Relationship Check In Questions: How to Maintain Conscious Connection

For any couple, whether newly connected or decades into a marriage, relationship check in questions, when used regularly, set the stage for success. Taking a bit of intentional time and cultivating the authenticity, vulnerability, and essential courage needed to genuinely ask and answer these questions can make all the difference between a deepened sustainable bond and one that finds itself easily shaken or even broken. 

Couples who make relationship check-in questions a regular part of their relationship maintenance quickly realize that these “ritual” communications actually lead their love and intimacy into entirely new and profound realms. These habits keep the trust and safety between the two strong. They also, very importantly, keep the pathways to passion alive and exciting over many years together. 

Relationship check in questions make it easy to stay happy together. Let’s explore how to maintain that closeness, intimacy, and unity.

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Check in questions – why they matter

Why is relationship “maintenance” so important? Too many couples find themselves years into their relationship wondering what happened to the fun, spark, and deep joy of connection. Nothing happened to it. The pair just can’t see or feel the connection in the same way anymore. It hasn’t disappeared. It has been covered over and hidden. We’ve all been told, “that’s just what happens” in a long term relationship, but that’s not true. Not all relationships end up that way. But, what’s the difference? 

Passion and intimacy fade because couples don’t do the necessary relationship maintenance. They let the little stuff build up until it clogs, and eventually completely blocks, the pathways of love and passion between the two. That’s where relationship check in questions come in. 

And, no, it doesn’t take that long to do a check in. The questions are not nearly as scary or painful as one might imagine, especially when compared to the pain, resentment, disconnection, and even break ups that happen when we don’t tend to our relationships on a regular basis.

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Get into the habit of asking relationship check in questions

You’ll find that everything of real value in life requires maintenance. We find this particularly true of relationships. Yet humans exist as creatures of habit and our relationships become an easy place for old unhealthy habits and patterns. They eat away at your relationship without you even realizing it’s happening. As a matter of fact, Caroline Myss says in Anatomy of the Spirit, “Habit is the hell to which people cling in an attempt to stop the flow of change.”

“Habit is the hell to which people cling in an attempt to stop the flow of change.”  ~ Caroline Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit

Relationships and the people in them continuously change. We are not the same people day to day. We learn, we grow. We make mistakes. We feel wounded. We heal. That means, if we want the most alive, healthy and vibrant relationship, that we must continue to get to know our partners freshly all the time, literally every day. Your relationship check in questions play a big role here. 

You want to consistently look for ways to assess how things are between you, when to challenge the status quo, and how to keep yourselves and each other growing. Again, nothing lasts without maintenance – not a car, not a house, not a body, not a garden, not the planet, not a relationship. 

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Daily conversations

To keep a relationship strong, where the love and passion flow consistently, you’ll want to sit down with each other at least once a week to ask and answer your relationship check in questions. In reality, truly conscious couples make a habit of checking in with each other every day in at least a basic way. So let’s start with a basic check you could do once a day with each other. The dinner table offers a great time to share in this way. If you have kids, let them participate. Daily check in questions support the whole family.

Daily relationship check in questions:

1. How are you emotionally? Mentally? Physically? Spiritually?
2. What are you grateful for today?

These questions not only support our relationship but the personal nature of them also supports and deepens our relationship with ourselves. That is more important than you might think. If you haven’t heard it before, a relationship with another can only be as strong as the relationship you have with yourself. You might want to read that sentence again. 

Since the quality of your relationship with you matters so much in romance, these relationship check in questions do double duty.  They deepen the relationship with you and they deepen the relationship you share with your beloved. Let’s move on to the weekly relationship check in questions…

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Weekly relationship check in questions

Each week we suggest sitting down with your partner for 30 minutes to an hour. Sometimes it may take as little as 15 minutes. Other weeks, if you’ve hit some hiccups in your connection that week, or if either of you have hurt feelings that need repairing, it may take a bit longer. 

Know that the time you invest will serve you well. When you practice conscious communication and conscious conflict, in present time, you will spend much less time, energy and emotion in upset. It may seem longer, but a bit of conscious time now will save immense energy and pain over the long run. When you wait months or years to handle issues you, your partner, and your relationship suffer greatly. 

As you sit down each week we suggest that you and your partner take turns answering the following questions:

1. How are you emotionally? Mentally? Physically? Spiritually? (Repeat the daily question)
2. What do you need or want to share with me about you, your week, or us?
3. What have you, or we, tabled that we need to talk about and resolve?
4. What hasn’t been said or expressed that needs to be so that the space between us remains open and clear for us to keep our love flowing? 
5. What are you grateful for in our relationship right now?

As you navigate upsets, you’re reminded that men and women argue differently and they have different needs when it comes to ending an upset. 

