Husbands and Dads

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Each Sunday my wife and I sit down and hold a weekly review that we call Companionship Inventory. We’ve been doing this since the beginning of our marriage, just over five years. It’s important to do this with your partner weekly, independent of children. You can call it anything that you want, but it basically consists of the following four parts:

1. Weekly Planning

We whip out our calendars and (quickly) go over what we have planned for the week, one at a time. We skip repetitive things like work or classes and instead focus on what we’re doing during the evenings and weekends that will interfere with our time together or that we might need the other’s help or presence for. Specific items might include: dinner parties, things we need the car for, going out with friends so I can’t see you then, study groups, or a myriad of other things.

2. Business

Next we mostly talk about finances – what major expenditures we might have this week or in the near future, planning dates, housekeeping issues, future plans like long term goals.

3. Testimony Time

Companionship Inventory is a left over from when I was a full time missionary in Vancouver, Canada. As such, testimony time is a time to share with each other our feelings about what really matters – our spirituality. Some people may not feel comfortable with this, but for the two of us, it’s an intrinsic part of our lives and our marriage. Your testimony time could just include your thoughts on what’s really important to you or what you’ve been thinking about during that week. It’s often the most fulfilling part of our Companionship Inventory.

4. Compliment Time

My wife’s favorite part of our weekly review, we take turns telling each other one thing we admire about the other. We give at least 3 – 5 compliments every time, no matter how angry we might be at each other or how tired we are. It’s amazing how much complimenting the one you love does for your relationship. Whenever we have anyone staying with us we always include them in compliment time and they always enjoy it.

That’s pretty much it – it usually lasts less around 45 minutes. It may not be so for every couple, but Companionship Inventory is the single most important thing that we do that has helped our relationship.

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