Relationship Audit Season: When Your Love Life Gets a Performance Review
Tuesday, May 6, 2025.
It’s spring. The sun is peeking out. The crocuses are brave. And you and your partner are staring at each other across the dinner table like overworked coworkers in a dimly lit HR cubicle.
Why? Because it’s Relationship Audit Season.
Just like tax time, something about the seasonal shift makes people want to review the balance sheet of their emotional lives.
Are we aligned? Are we growing? Why did you stop planning date night in February? And what exactly was that passive-aggressive emoji you texted my mom?
Why Now?
Psychologists call this a temporal landmark effect (Dai et al., 2014)—moments like spring cleaning, birthdays, or new jobs that naturally trigger reflection and reassessment.
In couples therapy, this often means a sudden surge of “where is this going?” conversations, performed with the spiritual energy of a quarterly financial report.
“We’re not in crisis. We’re just recalibrating.”
Translation: We’ve been quietly simmering in a crockpot of unmet needs and seasonal affective disillusionment.
What an Audit Looks Like
One person pulls out a Google Doc titled Relationship 2025 Goals.
The other asks if you’re breaking up.
You both cry.
You both laugh.
Someone brings up “emotional bandwidth.”
A relationship audit isn’t inherently dramatic. In fact, it can be stabilizing. According to Gottman & Gottman (2017), couples who routinely check in on their emotional connection, sex life, and future goals report higher satisfaction and lower resentment.
What to Assess (Without Breaking Up Over It)
Emotional intimacy: Do we feel close, seen, and safe?
Sexual rhythms: Are we mismatched, disinterested, or in sync?
Invisible labor: Who is carrying the mental load of birthdays, appointments, and groceries?
Repair skills: When we fight, do we recover?
The key is tone. This is not a performance review with a punitive vibe. It’s a spiritual tune-up, not a firing.
Neurodivergence and the Audit Panic Button
For neurodivergent couples, audit season can trigger shutdowns, masking, or black-and-white thinking (Kapp et al., 2013).
Gentle structure helps:
Use a shared agenda ahead of time
Have fidget objects or breaks
Frame feedback as curiosity, not criticism
Remember, introspection isn't always spontaneous—sometimes it needs scaffolding.
Audit Season Rituals That Actually Work
Write your personal “love and logistics” report card.
Do a shared calendar review and emotional highs/lows.
Create a “Stop/Start/Keep” list (from executive coaching, now stolen for romance).
And don’t forget: snacks. No one self-actualizes on an empty stomach.
Final Thought: The Goal Is Connection, Not Correction
Relationship Audit Season isn’t about grading each other. It’s about creating a moment to say, “Are we doing okay?” and “Can we make it even better?”
It’s a check-in, not a challenge.
Think of it as emotional spring cleaning—with less dust, more depth, and maybe a shared spreadsheet named US_V2.xlsx.
Be Well. Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The fresh start effect: Temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behavior. Management Science, 60(10), 2563–2582.
Gottman, J., & Gottman, J. (2017). The science of couples and family therapy: Behind the scenes at the Love Lab. W. W. Norton & Company.
Kapp, S. K., Gillespie-Lynch, K., Sherman, L. E., & Hutman, T. (2013). Deficit, difference, or both? Autism and neurodiversity. Developmental Psychology, 49(1), 59–71. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028353