Quarterly Relationship Reviews
How to systematically increase relationship satisfaction
One of the most impactful things my wife and I do is sit down four times a year and systematically review our relationship. We kind of fell into this habit, but now that we do it, I can't believe more couples don't make time for something like this. If you're looking for the 80/20 of maintaining relationship health, this is it!
Why do a quarterly relationship review
It’s standard practice for companies to do quarterly business reviews. Company leaders come together every three months to assess whether the organization is on track, address issues, and celebrate wins. Companies risk losing their way without this practice. Unresolved problems escalate, leaving employees unmotivated and hampering company performance, potentially leading to its demise.
A long-term relationship is no different. Without regular and intentional reviews, a couple will inevitably run into problems. Like in a business, couples need to review how things are going. Regular check-ins allow partners to express their needs, celebrate successes, and adjust plans as life changes. Establishing a habit of running these check-ins has helped me and my wife strengthen our bond and improve the way we resolve conflicts.
Drawing inspiration from quarterly business reviews, we’ve developed a similar process for reviewing our relationship, the quarterly relationship review (QRR). Every three months, we come together to reflect on what has been going well and what needs attention.
How to do a QRR
To facilitate the QRR, we use a single, evolving Google document that we take notes in. We start the review by writing a joint reflection on the previous quarter. This is like the highlights reel for our life. We record the notable events, how we felt about them, and any challenges we encountered. Documenting our experiences helps us see and celebrate our progress over time. We literally sit and laugh as we reflect on whatever happened in the last quarter. We’re also able to see that problems that once seemed significant diminish in importance as time passes.
The next step involves looking over the actions we agreed to implement in our last session. This mainly aims to ensure we follow through on our prior commitments or ideas. Sometimes, we realize we didn’t do anything about a problem or that our approach had an obvious flaw. We take those learnings and build them into our plan for the next quarter.
The core of the review is an activity designed to help us understand each other's needs and achieve our relationship goals. To keep things fresh, we alternate between different activities, all aimed at deepening our understanding and support of each other.
Go-to QRR activities
These are some of our go-to activities that we’ve found enjoyable and helpful! If you were thinking about trying these yourself, I would encourage you to optimize for what you think will be fun. If you start to dread the reviews, you will never maintain the habit. That’s important because the benefit of these activities comes as you accumulate them over time. If you’re like me, you're looking for what’s most impactful over 60 years, not over 60 minutes.
Start-stop-continue
We solo brainstorm a few things we would each like to start, stop, or continue doing as a couple, then read our answers to each other.
This exercise helped us clarify the small habits that we both love and have committed to uphold, like always drinking our morning coffee together.
Forecasting needs
We independently answer these two questions:
“What do I need?”
“What do I think my partner needs?”
After writing our answers, we read them to each other and share our thoughts. This feels like a game show. We both get a sense of excitement when we correctly identify each other's needs. After doing this a few times, we find that we actually have a pretty good pulse on each other's needs. It's also validating to realize that your partner understands your needs even if they can't always meet them. For example, we both have a clear understanding that I crave alone time, while Steph needs more quality time together – something we can now joke about.
Forecasting future preferences
We forecast our answers to each of these questions for today, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, and 40 years.
What do I most want to buy?
What is my most important goal?
What is my biggest worry/source of stress?
What is the biggest problem in the world?
Coming back to these answers years later is always a thrill. It gives us a new perspective on today’s problems, helping us realize what is permanent and what is transient. To a degree, it also helps us overcome the force of hyperbolic discounting—a psychological bias that causes people to choose immediate rewards over future rewards. It does this by putting us in the frame of mind of our future selves.
This exercise has driven us to make several big decisions, including where to invest money and when to purchase properties. Something that has literally and figuratively paid dividends.
Daydreaming
We each solo brainstorm and then share what our ideal life and relationship would be if there were zero constraints on time, energy, or money.
This is always fun to do—especially when you find overlap in your answers. It gives you a shared vision to work towards. Also, very often, there are things that we could be doing right away, so you can just make a plan to implement them.
This exercise has led to a few small but significant changes, like a decision to outsource weekly cooking.
Reflect on the good
We each write three good things about the last three months and one compliment for each other. We enjoy this activity because, in the business of life, we rarely pause to express sincere gratitude toward each other. Each time we read our answers to each other, we've said some version of: “Oh wow, I didn’t realize you noticed that!” Knowing that your partner sees and appreciates what you do for them motivates you to continue and even put more effort into serving them.
QRR best practices
Having completed dozens of quarterly relationship reviews now, we’ve learned a few things that can make or break a review. These are some of our hard-earned lessons.
Make a dinner reservation—the QRR is never urgent, so it is all too easy to push them into the future continually. However, there is something about a dinner reservation that feels fixed; you’re far less likely to reschedule. Doing the review in a restaurant also makes it more exciting.
Start with the positives—we always start with the shared reflection on the last three months because it’s an easy and fun way to start! It loosens us up before we discuss more difficult topics.
Write down your one commitment—reviews are useless if you never change your behavior. Simply writing down what you planned to do and then coming back to it in the future starts to build the muscle of following through. You also have less time and energy than you anticipate, so make your commitments light. Start with one thing you will do differently.
Talk about the system, not the person—rather than pointing out what your partner is doing wrong, try to identify how your relationship as a system is malfunctioning.
Adopt a scout mindset—we took this idea from Julia Galef's book. In the book, she contrasts a scout mindset with a soldier mindset. The soldier mindset is when you defend your own beliefs against evidence that might threaten them, akin to how a soldier defends their territory. The scout mindset, on the other hand, is about exploring the terrain of information and evidence with the goal of finding the truth, even if it contradicts your initial beliefs. You can do that by asking questions to fully understand your partner's perspective, not just finding openings to argue your point. Then, do your absolute best to actually listen.
Use "I" Statements—when expressing your thoughts or feelings, use "I" statements rather than "you" statements. This approach focuses on your experience and perceptions rather than placing blame or making assumptions about your partner's intentions.
Help each other with personal goals—imagine having a personal coach who knows everything about you and accompanies you every day, reminding you about your goals. With that level of support, you could achieve so much more. In a long-term relationship, you have that potential advantage! If you can humble yourself to ask your partner for help, you can help each other achieve your personal and professional goals.
Acknowledge how you feel—I struggle with this, but using feeling words helps. Often, disagreements or misunderstandings have emotional underpinnings. This doesn't mean you have to agree with every emotion expressed, but understanding them can lead to more compassionate and productive conversations. When Steph says she felt hurt by something, my heart often softens, and I feel more compassion toward her.
Set a date for your next review—as I mentioned, the value of reviews compounds over time. So, at the end of each review, set a date for the next one to reflect on how your changes went.
Review the review—change it if you are not enjoying it or something isn’t working. It's your review; make it what you want.
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