Change Your Air Cleaner

Our adult daughter lives in another state, and she came for a visit recently. She said her car just wasn’t running like it used to and asked me to take a look.

It had been a very long time since any maintenance was done, and was in desperate need of a tune-up. The first thing I looked at was the air cleaner and intake manifold. Both were very dirty, and needed replaced & cleaned. You see, I worked on that first because it doesn’t matter what else I did to tune up the car, if it wasn’t “breathing” well, nothing else would make much difference.

It’s like that in marriage. If your marriage is not as it used to be, if it runs sluggish, or isn’t running at all, the first thing to look at is the air intake system…which is communication.

If you and your spouse are communicating well, with good conversations, few “disagreements”, and no yelling, your marriage probably is doing well, and may just need minor things tuned up, but have a good marriage. However, the main indication of an unfulfilling or troubled marriage, is poor communication with lots of “disagreements” that deteriorate to yelling, bitterness, even anger or isolationism.

If you would like more help or advice, listen to my podcast under the tab above, or here: podcast series on marriage.

To fix poor communication in your marriage, and give it a jump start to “running better”, there’s one thing to start doing differently…and it actually is quite easy! Ask questions. And genuinely want to know the answer.

Yep, it will surprise you how wonderfully improved your marriage will be if you simply ask the right questions, and listen to the answer. What to ask?

Here are some conversation starters I found in the book Fun Loving You by Ted Cunningham. If you would like to download these to print CLICK HERE.

HINT: You don’t have to do all of these in one night!

1. What was the hardest part of your day?
2. What was the best part of your day?
3. If I played hooky tomorrow, I would _____.
4. At _____ o’clock today, I was ready to come home.
5. Did you daydream at work today? If so, what about?
6. What made you feel the most productive at work today?
7. What was your biggest distraction?
8. On the drive home, I listened to _____.
9. Did you talk to anyone interesting today?
10. If you could change one thing about your day, what would it be? Any words you would take back?
11. I think it would be fun if we took the kids _____ next weekend.
12. We haven’t talked to _____ in some time; we should call and see how they are doing.
13. What did you dream about doing for a career when you were a kid?
14. If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you wake up tomorrow and do?
15. If I handed you a check for ten million dollars, what would you do tomorrow at 8: 00 a.m.?
16. If your job let you work and live anywhere in the world, where would you choose to live and why?
17. Which president, living or dead, would you most like to have lunch with and why?
18. Who is one person throughout history you would most want to meet?
19. If you starred in a movie sequel, which movie would it be?
20. If you could be an extra on a television show, what scene would you want to “star” in?
21. If you could be on a game show, which one would you go on and why?
22. If you could write a cover story for any magazine, what magazine would you choose? What would your article focus on?
23. When we got married, what did you dream our life would be like in ten years?
24. If you had one dream for our marriage, what would it be?
25. On your day off this week, what is the one thing you would like to do together to create a memory?
26. If we could spend Christmas anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?
27. What could I do this week that would make you feel extra special?
28. What country or people group do you have the biggest heart for?
29. If we could raise one million dollars to help those in need, to whom would you give that money?
30. What people group, organization, cause, or mission would you most want to give to over the next twelve months?
31. How do you desire to serve others this year, either in the community or at church?
32. If you could be a part of changing someone’s life this year, how would you do that?
33. Who is one person you want to influence in the next twelve months?
34. Who is one person you would like to seek counsel from over the next twelve months?
35. What is your biggest goal for our family this coming year?
36. What is one place you most want to take our children?
37. What is your dream for our parents?
38. What do you imagine our grandchildren or great-grandchildren will be like? If we had only one week a year with them, what would we do?
39. What do you want to get better at?
40. If you could change one thing about yourself physically, what would it be?
41. When you retire, what do you want people to say about your life?
42. What are some things you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t done yet?
43. If someone made a reality show about our lives and followed us around with cameras every day, what would you want the viewers to see in our lives? Our family? Our marriage?
44. Describe the person you want to be five years from now.
45. As your number one fan, what can I do to cheer you on?
46. Do you want to make love tonight?
47. Can you give me two to three ideas of adding adventure to our foreplay?
48. Have you ever wanted to be more adventurous in our sex life?
49. What could I do to be a better listener?
50. When you share your heart with me, do you think I understand what you are saying? Why or why not?
51. What physical cues can I give you so you know I got it?
52. This will be a relaxing evening if we _____.

From the book Fun Loving You, Enjoying your marriage in the midst of the grind. By Ted Cunningham