Keeping communication is one of the best ways to preserve closeness in your relationship with your spouse. Yeah, your sex life might be great, but if you’re not having regular communication, eventually conversations themselves are going to begin to become awkward, uncomfortable, and just hard to have. Communication in marriage is something that needs to be well-rounded. Laughter is just as important as crying together (or at least being openly sad together). One of the hardest times I ever had in my own marriage was when I gave up on telling my husband when things bothered me. I just let them go until the issue would bother me again, except this time it bothered me a little more. And each time it came up (because it kept coming up- obviously) it bothered me a bit more until I got to the point of deep hurt and resentment that I had never even mentioned to my husband! And I thought to myself, “We used to talk about everything; good stuff, bad stuff, what bugged us. How did I get to this point?”

Sometimes it’s not all that easy to bring up good conversations out of the blue. Or if you do, you might risk your spouse feeling like he’s being jumped. Sometimes being in the context of an activity is all it takes to spark good meaningful conversation, whether you’re trying to bring up a hard subject or simply dying for conversation like how it used to be. Take a look at these ideas and easy ways to naturally get the conversation flowing.

Go on a walk

For whatever reason, Josh and I always have our best, most focussed talks when we go on a walk together. We have our favorite, go-to trails where we can easily roll a stroller and conversation usually just happens. Those times are the ones that I think I will cherish and remember most years down the road.

Do a monotonous chore together

Sometimes I think we get awkward during deep conversations because we don’t know what to do with our awkward bodies! Well to solve that, give them something to do! Looking back on that sentence I am realizing how that sounds…. Take it how you want it. I was mostly referring to folding socks or something along those lines. Having a common activity is a great way to break the ice with anyone, let alone your husband. If you’re looking to have a quality conversation though, try to stay away from distracting activities or ones that take a lot of thought as your minds will be preoccupied.

Attend a thought provoking event

Anothing thing that always sparks great conversation is leaving an intense or thought provoking movie. Of course, as we’re leaving the theater, we’re talking about the movie, what scenes were the best, what actors were good, what we think the next movie might be like; but eventually the conversation wanders down roads of real-life-ness and real conversations get started.

Read a book together

This is a great intentional way to spark intelligent, meaningful conversation with your significant other. Plus you two will learn something in the meantime. Whether it’s a book of the Bible, a self- help book, or sci-fi novel, you both will have something new to bond over, something to discuss and questions to ask, and new memories to fondly look back on.

Check out my posts full of questions to ask your spouse!!

Looking for some random questions to ask your significant other?? Check out a this post and this post (oh, and this post) for some awesome inspiration!

Draw together

Ever heard of coloring therapy? It’s a real thing and it’s not just for children! Besides being relaxing and something I find extremely fun (as I often need a creative outlet) coloring prompts are a great way to get your spouse to open up about their day or something that may be going on in their life that they might feel awkward telling you about just because, you know, men aren’t always great talkers.

Road trip

Both mine and Josh’s family live pretty far away. My family (the closer of the two) live an 8 hour car ride from our home in Virginia. As long as this ride may seem, I’ve actually come to enjoy and look forward to this long road trip! Josh and I always have the best conversations about our families, OUR family, life, God, the future of our son, future plans, things we want, any random or not so random thing you can imagine probably comes up sometime in that 8 hour car ride. If you can spare the time, try changing things up and taking the scenic route on your way to where you’re going. Or try stopping at the random hole-in-the-wall restaurant you always pass by. Making memories together is a great way to make conversations!