Ep 24: The Marriage Audit

We compare marriage health to physical health and make the case for regular check-ins that catch problems early. We show how to create a simple marriage audit you can actually use without comparing your relationship to anyone else’s. 
• using a health audit mindset to evaluate marriage health 
• reframing “we need to talk” into a low-stress check-in 
• creating measurable marriage goals instead of vague hopes 
• avoiding social media comparison and defining internal standards 
• using a mission statement and written goals to track progress 
• trying a weekly coffee-date audit for schedules, support, and plans 
• making requests safely through love languages like touch and acts of service 
• starting with one easy area to build momentum 
If this episode helped you, please share it with someone you care about. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. It really helps us reach more couples. 

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Promise

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hey everyone, welcome to Marriage Hot Takes, the podcast where we have honest conversations about marriage while it's still hot.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

We're Erin and Kim, and we're so glad you're here.

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This isn't about being perfect, having it all together, or pretending marriage is easy.

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It's about real life, real love, real struggles, real growth, and learning how to choose each other every single day.

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We'll talk about communication, conflict, faith, intimacy, expectations, and everything in between.

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So whether your marriage is in a great season or a hard one, you're not alone.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Let's get into today's hot take. Welcome back to Marriage Hot Takes. Thank you for taking time to join us. We are your host Aaron and Kim Degler. We just want to share a little bit each week, um, a thought that we have, a hot take that we want to leave you with. Um, just something um that we share about our marriage over the last 22 years, some things we've learned and really how they apply to our relationship, how they apply to the future of our relationship, the health of a relationship.

Why Marriages Need Health Checkups

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Um, and as we're talking about the health of a relationship, um, you know, if we think about health and our physical health, and we go to the doctor, and maybe you have a yearly physical. Yearly physical says gonna check, you know, your heart rate, your blood pressure, you know, do some blood tests, kind of see how everything is. Um little check-in. A little check-in. And really, we might think of that um as an audit for your health. An audit is okay, um, this looks in line, this is a little high, we need to take get this taken care of, this that taken care of. Um, and we do that. Um, after a certain age, you have to have um mammograms, you have to have colonoscopies, you have all these things that um as we age that we need to have an that we need to check on when we're 20, we're not gonna have need a scheduled colonoscopy or um those types of things. But as we get older, we need those things. Um and with our marriage, I don't think we don't we don't do a health check-in.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Or a check-in, really, at all. At all. I mean I mean, do we?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, I mean when was uh think about your marriage, however long you've been married. When was the last time you sat down with your spouse and reached over and said, honey, we need to have a check-in. We need to have a check-in.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And if you're married to someone with anxiety, they're gonna do this. We're gonna divorce. Today's the day.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Which might have literally happened just uh a few days ago. Yeah. Um, I reached when Kim and I were sitting in our chairs, I reached across the end table, the end or whatever table.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Nine nine o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Nine o'clock at night. I reached across and held her hand and said, Honey, I didn't tell you.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I need to tell you something.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

And it's just something I didn't want to do the next day. And she goes, Oh, I thought we were gonna divorce.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

I thought today was the day you were gonna tell me you didn't want to be married too many more.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

He was like, Like, what in the world? I was just saying I didn't want to go somewhere the next day.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

And my whole life lashed before, like, well, what's tomorrow gonna look like? How am I gonna do this? Wonder how I'm gonna do this, where am I gonna live? What are we gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

All the things within a matter of seconds.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

We did, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

He was like, What in the world goes through your head?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah. Um, so maybe if your spouse is like that, say um health audit, let's talk.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Let's talk. Or marriage audit. Yeah. Just wanted to touch base on how we're progressing so far. Yeah. Um, where we need to get to.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Well, yeah. What you know, yeah. What's the health of our marriage?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah, what's this state like the state of the union? The state of the marriage. What's the state of our marriage? Because it's a state of the union address.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah. And and if you have so if if you think about the health um of your marriage, um and and because we think of our health physically all the time. Are we in um if you look at charts, um especially if you look at a body fat chart uh percentage, it'll say uh superior, excellent, um, good, normal, um, bad, very bad. Very obese. Very obese. So so if you looked at that and you and you applied something the same to uh your marriage and said, you know, excellent, good. But again, how do if it's body fat, how do we get those? I mean, how do you get the good numbers? No, how do we get superior, excellent by working for it? Yes, and what do all those have uh attached to it? What you just said, a number.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

