All of us, at some point, go through times in our marriages when we find it difficult to create the meaningful conversations that keep intimacy alive. Here you will find 11 questions you can ask your husband or wife on date nights, on road trips, and during tough times that will initiate deeper communication in your relationship. When using questions like these as conversation starters, remember to keep the questions open-ended (don’t ask anything that will elicit only a “yes” or “no” answer), and always follow up. After your spouse has shared his or her thoughts, engage and share your…

It helps to have good communication skills boiled down to the basics, but knowing what we should being doing and actually doing it are two different stories. Do you have any tips on putting these skills into practice? This may sound strange, but we have discovered that talking about good communication is often easier than practicing it. Too often, we understand what to do but for a variety of reasons — we’re distracted, feeling stressed out, or simply forgetting what to do — we don’t do it. Even the experts sometimes have difficulty following their own advice. After years of…