Next, remember that as you ask these questions you first want to commit to answering honestly and authentically. Then, just as important for the success of your relationship, you want to listen openly. Listen to hear clearly. Be careful not to listen for what you want to hear, but for what your partner is truly expressing. As Steven Covey said, “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” 

Of course, if during any of your check ins you struggle to answer any of the questions or to resolve issues happening in your relationship during your weekly or monthly check ins, you are strongly encouraged to seek support from a therapist or relationship coach as soon as possible. Most couples wait years after they first need help to actually seek it. That makes the repair process much more difficult than it needs to be. 

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Monthly relationship check in questions

This next set of questions could be used for a monthly relationship check in. However, if you and your partner consistently meet for and do your weekly relationship check in questions, then you might benefit from exploring these questions on a quarterly rather than monthly basis. A getaway weekend or evening can offer a perfect space and time for this conversation and, of course, getting away isn’t necessary. It’s much more important that you simply have these heartfelt conversations. 

One of the things that conscious couples explore during the early part of their relationship is their “Soul Purpose of Relationship”. Exploring and discovering your shared purpose in love can help solidify the bond you share. It will also help guide you and keep you moving in the same direction, especially during the more challenging times that all couples inevitably face. 

When you talk quarterly, or monthly if that’s what you prefer, you might start your relationship check in by together restating your relationship purpose. You’ll also see below that during these check-ins you’ll want to review any yearly intentions or goals that the two of you have set for your relationship, as well as any agreements you might have made during a Conscious Beginnings Ritual. 

The following relationship check in questions will support you on a monthly or quarterly basis. 

1. Soul Purpose of Relationship
   1. Do you feel we’re on the path of our shared purpose?
   2. Are there any adjustments you feel we need to make?
   3. What could we do together to support our purpose this month/quarter?
2. Relationship Intentions
   1. What are we celebrating about our intentions?
   2. What do you feel could help us continue to move closer to our intentions?
   3. Are there any new or unspoken dreams or desires you would like to share?
   4. Have you lost hope in anything about yourself, about me, or about us?
3. Relationship Agreements
   1. Is there any way that you feel or sense that either of us hasn’t been honoring our relationship agreements?
   2. Are there any additions or adjustments you would like us to make in our agreements?

Once you both feel complete with your quarterly or monthly relationship check in questions, that is a good time to sit with one another and look into each other’s eyes quietly for a few minutes. Then take a moment to express what you love and appreciate most about each other. Finally, you can powerfully complete your relationship check in by verbally expressing to each other a recommitment to your relationship purpose, intentions, and agreements. Let your partner know that once again you choose “in”.

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Yearly relationship check ins 

Your yearly relationship check-in serves two specific purposes. First, you’ll reflect on what has happened in the past year for the two of you. Start out by celebrating all the growth you’ve made and how much your love has deepened. Then as you did before the quarterly relationship check in questions, reflect on how the two of you have progressed with and honored your relationship purpose, intentions, and agreements.

After that you’ll want to take the remaining time you have to discuss your desires, vision, and needs for next year. Through that conversation you can update your shared intentions and agreements to support you in the coming year. Of course once again, you’ll want to finish with a celebration of each other and a spoken recommitment. 

Yearly relationship check in outline and questions: 

1. Restate your shared purpose of relationship
2. Celebrate your wins, growth, love, and joy from the past year
3. Review your intentions from last year including what was met and what might have been missed

4. Create a shared vision for the next coming year
5. Based on that new vision, set new intentions for your relationship in the year ahead
6. As needed, review and adjust your relationship agreements
7. Reflect your love and appreciation for each other
8. Restate your commitment to each other

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Sustaining a healthy relationship 

As you’ve seen here, a conscious, dynamic, healthy, and happy relationship tends to all aspects of the partnership through the use of relationship check in questions on a regular basis. You’ve also seen that you must stay in a strong relationship with yourself if you want your romantic relationship to last. That means you want to have regular check-ins with yourself and keep your attention on authentic self love.

Your conscious relationship with you will help you through the inevitable discomfort that happens when you ask relationship check in questions that bring up hurts and disagreements. Also important, doing this on a regular basis will prevent you from being blindsided. When you actively maintain your relationship, you can’t stick your head in the sand and ignore a problem. You can’t fake it with this process.

So if you want to sustain a healthy relationship, share now. Be authentic now. It will get messy sometimes but working through the messy in the “here and now” will ensure that you stay connected. Skipping these relationship check-in questions and ignoring the problems will ensure distance and fading passion. 

No upset should be stuck under the rug, in the closet, or on the counter for more than a few days and your weekly relationship check in questions will help ensure this never happens. 

Be partners. Remember that you’re on the same team. 

Simultaneously, remember that both of you will continuously change and that means your relationship will continue to change. Trust your love. Follow the relationship check in process… and watch wonderful things unfold in your relationship. 

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Since 2006, highly conscious men and women, with a commitment to extraordinary relationships, have chosen Ecstatic Intimacy to find and cultivate Soul Partnerships from their bedrooms to their boardrooms. Ecstatic Intimacy believes in coveted relationships, for all. 

You too, are invited…