So we you know we can look at it, and if it's not doesn't have a number, go, oh, I'm superior. Yeah, I can look in the mirror, I'm superior, I'm good. I'm good. But yeah, when you have a it to know what the number to know if it's healthy or unhealthy, just like via blood work. It has a range.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah. So what if your marriage, if what if there was a a number measurement for your marriage? So if you've hit this, this, and this, you're in superior. If you do these, these, these, you're doing good. You're doing good. And and so but if you're not hitting any of these, you're down here in the very low.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Very low. I used to do um uh assessments on clients uh when they started with me. Um and it was um inflexibility, cardiovascular, um uh strength. Um I don't do them anymore, so now I don't remember. There, there were five different ones. And and so you would I would calculate the numbers and they would have this chart. Yeah, that you would put the and then you would show it to them.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

So you're gonna go This is where we need to get to. Yes. Uh and and so that was based on um general data for the general population.

Stop Grading Love By Social Media

SPEAKER_00 6:06

But when we think about our marriage audit, if we find one for the general population, we are then comparing our marriage to everybody else's.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Which cannot happen.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

No.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Because we will never we will allow somebody else's relationship or marriage to say, are we superior? We need lots of work.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

So which is that what we do? Because you you look at social media and you compare your marriage to all the marriages you see on social media.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Because theirs look superior and mine doesn't look like that, so it must be below average, not so good. It mustn't mean it must like in kindergarten, needs improvement.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Right. Are you scoring yourself based on others? And others are your peers and what you see on social media.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

And and you're allowing that to dictate do we have a good marriage?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Right. Instead of looking from within your marriage to say, well, these were these were some of the goals that we had for our own marriage. And this is where we are in that. Because you don't need to look at everyone else's goals because that they're not yours.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

And and and when we talk about marriage audit, what you we each individual couple would need to make up that audit for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Um, another way some some marriages have mission statements for their marriage or their family, like they have a family mission statement. Or it and many might have a family mission statement and a marriage mission statement. And then you can be comparing that every five years, every 10 years to say, how are we measuring up to that? Where are we where are we in getting to how are we comparing for a mission statement?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

And and because and so a mission statement, uh, you could say it could be part of the audit, but a mission statement isn't if if a couple has a mission statement, a family has a mission statement, is a if a company has a mission statement, you can find that written somewhere. A mission statement is written somewhere. Have you ever done an audit? Like a real audit, whether it's for work or IRS or whatever, that something wasn't written down. There's always something written down. How do we compare what you got to what is needed? Um we've done this for ourselves for different goals we've had. And we've we've we've talked about them, go, okay, yeah, we need to do that. But we found the power in writing those down, we were able to check them off because when it's written, it's in from I gotta go by the rules. But you see it all the time. And so your audit, what would your audit for your marriage look like? And that might be maybe you have an audit for um your communication, maybe it's an audit for your finances, maybe it's an audit for your future, maybe it's an audit for um you know, your current um togetherness or alone time. You know, it's an audit because it then you can look at it. Maybe it's monthly, maybe it's every few months, maybe it's weekly, maybe it's weekly, maybe sometimes an audit, depending on if it's need improvement.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah. Well,

Build Your Own Marriage Metrics

SPEAKER_01 9:45

and I've uh one of the preachers that I listen to, he talks about that he and his wife have a weekly audit, uh, which really looks like they go to a coffee shop because that makes it a little bit better. Want you know, you might want to do it more if you're going somewhere instead of at the kitchen table.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

It's almost like a date, like a little coffee date.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

And you have a little date and you just discuss um the things that are coming up this week. These are the things that I have, these are the things that you have. We need to be here and here and here, and I need help with this, and you need help with that. And where are we in saving for this? And Christmas is coming in six months. What's our plan for this? You know, it's just all of those little things that we check in weekly, and that's done at their little coffee date so that they know we're both on the same page. This is what we're it's our check-in, this is what we're doing, this is where we need to get to, and this is what we still have left to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

And and and a week, I mean, even a weekly audit is is really nice because it keeps you on track.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yes. Um, and you can you can catch things before they slip away.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Because maybe you do have some big goals. And, you know, we've had big goals and different things. And if you wait a couple months to check in, go, oh wow, we are way behind on that.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

