Do you and your spouse enjoy playing board games? Maybe you like card games? It’s a sure bet that you like to do things together and if any or all of these things are true – then the game I have in mind is one that you and your spouse will enjoy.
So What’s the Game?
Too often we get into trouble in our relationships and our marriages because we’re too focused on the negative. There’s an old truism to the idea that we never forget a slight or an insult, even when we forgive them – we don’t forget them. But when we focus too long on what is wrong or what is bad or what isn’t done well, we forget to honor all the things that are good or great or fun or wonderful.
In this game, we don’t focus on what is wrong or negative, but instead on all the good things, the positive things, the wonderful things we have shared. You begin by using a computer or you can hand make the cards. List on each card a favored memory, work together with your spouse or divide up the cards to let each of you list your own memories.
Add pictures to the cards if you have them – for example, one of our cards has a picture of our newborn daughter on it. Another has a picture of Disney World and yet another has one of Trafalgar Square in London, so on and so forth.
Happy Memories
You can play the game one of two ways, one of our favorite ways is to spread the cards out face down on the table, much like playing the game of Memory. Then going in turn, you flip over two cards and you recount the memories those cards evoke. You can set an egg timer or a sand timer as you like and when you are done with your recollection, your partner can challenge it by recounting his or her own favorite memory of that time.
Another way to play the game is to shuffle the cards and to deal out three cards to each spouse. You can look at the cards and then quiz each other to recount one memory from that time. The challenge can be to recount the funniest memory, the most romantic memory or the most cherished memory. You can play the game once a month or once a week and add cards to the game as you go along.
What’s so great about this kind of game is that it enhances the positive between the two of you and it’s not a game that you need to limit to your own marriage, it can be expanded on and played as a family or it can be shifted to encompass a group of friends or other couples – where you can challenge each other to recount great memories from differing times based on the cards – I know we’ve played several variations on this game and we’re including our daughter more and more as she’s gotten old enough to have her own great memories of vacations, events and more.
Do you think you and your spouse would enjoy this kind of game?
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