The marriage audit: 12 questions every long-term couple should ask

By Jean-Claude Chalmet, as told to Anna Maxted for The Times, February 25th, 2023.

Is sex still fun? Do you still hold hands? Relationship therapist Jean-Claude Chalmet explores the issues you should tackle — together

When you’ve been with your partner for a long time you can get into a rut. You know your roles, you think you know each other — but as the years pass, assumption and lack of understanding can override effort and curiosity. The love is there but real intimacy has dwindled. You want to be closer but feel distant and if there has been hurt or mistrust between you over the years, it can become hard to reach out.

If the will is there, it is possible to bridge the gap and recover the connection. But first ask yourselves some questions:

1. Do you kiss to say hello or goodbye?

Is there always a goodbye kiss, or do you barely look up as they slam out of the house? And what about your hellos? A perfunctory “hi”? Think about how friends interact — they never leave or arrive without exchanging a kiss or respectful attention. This is especially important when you’re upset with each other, because how you react on meeting and parting provides a little reset. Even if you sometimes feel like growling instead of kissing, that four-second show of dedication matters.

2. How much of your communication is about logistics?

In any long-term relationship there’s a lot of admin and schedule talk. But it can leave you craving something more meaningful; you want your partner to interest and surprise you. A route to a deeper chat is to revive an activity you used to love doing together — even something as simple as cooking. Or is gardening side by side your thing? Find your way to start connecting. You need to create the conditions that facilitate more intimate conversation.

3. Dinner and a box set every night — is your routine too predictable?

There’s great comfort in two people having wine in front of the TV together. It’s easy, it’s relaxing, but it’s not always togetherness. Many couples, sitting in the same living room, amid the same decor, for the 5,000th evening, like insects frozen in amber, are afraid to challenge the status quo. Their relationship is in operational mode. People fear that rocking the boat by expressing dissatisfaction might sink it.

But if you’re bored, you’re sliding towards crisis. Don’t complain, but do show you want to connect. One of you has to risk discomfort for that to change. You might say, “Let’s go for a walk tonight. I’ve missed our chats,” or, “I’d really like to talk to you about my day.”

4. Is the sex fun or is it a chore?

Are your postcoital thoughts, “We must do this again tomorrow”? Or, “Glad that’s over for another month”? If you’re a couple often in sync with no lurking resentments, sex isn’t such a weighted issue. In fallow periods you still understand each other and neither feels slighted. And when you are into it, it’s pure pleasure, or about being close. You don’t always expect perfection. Sometimes sex is the relationship glue, but it can’t fix spiralling emotional distance.

Feeling you can’t trust the other person enough to confide anxieties or discuss partner-inflicted hurts kills desire. Better sex starts outside the bedroom, when you’re brave enough to discuss what’s repelling you and there’s enough mutual goodwill.

5. Do you still hold hands?

It’s important to show someone that you care for their touch. It might be stroking their arm, putting your hand on theirs, lying next to them on the bed — there are many ways of showing that you want to be with your partner. And if you hug for more than 20 seconds, you release the feelgood hormone oxytocin — it’s a virtuous circle, making you feel bonded. If your partner is naturally tactile and you aren’t (perhaps your family didn’t hug), that lack of touch can make them feel lonely.

6. Can you remember when you last learnt a new thing about your partner?

Ever met a person who didn’t ask you a single question, as their sole interest was themselves? We recognise this as a dislikable trait of the self-absorbed. But somehow, in a long relationship, it’s a habit that can creep up on us. We forget to be curious about our partner. We assume we know all about them, what they’ll say, what they think. So we don’t bother asking. It’s easy to save our best, interested self for work and take no care over interactions with our partner. Then we wonder why the spark has been lost.

7. Do you still make an effort with your appearance?

We may not be as lithe as we were in youth but we can still make an effort to remain attractive, to ourselves and to our partner. If your response is “I can’t be bothered” I’d ask why — becoming slovenly suggests that all is not well and requires investigation. A grasp of personal responsibility is key.

8. What was the last thing you laughed about together?

Making your partner laugh when they’re huffing about a minor infraction can burst the balloon of pomposity. It doesn’t imply that you’re not listening — it’s a playful bid for connection. Little private jokes between us are worth a thousand words. We therapists talk about people wanting to be “seen” and “heard” and “understood”. Laughing together is a shortcut to all of this. When you laugh together, you get each other.

9. Does the prospect of an empty nest terrify you?

Some couples use their children as a buffer, a way of avoiding intimacy. They need to attend to their relationship, if it’s not too late. Whether the empty nest brings freedom or doom is up to you both. With no teenager-shaped distractions, it either exposes the lifeless remains of a relationship, or provides an opportunity for renewal.

Often couples are too afraid to talk about it, and nothing happens. If you want a shared future, start by telling your partner what you dream of doing once the kids have left — something alone, and something together.

10. How many interests do you share?

What activities do you share in your free time? Or is it mostly tag-team childcare, with one of you cycling on your free day and the other visiting galleries? We are great at constructing reasons to avoid our partner when the relationship feels difficult. But relationships are difficult. They require work and some fun, frivolous, couple time. One partner might be social secretary for both. But if the other is passive, I’d ask, has it always been this way, or has it become so? Try new things. Plan something you want to do together.

11. Do you complain to friends about your partner?

Do you have the occasional fond grumble? Or is it frequent, furious venting? If it’s the latter, you’re addressing the wrong audience. Often we’re scared to tell our partner how we feel. So we need to consider how we’ve destroyed that emotional safety in our relationship — and how we can find our way back to it. I ask couples in clinic to sit on chairs, back to back, then say what they wouldn’t dare say to each other’s face.

At home I’d suggest expressing one need you believe your partner wouldn’t find too difficult to fulfil. So not “I need to have sex every morning”, but “every night I need us to at least hug before we go to sleep”. Start small — but start.

12. Are there subjects you never talk about?

If you can’t talk freely, that’s a recipe for resentment and isolation. I am not suggesting blunt confrontation. It means honing our ability for emotional attunement; not mind-reading, but paying close attention, sensing when something’s up and knowing when to probe a subject a little deeper or leave it alone. Then broaching the difficult stuff becomes doable. Even messy rows are somehow a joint endeavour. This is, of course, how relationships start. We want to hear everything this person has to say.

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