It yeah, and like for for instance, for for us, our big goals, and then all of a sudden you don't talk about them this week, and then you don't talk about them next week, and then a month's gone by, and then next thing you know, well, it's Christmas, and now it's the new year. And oh, remember our word this year was this. Did we get very far on that? Because we didn't discuss it weekly or monthly, or and then it slips away, and that's what I think ends up happening. If you don't have those little check-ins, then oh well, there's always next year. And that's and and if it's goals for your marriage, then you go, oh, maybe next year we'll be better at being married. And it doesn't just happen by accident, it doesn't, and it just happens one little one little choice at a time, uh one little decision here and a little decision there, and and then it slips through.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

And and an audit is is as simple as maybe you say uh it's a weekly and you go, and because your love language is touch, and you go, hey, I just need a little more touch.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

You know, yeah. Um, okay. It's not that I'm gonna get mad, like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Can I can I come sit over there with you while we talk about this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

And and and mine is is acts of service. So it might be like, hey, could you do these couple things for me this week? Because that would really mean a lot to me. And that's it's a it's an audit of maybe what what do does each other need? Right. And again, instead of um, we don't know those things, but it's it's a time that we can discuss those things and not get bad out of shape about them because we're just it's a check-in to say, are we on the right track?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

It's just like a it's not like uh we're on just a regular date and all of a sudden you throw in, uh, I really needed you to do these three three things next week for me. Oh, well, that just took the tone of the date down some. It's a check-in. You know you're going into it that you may ask for things and I may ask for things, and it doesn't have to be done in a way, in a manner that is, oh, you need me to do things for you. You go into it with the expectation that those things may go back and forth.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Because really the expectation going into an audit is how can I do better in this? And audit is what's going right, what's not going so well, what do we both need to work on?

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Right. Instead of a romantic day where then all of a sudden you've got asked next week, can you go take my clothes to the cleaners and can you make sure that my meals are done every day this week? Because last week you kind of missed a couple. And can you, well, that just ruined it.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

That's a mood killer.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

It is. You are not going home with the expectation of anything else.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Nothing else.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

You got the no-no.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

The no-no. And and and that happens often. Yes. Because again, we're not, we're we're auditing our health all the time. Yeah. Because it, but and it has to be whatever met we measure, it has to be measurable. Goals have to be measured. It's not

Weekly Check-Ins Without Killing Romance

SPEAKER_00 14:10

like, oh, one day I think we'll do this. One day. It needs to be um, what do we want? You know, by this date, what do we need? Maybe it's something financial. Maybe it's we want our relationship to be closer. Maybe it's we need to be communicating more. We need to go on, uh, we need to have five dates done, or we need to be sitting talking for 10 minutes, you know, twice a week, or whatever it is, it has to be measurable um to to make it um so again, like on that graph when I would would assess clients, we could see, they could see on that graph after we did it uh eight weeks later, they could see the improvement and go, oh, oh, I did that. I'm still not on excellent, but I just moved up to the next category, or I'm real close to that next one.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

And if I work harder this time, I'm probably gonna move up more.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

And and so with those audits um in our marriage, in our relationship, we can make that progress. And and that doesn't mean that we're probably ever gonna get to a superior because when within a relationship, it's just like, are you ever gonna get to that superior body?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

And if you ever talk to anybody that you go, man, I don't see how they could get any better.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

I made it.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

And I've done. And if you talk to that person, though, they're gonna tell you, Well, I still gotta work on this, I'm not real happy with this. I could do a little bit better here. They're gonna tell you about all the things that need to get better. And again, like you said, that audit is based on our internal relationship, not external validation of what we need or what we're trying to let everybody see. It's what do we need, what do we expect of our marriage? Somebody may be superior, but uh that's that for us, that would be needs improvement.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Right. Right. Yeah. Why do you look at me like that? I just was wondering if you had more to say. I did. I was thinking of something, but then I thought, I don't yeah, I don't think that fits. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. You're just gonna keep that in.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Well, I was thinking, like, um I don't think it fits at all. But okay, I was thinking, like, and those those check-in dates, if you choose to have something like that, that doesn't need to be um, you know, social media perfection of look at us, we're on our check-in date.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

