It’s been a year since we finalized our Marriage Manifesto, and I thought it made sense to do a catch up on how we’ve been doing.

If you remember, we agreed a 12-point plan:

1. Be as honest as possible about how we feel, even if how we feel is lousy.
2. Consider every conflict in our marriage from the other person’s point of view before rushing to judge.
3. Celebrate our differences of opinion as much as our agreements.
4. Recognize that having “problems” is normal- the only real problem is when you ignore them.
5. Tell the other person if he or she has food stuck in his or her teeth.
6. Avoid harboring resentment.
7. Make our marriage our biggest priority.
8. Challenge each other to do new things.
9. Be each other’s biggest fan and cheerleader.
10. Remember that “criticism kills.”
11. Make each other laugh every day.
12. Always make sure that the other person knows how attracted you still are to them.

So a year on, how many of these are we sticking to?

I’m going to give us a 9 out of 12.

Here’s the breakdown:

Be as honest as possible about how we feel, even if how we feel is lousy. I give us a thumbs up on this. We’re much better at communicating and not being phased by each others’ crappy moods. I think we’re both feeling more confident that we can be honest about how we feel without it provoking a crappy reaction. 1 out of 1.

Consider every conflict in our marriage from the other person’s point of view before rushing to judge. This is definitely an area where I’ve improved – I always try to put myself in Melissa’s shoes, and I’m pretty sure she does the same. The only fail aspect here is that the word “judge” itself is still thrown around like a hand grenade in our marriage, and that’s something we need to work on. Overall, 2 out of 2.

Celebrate our differences of opinion as much as our agreements. I call this as a resounding success. Especially now that we’re working together so much on knotty, creative decisions that have no “right” answer, we’ve found a way to embrace our opinion differences and the great results that come from a true collaboration. 3 out of 3.

Recognize that having “problems” is normal- the only real problem is when you ignore them. Now we’re on a roll. This is a big win. We have become so accustomed to embracing problems for what they really are – opportunities to improve the dynamic of our relationship – that it seems inconceivable to be any other way. 4 out of 4.

Tell the other person if he or she has food stuck in his or her teeth. Doesn’t come up as much as you’d think and we have a pretty sophisticated signal system in place. 5 out of 5.

Avoid harboring resentment. This is a toughie. It’s not a great excuse, but I’m descended from Ulster Protestants. Resentment harboring is a way of life for my people, and I still need more time to work on that. 5 out of 6.

Make our marriage our biggest priority. Again, this is a fail, but we totally have a good excuse. It’s called Long Haul Films and it makes us work 16 hour days, 7 days a week. For right now, the business is our biggest priority, but our marriage is a close second. 5 out of 7.

Challenge each other to do new things. Aaaand we’re back on track. Definitely a win. Granted, most of those new things involve shooting video, editing video or watching other videos to learn new tricks, but we are definitely not intellectually stagnating, and most of the impetus there comes from each other. 6 out of 8.

Be each other’s biggest fan and cheerleader. Always. Even when we’re at our most stressed and exhausted, we spur each other on – mainly because we are totally inspired by how awesome we each are. And we make no apology for saying that. 7 out of 9.

This guy helps us keep up the laughing part of the manifesto

Remember that “criticism kills.” Criticism kills, but feedback is essential. I think it’s probably more a by-product of the overall improvement in our communication skills than a direct attempt to work on this one thing, but either way, we’re doing well. 8 out of 10.

Make each other laugh every day. Totally. Maybe it’s mostly at the expense of our pets, or a result of our many, many in-jokes, but we totally make each other laugh every day. 9 out of 11.

Always make sure that the other person knows how attracted you still are to them. Still a fail, I’m afraid,  but at least we’re now conscious that it’s a fail, and it’s something we’re working on. Bummed to end on a bad note. Can we make this pledge number 1 instead? 9 out of 12.

So there you have it. How would you score your own marriage against our marriage manifesto? Are there any other pledges you’d include?