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Lessons learned after 101 couple meetings

Yeop Kim

• 10 min read
Lessons learned after 101 couple meetings
Our couple meetings are often done at a near by cafe where they have excellent donuts

Today my wife and I had our 101st Couple’s Meeting. (Yay!)

Preface

We sometimes mention the fact that we have regular couple meetings every week during dinner parties, and night outs to friends and other couples.

The reaction is a variety, but can be somewhat summarized into two types.

Yuck! Type

There are people who are appalled by this approach. Their response is something like,

That is just way TOO MUCH.
Isn’t work enough?
Do you not have enough meetings at work?

Tell us more! Type

And there are another group of people who lean in, ask what we discuss, and how we do it.

This post is more for the leaning in types. However, hopefully it might convince some people who think “Yuck!” When they first hear about it.

Why did we start doing couple meetings

Before going into the details I would highlight why we started this.

March 2022
We were finally able to start living together, after more than 4 YEARS!
Since I left Shanghai and moved to Mexico city in January 2018, we have been in a long distance relationship.

Although we managed to shorten the distance over time incrementally, it was a long period of time since we cohabitated one space.

Our journey up to finally living together again

Long distance relationship from 12900 km to 0 km

In addition to that, I was relocating to a new city with a new job which was for a totally different industry.

A wise friend warned me of the many possibilities of this reunion going side ways if we were to go straight back into living together without some buffer time and that it is better that I find my own place first and get used to the new environment before living together.

This warning I acknowledged, but we were too thirsty to heed the advice and decided to start living together without any further delays. At the same

However, we fully agreed on the fact that this won't be an easy journey.
Both my wife (then my gf) and I had enough failed marriages around us to be dreaming of an easy disney style happily ever after.

My mom headed the regional domestic violence shelter for 10 years in South Korea.
My wife's parents had their share of struggles.
Adding to that we already were well aware of the sky rocketing divorce rates.

Nevertheless, we were going to give it a shot. We were willing to make some extra efforts to keep the romance, which seems often far gone in long-term couples, going.

“Romance is play, and play does not take place easily when problems of any sort arise. Play requires peace, and peace requires negotiation. And you are lucky even then if you get to play.”
—Jordan Peterson, Beyond Order, p. 296

In search of ways to make our relationship the best it can be, after a few books and marriage related podcasts, we stumbled upon the idea of 'couple meetings'. It was premised upon the idea that the problems will rise for sure, as normal human beings it is always easier to run to avoidance, anger and tears. This repeated over time will bring down any relationship.
By having a tool, template, space, to discuss these problems we will have a better chance to thrive in this relationship and hopefully get the Romance to continue as well.

How long does this take?

For us we block out an hour, but it can be something as short as 20 minutes and as long as hours.
If it does become too long we split it, and try to be reasonably flexible on the time spent.

Meeting Agenda

What is discussed?

Appreciation

We start with this. This is the fun part indeed. We try to jot down something very specific that we are grateful of each other, or just an awesome fact that you realized about each other and so on.

Some of the recent examples that I shared are as follows.
(Only sharing mine in this space, and got rid of all the adult-only content for potential minor readers!)

0809
Thank you for saying yes to walking from Meguro to Gotanda. It felt great to walk together, holding hands and feeling the cool night breeze.
0808
Thank you for preparing yogrut in the morning
0805
Thank you for the improvements you are making for our household kosu. I just used the box opener you have placed on our door and it is very handy. These small improvements together will make our lives better. Thank you for that.
0731
Thank you for sharing your good news. Elated to hear that you passed your exam. Your good news is my good news dear, keep it coming.
0730
Thank you for packing the allergy pills. I would have suffered A LOT without it.

We focus on being specific. Often times it is not one a day. We might miss a few days and find many points in one day. This does not matter, as long as we have a few points to share and be grateful of each other.

Finance

1.Weekly Spending Review
Can we pay all the bills without issue? Is our spending getting out of control for some reason?
We check the 'shared part' only and leave some room for privacy.

2.Quarterly Asset and Liabilities Review
We do the asset and liabilities review 4 times a year.
We are not the types to invest in individual stocks, but we do track how our index is doing.
This part is where we make sure

  • We have enough rainy-day fund
  • Our index investments status
  • Our retirement fund investment status

3.Yearly Review
After our pay increase has been made at each other's workplace we adjust the cashflow based on that. How much money we would put in the co-spending account every month? What are each other's plans on other investments and so on.

Projects

Here, we discuss ongoing couple projects that we have.

Some examples are,

  • Moving to a new home
  • Planning for kids
  • Planning a trip to South Korea
  • Notarization of each other's will
  • Working on my permanent residence

Plan for Good Times

This is where we flip open our google calendar and start planning.
We keep two sub categories under this.

1.Date plans.
We plan our dates. Ideally we aim for a proper date once a week. In hindsight it usually becomes something like twice in three weeks.

2.Activities with friends.
We love to spend time with friends. A typical setting is a home party set-up.
Breif hikes, picnics, movie nights, boardgame nights, a short trip are other staples in this category.

In case of accidents

This is not discussed regularly. However, we belive this to be very important.
We have each other's will and insurance related information just in case something happens.
We also have links to folders with letters to loved ones to be sent out if in case of a sudden accident or death.

