The Relationship Review Ritual
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- —
Ali's main takeaway from interviewing relationship researchers John and Julie Gottman was the importance of rituals — the value of doing something repeatedly that you know is good for you, with the ritual itself acting as the reminder to actually do it. He applies this as a recurring relationship review with his girlfriend: the same fixed set of ten questions, asked of each other every time, run consistently for years. The point is less the specific questions than the recurrence and the intentionality it forces into something crucial to everyone's life. Most people find it weird to schedule a relationship review or a date night where you talk about finances, which is exactly why it doesn't happen by default.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Accept that rituals are the delivery mechanism
Relationship experts and therapists keep landing on the same insight: there is value in doing things repeatedly that you know are good for you, and creating the ritual is what reminds you to actually do the thing.
- 2
Fix a recurring slot
Put the review on a regular cadence so it happens by default rather than when someone feels the need to raise something. Ali has run his with his girlfriend regularly for years.
Watch out A ritual you reschedule every time isn't a ritual — the recurrence is the whole mechanism.
- 3
Use the same question set every time
Ali and his girlfriend ask each other the same set of ten questions at every review. Keeping the questions fixed removes the work of deciding what to talk about and makes changes between reviews visible.
Pro tip Write the ten questions down once so the session starts immediately instead of negotiating an agenda.
- 4
Both partners answer
It's a mutual review — you ask each other the questions rather than one person interviewing or assessing the other.
- 5
Extend the ritual to other neglected topics
The same pattern applies to a regularly scheduled date night where you talk about finances, or any other important subject that never comes up on its own. Expect it to feel weird — most people think it is.
Pro tip The weirdness fades once it's a standing fixture; the awkwardness is a one-time cost.
In the wild
Ali runs regular relationship reviews with his girlfriend in which they ask each other the same set of ten questions every session. They have kept this going for years, and he credits it with improving relationship health and injecting more intentionality into something crucial to everyone's life. He acknowledges most people think doing a scheduled relationship review is weird, but points out that relationship experts and therapists keep landing on the same insight about the value of rituals.
→ A years-long, self-sustaining habit of intentional relationship maintenance rather than reactive conversations.
Common mistakes
Only reviewing when something is wrong
If the conversation is triggered by a problem rather than a schedule, the ritual never forms and the review becomes associated with conflict instead of maintenance.
Changing the questions every session
The fixed set is what makes the review low-friction and comparable over time; reinventing the format each time adds a decision cost that quietly kills the habit.
Skipping it because it feels weird
Ali concedes most people find scheduled relationship reviews or finance date nights strange — but the weirdness is precisely why these conversations never happen spontaneously.
From the transcript
“one thing I do with my girlfriend is you know we do regular is relationship reviews where we ask each other the same set of…”
“there is value in the rituals there is value in doing stuff repeatedly that you know is good for you and creating those rituals as…”
From the episode
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