Our next Long Haul subjects are Dr. Michelle and Dr. Patrick Gannon in San Francisco. They’re married, they’re psychologists and they run workshops for couples called Marriage Prep 101. Not only are we going to interview them, we’re also attending Marriage Prep 101 to see what we can learn.

Dr. Michelle and Dr. Patrick Gannon

One of the voluntary exercises for the workshop is taking the RELATEionship Evaluation Questionnaire (RELATE) which helps couples understand and improve their relationships. RELATE has 276 questions focused on major areas influencing marital satisfaction. You each answer the questions, then the RELATE system matches your answers and gives you a report.

We assume we’re going to get more specific feedback to the results of our RELATE test at Marriage Prep 101, but in the meantime we wanted to share some first impressions:

Melissa

• Tom and I completed the questionnaire separately (as instructed) and each approached it differently. I answered the questions to reflect our relationship in total, taking negative patterns from the past into as much account as our current, more positive status. Tom answered the questions from the point of view of where we are today, and therefore his feedback was more optimistic. This, in itself, tells you a lot about who we are. I’m more likely to dwell on negatives from the past. Tom is more likely to be in the moment and focus on the positive.
• As a result of how I approached the test, Tom and I ended up talking about issues and feelings we’d experienced in the first year of our marriage. It was eye-opening and interesting to talk about our behaviors and motivations back then. A lot has changed for the better!
• There were a number of questions about sex but almost none of those results were analyzed in the report. I guess some husbands and wives don’t want to share their comments about level of sexual satisfaction or whether they look at porn. But surely not talking honestly about sex is a problem in itself? What’s the point of taking this test if you’re not going to be totally open and honest about the results?

Tom

• The test was interesting for me not only because of what I decided the answers to each question were, but also because of the thinking I had to do to get to that answer each time. In a way, the process was much more interesting than the result. After we got the results back, some sections and some questions threw up no surprises, but other times we would immediately turn to each other and say you put ‘Rarely’ for that question? Why? Those discussions would probably have never taken place without the questions to prompt them, but a lot of them were interesting and useful.
• Wives: you don’t need a quiz to know whether your husband looks at porn. He does. Even if you think he doesn’t, he does.
• While the test was great in some ways, I felt judged on questions relating to things like alcohol consumption. For example, the test asked how often you drink, with the options Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often and Very often. I put Often and the results identified alcohol use as a problem area in our marriage. I would have preferred a test without a moral or religious bias.

Overall, taking the RELATE test was a really valuable experience that taught us a lot and stimulated plenty of conversation and thought. We’ll definitely be sharing more about the results in future posts. Have any of you taken the RELATE test, or something similar? What did you learn from it?