David Lightburn

It’s a Thursday and our favorite sushi spot is bustling. My wife and I sit down and each order a glass of wine. After soaking in the silence of a dinner without the fighting of kids, we begin. I slide a piece of paper over to Ginger with the letter ‘D.’* 

“You graded our marriage a ‘D’?!?!”

No, I haven’t just committed the dumbest move in the history of marriage. I’ve just kicked off our  monthly ritual to ensure our marriage is rock solid and stronger than, well, The Rock. Over the next hour or two, punctuated with sushi rolls and wine, we’ll take the red pen to the most important areas of our lives – our marriage, our faith, our parenting, our careers, and our finances. 

We’ve been doing this since we got married in 2004. That’s before the iPhone, folks. Before you could opine about politics on Facebook without a university email address. Even before Kim and the Kardashian clan made it mainstream. That world seems so long ago.

I don’t really know where the time has gone. Sure, there are times when the days and weeks are long, but all in all, time passes so quickly. It’s super easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of the week – work and kids and church – and not check in with the person who matters most in your life. For me, that’s my wife Ginger. This monthly dinner helps us recalibrate our compass to make sure we are moving in the right direction together even if the sea of life has swept us off course.

How we grade

We begin with the Marriage category first. We always start with marriage. As subscribers of John Rosemond’s philosophy that a strong family has to be marriage-centered, not kid-centered, we believe that If our relationship is on firm footing, we’ll be able to weather whatever life has in store for us.

After we both give some thought to our answers, I count to three and at the same time we both say what letter grade (A,B,C,D,F) we’d give our marriage over the past month. Whoever has the lower grade goes first in explaining the ‘why’ behind the grade. Then the other person goes and gives their reasoning. 

Getting to the ‘why’ behind the grade and reconciling the difference between our two answers serves two purposes: 1) it brings awareness to blind spots that we may have individually and 2) it gives us an opportunity to recognize and affirm the other for what she/he has done to make our lives better and the impact it has had. 

It’s important to note that when we’re grading we aren’t grading “each other”, but rather we’re grading how each person feels individually about the category. So I’m not grading Ginger’s marriage ‘performance’, I’m grading my feelings about our marriage, parenting, etc. This will save you from a very lonely night.

Once we both feel good that everything has been said and resolved relating to our marriage, we repeat the same process for each of the 4 other categories. 

The whole check-in takes 60-90 minutes (we’ve had check-ins that have gone waaaaay longer) depending on the size of the gap in our grades (ex: I give our marriage a ‘B’ and Ginger gives it a ‘D’) are. The bigger the gaps, the more time needed. 

For us, a strong marriage is well worth the time investment. At the end of the date, we always feel more connected, more heard, and more understood. And I also come away with things that I can do better or more of to serve Ginger, our marriage, and our kids. 

Give it a try the next time you’re out with your significant other. You won’t be disappointed.

* We now do this verbally instead of with paper