Also, a recent addition is 'Emergency run away point'
This is mainly because we live in Japan, and earth quakes are kind of part of life. A big one can come on any day.

For those who are interested,

  • We assigned two run away - gathering points. One for 0900-1800 and the other for 1800-0900.
  • We signed up to a message box service that can be reached without proper internet connection.
    https://www.web171.jp/web171app/topRedirect/

Problems and Challenges

Last but not least. This is where we discuss our issues. Something that we want each other to change. We have predefined some categories.

  • The way we talk to each other
    • Specific language to avoid.
    • Preferred way.
  • Funerals
    • Whose funeral we will go together and whose we won't in each others families.
  • Sex
  • Money

If we don't like how we talked of each other at a friend's home party, this is where we discuss it.
Plus a myriad of problems. Sometimes it leads to conflict but since conflict delayed means conflict multiplied this section cannot be left out.

A creative solution that we came up with during this part of our meetings is the way we signal each other when either one of us one to leave a party/dinner or whatsoever while not openly discussing the fact that we want to leave.
(specific way of tapping the other person's knee)

Also the following list from this thoughtful post gives us some ideas.
https://www.artofmanliness.com/people/family/how-and-why-to-hold-a-weekly-marriage-meeting/

  • The (mis)behavior of one of your children and what to do about it
  • Spouse isn’t backing you up when you’re disciplining the kids
  • In-laws have been coming over too often (or you haven’t visited your own parents enough)
  • Where to spend Thanksgiving/Christmas
  • Where to send a kid for school
  • Unhappiness with how much time spouse is spending at work
  • Lack of intimacy/unhappiness with the frequency of sex
  • Spouse is always late for everything
  • Mutual or individual unhappiness with the church you’re attending
  • Mutual or individual struggle with faith
  • The frequency with which overnight guests have been visiting
  • Spouse always leaves kitchen a mess
  • Spouse makes critical comments about you in front of family/friends
  • Conflict over budget
  • Schedule of activities feels too packed
  • Spouse is constantly in bad mood after work
  • The desire to change jobs
  • Whether to accept a job
  • Spouse sabotages your diet
  • Spouse has been drinking a lot

Comparison from our first meeting and 101st meeting agenda

1st meeting 20220327

first couple meeting in 27 March 2022

101st meeting 20240817.00101.2684wk

Not only the list got longer and richer, but we started logging the assumed left-over time span based on expected life span. (We expect to have 2684 more meetings, hopefully many more than that!)

Lessons and takeaways

So far we are very pleased that we decided to do this. Having this has allowed us to front-load lots of important decisions, meet deadlines, celebrate important days properly with enough plannining. Life can become so hectic, that if we were to leave it to ourselves to just organically discuss all to be discussed without any structure we will end up not doing it at all or definitely not discuss enough.

Here are some lessons and takeaways.

Eat before the meeting.

No matter when we are doing this, it has been quite clear that we need to have something in our belly before starting this.

Good stuff first

Usually 'money' section or the obvious 'problems' section can become challenging. We make sure to share the gratitude first to have enough buffer to soldier through what has to be discussed.

Change settings

No need to be at home every single time. It was quite refreshing and fun to do it in nice cafes. If there are too private matters we read each others' notes which can be actually extra fun.

It is supposed to be tough

This is not meant to be easy. This is something hard that we choose to do, so that it may help us thrive together as a couple. I often find myself feeling somewhat stressed during these couple meetings. What helps is to acknowledge the fact that this is not meant to be easy. We are putting the hard work to get meaningful results out of it.

When it feels too easy it is good time to review the potential problem list and really ask if there is nothing to be discussed.

Being grateful as a habit

Being grateful is a key recipe to having a good life. Well, I bet every single person on earth already knows this. Easier said than done right? Having that section of thanking each other really drove me to make it a habit to write daily of what I am grateful to my wife.

After 101 couple meetings and daily appreciation I have a 15-page worth of what I am thankful of my wife. This is something I can visit when things get tough. A good reminder, and a great ongoing habit.

It also became the most hyperlinked note I keep in obsidian

obsidian, graph view, notes hyper linked to my gratitude note towards my wife

Wife's thoughts

I believe everyone has concerns about how to sustain a great relationship. There are many challenges, such as transitioning together from student couple to working couple, career changes, marriage, children, and more. These challenges can make it very difficult to keep a relationship fresh.

You might have heard stories from your boss or an more senior colleagues about how their marriage has grown cold, perhaps shared during a nomikai (drinking party).

I’ve heard many such stories. In fact, my parents’ relationship didn’t seem happy, so I could easily imagine how a marriage could become sour.

The phrase “A good example of what not to be” often comes to mind. That’s why I became strongly motivated to have regular meetings for our marriage.

If I have to pick one key-item during the meeting is: appreciation.

It’s very important to regularly express appreciation to your partner. Humans are often insensitive to unspoken feelings. When you feel gratitude for someone’s actions or words, those feelings often go unexpressed, and unfortunately, most of these feelings fade away from memory.

So, every morning, I reflect on the previous day and write down what I appreciate about my partner.

Overall, I am very grateful that we have these couple meetings. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my husband for suggesting the idea of these meetings and for continuing them through our 100th sessions.

Final thoughts

Regular couple meetings has not been an easy thing to do but definitely worth all the effort. I wish that we get to do the planned 2684 more meetings and some more even if we manage to live that long.