The end of year walk that'll make your marriage stronger: How scheduling an AGM on your life can help your 関係

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Couples should talk, 権利? We all know that. It's the most basic tenet of marriage 指導／手引. But 直面する it, the communication gets fragmented in the hurly-burly of life and 職業s, and children's myriad needs and troubles, and the hundred things that go wrong with houses and cars and overdrafts and holiday 計画（する）s and 税金 returns and ageing parents.

So we spend years in 危機 管理／経営 - 解雇する／砲火／射撃-fighting, 反応するing valiantly to events and batting away 可能性のある 災害s one by one.

I used to have a recurring dream in which I was at the 底（に届く） of a 炭坑，オーケストラ席, like a children's ball pond, and people kept throwing 負かす／撃墜する plastic balls at me. I had to throw them 支援する before I got buried, and they （機の）カム bouncing 支援する faster and faster until I woke up in a panic remembering the kitchen drain, the difficult unwritten letter, the school trip money, the 乾燥した，日照りの-きれいにする...

Having an 年次の walk where you discuss 商売／仕事 that's important to your 関係 is 類似の to 草案ing an 年次の 報告（する）／憶測 to 株主s - even if this 株主 株 your bed and makes you tea in the morning

But as any 商売／仕事 guru will tell you, 取引，協定ing with events day by day is only the half of it. You need some sort of 戦略. To manage anything, even a family, you いつかs have to stand 支援する for a moment and see how の近くに you are getting to your 使節団 声明 (even though it probably just reads 'keep going, keep everyone upright and smiling and solvent, that'll do').

You almost need to 草案 an 年次の 報告（する）／憶測 to 株主s, even though the 株主s 株 a bed.

On the human 資源s 前線, you also need to check that 管理／経営 同僚s are all singing from the same hymn sheet, and want the same things.

So let me pass on something my husband, Paul, a 無線で通信する 放送者, and I discovered in the busy years when the children were small. We invented, やめる deliberately, the 年次の General 会合 Walk.

We didn't leave it to chance, but 調書をとる／予約するd it - for ボクシング Day or New Year's Day (depending on 天気予報s, and when we could get our stalwart babysitter Granny Joyce to come 一連の会議、交渉／完成する for the day).

Settling the children 負かす／撃墜する with her and the Christmas 略奪する to play with, we put on 天候-proof jackets and strode out of the house with a Thermos -and いつかs even 挟むs - 長，率いるing across the country for a really good stretch of a walk, with long 見解（をとる）s.

Where we lived in Suffolk that was 平易な, but even in the most 都市の setting there is bound to be some hill, park or towpath to give a sense of 視野, a metaphor for the 旅行 through life. It had to be just the two of us.

There were other winter holiday walks of course, in ギャング（団）s with 親族s and 多重の dogs and scampering or 不平（をいう）ing children, and babies in slings and 会合s at a tea shop.

But for our AGM Walk, we worked through topics deliberately. Start with the basics - are we happy with the house and where we live? How is the mortgage doing? Is there anything that would make home life better - could there be an office in the garden shed and, if so, who would use it most?

Are we managing the garden 承認する? Would a new washing machine be a better use of money than that groovy posh steel fridge with the ice-製造者 that you are coveting? And how about work? Is it fair, the way we operate - both on us and on the children? Are we as h appy with our childcare and babysitting 手はず／準備 as we せねばならない be, or does one of us have a nagging 疑惑 about some of it?

Is the 減刑する／通勤するing 承認する - is it 価値（がある） the train ーするために live somewhere nice like this and, if not, how much longer do you think you can 耐える it?

How's the money 一般に? What do we hope for in the next 12 months? And what did we do 権利 and wrong in the past 12 months?

One moves on from basic questions to personal ones. Are you 承認する, or are you bored with what you do? Are you 株ing out the house 職業s 公正に／かなり? And the children - you take them one by one, 反映するing on difficult 段階s, school problems, health worries.

Not the little daily things like 冷淡なs, but whether they seem fit and happy and active, or whether one or other of you has been noticing something; worrying about it 個人として without a chance to raise the 事柄 with the other parent because it never seemed the 権利 moment.

What about school, nursery, playgroup - honestly, is it working? Do the kids see enough of their grandparents, or too much of one lot and not enough of the other?

On that 支配する, are in-法律s 運動ing either of you mad?

Or maybe one of you is a bit sad at living so far from siblings or parents, with few trips or visits.

Oh yes, and this 商売／仕事 about getting a dog/cat/rabbit/hamster...shall we calmly discuss the プロの／賛成のs and 反対／詐欺s for once?

Is the children's 願望（する） for another cat g oing to end as 不正に as the insane moggie who had to be re-homed 予定 to her incompatibility with every other creature in the 世帯, 含むing Dad?

Too many questions? I sense a 確かな horror - you may imagine the walk descending into 結婚の／夫婦の mayhem, if not someone getting violently 押すd into some stinging nettles, or indeed the canal.

Nature's Masterpiece, A Family 生き残り 調書をとる／予約する by Libby Purves:?The 十分な 見解／翻訳／版 of this feature appears in the January 問題／発行する of Woman & Home

But because it is a walk - and both of you are a little bit short of breath - the replies to hard questions tend to come more slowly than usual, giving 決定的な time for thought.

And because you're walking 味方する by 味方する, or with one いつかs moving ahead for a few paces on a 狭くする bit of the path, there's 非，不，無 of that 自然に confrontational 態度 you get in a 疲れた／うんざりした late-night 直面する-off across the kitchen （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する with an imprudent 瓶／封じ込める of ワイン.

Besides, just when you get to the dangerous bit about the posh fridge, 可能性のある dog or tricky in-法律, one of you may notice a squirrel doing something pleasingly 削減（する） with a nut.

And you pause, and 伸び（る） a moment to think of something 懐柔的な to say. Or find yet another 推論する／理由 not to have a puppy.

I tell you, it worked for us. Honest. Thirty-five years and counting.

Libby Purves is the author of Nature's Masterpiece, A Family 生き残り 調書をとる／予約する (£7.99, Hodder & Stoughton). The 十分な 見解／翻訳／版 of this feature appears in the January 問題／発行する of Woman & Home on sale now.