How much does your partner really know about you? Do they have any ideas about your guilty pleasures, the text message you fantasize about sending, or the most embarrassing moment of your life?
Even if you’ve been together for years, the chances are probably not the same.
That’s why it takes courage to try the new generation of board games for couples that claim to act as DIY relationship therapy.
The objective of these games for adults is not to win or lose, but to reveal secrets that you have previously hidden from your partner (and vice versa) with the aim of bringing you closer and even breaking up your marriage. rut.
So, as I approach 25 years of marriage with my husband Anthony, which ones have twists and turns to enhance our openness and which ones will reveal uncomfortable truths best left unsaid?
Where should we start?
Where should we start? £41, uncommongoods.com
£41, uncommongoods.com
Featuring a royal blue box, embossed with gold lettering, this set was deliberately designed to look like an expensive box of chocolates, according to relationship therapist Esther Perel, who came up with it based on her hit podcast of the same name.
Inside there are also many cards (250 in total), but this time they are more like the first lines of a story that each partner has to tell about themselves.
Anthony and I decided to play the simpler version of the game.
We dealt each other seven cards at random and then matched them with another set of prompt cards, designed to set the tone of the answer, instructing you, for example, to reveal it in a more daring, humorous or thoughtful way.
I quickly discovered that Esther’s rather lewd questions seemed to presuppose a more exciting life than the one we actually have.
Questions that arose for me included: ‘In my last fantasy…’ (Answer: I’m on a sun lounger in the Maldives), ‘A perversion I don’t understand…’ (Answer: I don’t think about other people’s sex lives people, much less try to understand them) and ‘My most tenacious vice….’ (Answer: Waitrose teacakes).
Just to test him, I threw some tough questions at Anthony like: ‘The last time I cheated…’ and ‘I get bored during sex when…’
Very wisely, he told me that he had nothing to say about either and quickly moved on to the next card in his pile.
I identified it in his most embarrassing sexual memory (being dragged into a train bathroom by a sex-crazed college girlfriend) and his worst kiss (a girl he had met on a school trip who kissed like a vacuum cleaner).
In fact, overall, the questions seemed designed primarily to elicit clickbait-style confessions.
To be honest, if Anthony kept so many secrets from me, it would be a sign that our marriage was in trouble.
In fact, this is not a game to play if your relationship is in trouble due to dark secrets or unresolved issues.
The game isn’t very fun either, because we both found it very difficult to rack our brains over incidents we hadn’t confessed to before.
Esther’s game also lacked Alain’s finesse. A disconcerting sentence to complete: ‘When someone can hear me go to the bathroom…’
Call me prissy, but what possible answer could there be to this? Does it bring a speaker?
Rating: 5/10
CONNECT
CONNECT £20.98, amazon.co.uk
£20.98, amazon.co.uk
When I invited Anthony to play, he was disappointed that it wasn’t an adult version of Connect Four.
Instead, it’s a game from philosopher Alain De Botton’s School of Life: an elegant red box containing 100 cards, divided by color and different themes: Appreciation, Aspiration, Desire, Forgiveness and Growth.
Couples must choose a card and ask their partner a question from the corresponding category. The idea is that each answer sparks a conversation that improves your understanding and relationship with each other. “Answer deeply and sincerely,” Alain purrs.
To avoid potential disputes, Alain urges us to “show mutual respect by revealing tender material” and “relearn who you both are.”
“They are both taking risks for the noblest of reasons: because they still love each other very much.”
We scoff at this rather embarrassing phrase, but since his intentions seem worthy (and these days our marriage conversations tend to revolve around house insurance and changing cat litter), we move on.
Anthony’s first dice roll tells him to draw from the Wish pile. Your question to me is: “How would you like to be together again at the end of each day?”
This is timely.
I’ve been getting really sick of Anthony taking his computer to bed to check emails. Instead of raising it, I’ve been responding in a tit-for-tat style by diving into my own laptop and using the time to post on social media about my work.
Result: a missed opportunity to reconnect and a lot of mutual complaining as we turn our backs on each other after turning out the lights.
But hallelujah, this card has given me the opportunity to name the problem.
“Oh, I thought you were working,” Anthony said, surprised, when I explained that I wanted things to change.
“I thought it was you,” I replied.
“Okay, let’s leave the computers downstairs and read a book together,” he replied.
Just one question, and I’m already feeling warmer and fuzzier and our communication is improving.
Inevitably, after a quarter century of marriage, we have also stopped telling each other what we appreciate about each other.
So my question from the Appreciation pile leads me to ask Anthony to finish this sentence: ‘What I really admire about you…’
To be honest, I had no idea what he had said. When he quickly responded, “Your honesty,” I nearly fell off the couch.
All this time, I had assumed that my blunt opinions on everything from family politics to parenting to music made him think I was a pain in the ass.
‘No,’ he announced: ‘It’s refreshing. You always get straight to the point.
Wow, I finally feel seen. The atmosphere of the evening became more and more mellow.
As a psychotherapist in training, I am more aware than ever that many unfinished business from childhood can surface in current relationships.
So the next question that came up on Anthony’s stack was a particularly clever one, and one we had never thought to ask each other.
‘If I had known you as a child, I would have loved it…’
Knowing that my early years were turbulent, thanks to my parents divorcing and moving to opposite ends of the world, Anthony responded, “I would have wanted to hold your hand when you were crying.”
When he said this, I almost cried (which I don’t often do as an adult) – and this time he was there to give me a squeeze.
I’ve been married for 25 years, but this was truly the most beautiful thing Anthony has ever said to me.
Connect cards may not be cheap, but they are still a better value than marriage therapy.
Rating: 8/10
FOG OF LOVE
MIST OF LOVE £36.19, board-game.co.uk
£36.19, boardgame.co.uk
Fog of Love is designed to recapture the passion of being a couple and meeting each other for the first time, with all the delicious uncertainty of not knowing if the relationship will work.
And this time, you’ll have the freedom to start over, from choosing different careers to new looks, character traits, and goals.
The goal of the game, which is more like a traditional board game with tiles, characters and cards, is to see if you can jointly negotiate the kinds of challenges that new (and perhaps more Millennial) couples might face, such as deciding whether to watch porn together.
First, Anthony and I can choose our characters.
To be honest, it’s liberating to choose to be a long-legged, blonde doctor with a good sense of humor, while Anthony chooses to be a Machiavellian businessman with great teeth.
Then, you play a love story where you react to different challenges, like a difference of opinion at a restaurant or buying a puppy together.
Instead of winning or losing, ultimately the goal of the game is to see how happy you make each other and if you want to stay together.
However, far from returning our excitement, this game simply tested our patience.
There are so many pages in the rule book that it took us longer to learn and play than it did to plan our wedding. We had it on our coffee table for four months. We both wanted it to end so much that we both behaved in the most irrational way possible to end the relationship.
My verdict? This is a cosplay for board game nerds, swingers, or couples who are deeply bored with each other.
Fog of Love had a benefit for our marriage; It reminded us that we are perfectly happy being ourselves with each other.
Rating: 2/10