We're on our audit date.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

We're on our audit date. That's not the way it goes. Correct. Because you're not putting it out there for the world to know that look how good we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

If if you haven't gotten the gist of if you've watched or listened to our different podcasts, we often talk about social media and we go over and over about don't compare yourself, your relationship, to the highlight reels. Everybody typically only wants to post because at that moment their life looks really good.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Looks so good right now.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Their relationship looks really good. The beach they're on looks really good.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Um, and we could have a whole, and I think we have had a whole episode on and then you pull back a couple of those filters a little bit and you go, Oh, they were doing well.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

They were doing well. So please don't use that as your metric for your audits at all. Don't even pick, I'm gonna pick these five couples on social media. Don't even do that. Um, come up with your own audit. And guess what? It's gonna require you to do some thinking. Yeah. On your own. On your own. Because and again, if you don't have any idea and you're clueless, chat GPT it. Say, what are some good marriage uh audit statements to start with? And you go, okay, well, I like that. And well, we can change that, but it gives you somewhere to start.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

What are some questions that I can ask my spouse that I could improve on for our marriage?

SPEAKER_00 18:08

So so it will take some work to come up with it, but we're hoping, we're praying that if you're married, your marriage is important to you. Yeah, yes, and it's gonna take some work, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:19

And you should be willing to want to put the work in.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yes. Doesn't just happen, it just doesn't happen. It's not by magic. Um, so um do an audit.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Yeah. Um and don't compare you to us because we are far from perfect.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

That's right. Don't don't don't use us as your don't use us as the metric. Yeah, at all. We're still working on it. We're still working on it. Um, we have some we have some needs improvements, we have some goods, we have some excellence, and then we have some wow, not even they're below the chart. So um don't use ours. They're moving up, but we're working on it. So um, and as always, you have a um fantastic. I have a hot take for us that you can take into your relationship in your marriage. And it is.

What Gets Measured Gets Improved

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Today's hot take. What gets I'm gonna start again. Okay. Today's hot take. What gets measured gets improved, including your marriage.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

What gets measured gets improved. And that is um the truth. That is the truth in anything. Um, anything you whether you're at work, doctor, health, anything in life, um, if it's measurable, if you put a measurement on it, it will improve if you work on it. But it again, it has to be intentional. Um, and we're it doesn't improve on its own. It's not magic. Um so our hope is that um you would take that hot take into your relationship, into your into your marriage, discuss it, um, and start. Um, it's it's a big task, but start somewhere. Maybe you're just gonna audit one thing and audit that and start there. It doesn't have to be everything. Maybe it's just our communication. We'll we'll audit that and we'll start there.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

But maybe don't just sit down and be like, okay, we're gonna audit the finances, we're gonna audit um how we're ranking and our intimacy, we're gonna audit uh how we're doing uh emotionally. Don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Because some of those things are deep. And you might it might just be easy to start with.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Don't say we're gonna do a no-spend uh three months right right off the bat.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Or or like you said, intimacy, because that can be work in progress tough.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Um, so maybe as they say, pick the lowest hanging fruit, the one that's the easiest to start with, and get some momentum. And get some momentum. Um, it's kind of like Dave Ramsey talks about the snowball. Get some momentum going down.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Pay off the first one. Okay, now here we go.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Get some speed, do that with your audit. Don't don't overwhelm yourself. Start easy. So that is our hope for your marriage or relationship. Um, that you do take that in um and you start it. And as always, if you find value in our conversation, if you find value in the marriage audit, send it to a friend, send it to another couple, um, send it to your spouse and say, Hey, what do you think? Listen to this. It's a great conversation starter. Saying, I don't know what I don't know what these two are talking about, but what do you think? And it's a great conversation starter. But anyhow, hope you take it into your relationship, your marriage. And as always, thank you for joining us on Marriage Hot Takes. I'm Aaron.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

And I'm Kim.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

And we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Thanks so much for spending this time with us on Marriage Hot Takes.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

We hope today's conversation encouraged you, challenged you, and gave you something practical to take back into your marriage.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Remember, strong marriages aren't built in one big moment, they're built in small, intentional choices made every day. If this episode helped you, please share it with someone you care about.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. It really helps us reach more couples. Until next time, keep choosing each other, and we'll see you for the next hot take.