pathways have turned off the curiosity machine in your brain, it’s time to light it back up. Do not take what you know about your partner for granted. Ask questions. Listen for the whole answer. Be specific with your requests. Don’t treat each other’s emotional processing as a routine operation. Be present with the nuances of each other’s experiences with each new day. Breathe life into your love for each other.
What are your primary needs here?
How did all of this evolve?
Who are the main characters in the feelings you’re talking about?
What would you really like to say? To whom?
Do you have mixed feelings? What are they?
What are your choices as you see them?
Do you think this has affected our (or another) relationship? How?
What do your values tell you about this?
ESTABLISH RITUALS OF CONNECTION.
We love a ritual… like, LOVE a ritual. Rituals are important habits to consciously craft with your partner. They are spaces you can use to sync up with each other. They are also opportunities to connect deeply and realign your relationship. The most successful rituals rely on indicators that something is going to happen (e.g. you go on a walk with phones at home to decompress your day together; you always celebrate a promotion with a weekend away; you hold hands and make eye contact while having important conversations; you give each other intentional space and quiet time when you have a hard time talking about something). Let rituals be a tool that fuels your unique love language and family culture.
Planning and going on vacations
Communicating appreciation for each other
Bringing friends into your home
Meal times
Celebrating success
Initiating and refusing and improving lovemaking
Celebrating holidays and anniversaries
Renewing yourselves when you are fatigued or burned out
Expressing needs
Discussing stressful events
Setting goals together
Photos courtesy of Jessika Christine Photography.
If you’d like to take a deeper dive and lend even more variety to these questions, we recommend downloading the Card Decks app by the Gottman Institute or visiting this site with the New York Times 36 questions that make you fall in love.
— Kate, Tapestry Creative Director
*Downton Abbey reference. Couldn’t help myself. Maggie Smith fan until I die.