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As soon as my fiancée and I got engaged last June, I heard this sentiment several times: “Enjoy this time of being engaged!” I wholeheartedly wanted to, but the universe had another agenda. Now we’re in go-go-go mode for wedding planning; it feels like a newlywed sword is hanging over our heads. And with all this pressure and anxiety, it makes sense that we are a little on edge with each other, a little testy at times. While we’re not at the point of needing professional help by any means, when I was offered the chance to go to Secrets Playa Blanca Costa Mujeres in Cancún, Mexico, to be a part of an intimate couples’ trip with the relationship platform, The Skin Deep, I jumped on it.
The last year has been nothing short of stress-ridden, to say the least, and I feel like we’ve been in survival mode for the last several months. We’re not unique in that experience, but it meant we couldn’t muster the brainpower or effort to plan a wedding. So this opportunity to take a little break from daily life and obligations, while also participating in The Skin Deep’s connection experience, seemed like the relationship reset we needed. And our experience with their conversation card game did surprise us.
There were no real “retreat” activities (which is fine by me), and we were able to privately dig into the special The Skin Deep question cards on our own terms. But we did meet with the founder of The Skin Deep, Topaz Adizes, at a group presentation on the Secrets Resorts & Spa’s collaboration with The Skin Deep, and had a final dinner with everyone (which consisted of other couples and one mom/daughter pair—we were the only same-sex couple, which was interesting but didn’t impact the group dynamic, which was a major plus for us).
So, are conversation cards like The Skin Deep worth it for you and your partner? I spoke with Dr. Kathy McMahon, PsyD—a licensed psychologist and sex therapist, as well as the founder of Couples Therapy Inc.—who gave Parade a breakdown of what these kinds of question exercises do for you and a significant other (and what it opens up). So between her expertise and my own encounter with the cards, I’ll break down the experience and whether it’s something your relationship could benefit from.
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Why We Needed a ‘Relationship Reset’ Before the Wedding
Courtesy Alani Vargas/Canva
As I mentioned, my fiancée and I got engaged a year ago, and while we planned to have a long engagement, we haven’t been able to really enjoy the “ease” and “bliss” of it all, because of how hectic our personal lives got during the same time. So now, we’re feeling the pressure of wedding planning actually creep up on us. That, along with everyday stressors, has really put us in somewhat of a funk.
Don’t get me wrong; we talk all of the time, and we’re open books with each other. We know the importance of maintaining our relationship’s connection, and therefore we are honest with each other as well. We could talk for hours—and often do—about anything from a show we just watched to how our days went, to deep philosophical thoughts.
But when it comes to times like these, when life is just zooming by, and there are so many things to check off your to-do list, it’s easy to get snippy with each other or not be interested in long-winded conversations. Or, more so, not having time to schedule a moment to debrief about our relationship or reflect on it.
That’s why I jumped on this opportunity to go to Mexico and have some time away from “real life” with my partner. I wasn’t expecting anything crazy or life-altering to happen, but I knew even just getting away would be the shift we needed. And we were pleasantly surprised that The Skin Deep’s card game was actually a very good wake-up and ultimate reset we needed before diving fully headfirst into wedding planning and our eventual nuptials.
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What Is The Skin Deep Card Game? (And Why We Were Skeptical)
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The Skin Deep is a relationship platform with a line of card games that have a question on each card that’s meant to start conversation—either to get to know people better or deepen connections. They have a Long-Term Couples Edition as well as a Dating Edition and a regular Couples Edition (starting at $22 for the digital versions). There are also so many other variations that you can use with friends and family (even a Kids Edition).
The concept was created by Adizes, who is still the Executive Director of The Skin Deep. He really comes off as someone who cares about human connection and the mission of his work (a tagline they had was “Humanity isn’t within us, it’s between us,” which I liked a lot).
On their site, it says that they “create the space for people to experience deeper connection with the most important people in their lives.” Their YouTube videos documenting people answering these questions with each other have accumulated over 55 million views; they’ve won an Emmy Award for their interactive documentary {THE AND}, and they’ve expanded into a card game you can do at home.
As mentioned above, I was personally a little skeptical—or really just unsure—about what this card game could do for us. My fiancée and I have deep conversations all on our own; we know each other’s hearts inside and out, our hopes and dreams and more. I didn’t expect any earth-shatteringly new information, though you don’t ever really stop learning about your partner.
Courtesy Alani Vargas
So with an attitude of, “This will be fun, but how much more can these cards connect us than we already are?” we started answering the questions of the Secrets Resorts‘ special card pack (with 44 of the 48 cards being new questions) at our private Bali Bed facing the Jungle Pool. And we were pleasantly surprised—but more on that later.
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How a Conversation Starter Card Game Can Build on Your ‘Love Maps,’ According to a Psychologist
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“Most people think a deep question is a way to get to know your partner. John Gottman calls that knowledge a Love Map: the inner picture you carry of your partner’s worries, hopes, history and stresses,” Dr. McMahon tells Parade. “Card games like The Skin Deep do add to that map.”
As you can imagine, getting into deep conversations with your significant other can potentially make or break a relationship, depending on how well you know each other or where you are in your partnership. She shares that, in her experience, these types of questions actually “draw three more maps,” which “are the ones that decide whether a couple keeps going deeper, [or] stops and never tries again.”
For example, she shares a scenario where a question about sexual fantasies might come up, such as how someone feels about being blindfolded during intimacy. If one partner reacts very negatively and even pulls away from the concept or question, it doesn’t necessarily stop the other partner (who likes the fantasy) from enjoying it. But it does change “what they now know about their partner: whether this person can be trusted with the truth.” This is the “second map, the speaker’s map of the listener.”
Then you get into what Dr. McMahon calls the “third map,” which is “the speaker’s map of themselves.”
“We tend to think of communication as a delivery from one person to the other. Speaking is also how we find out what we think,” she states. “They might say, ‘I never thought about doing something like that, but my initial reaction is positive if it were you and me.’”
If “a good question” is “asked in a safe room,” it allows people to “overhear themselves.” You might find yourself thinking, “I didn’t realize that I would find the idea so offensive,” or “Saying it out loud, it sounds smaller than it felt.”
And finally, the fourth map that can manifest from these kinds of questions belongs to the listener. It is “the hardest to draw,” the psychologist reveals, “because the feeling arrives before the reason.” If you’ve ever had a visceral reaction to something but felt like it came out of nowhere, or you reflected on it later and realized it was a strong reaction in comparison to what was brought up or asked, you know this feeling.
“Suddenly you feel closer, or angry, or insulted, or confused. It is tempting to treat that feeling as information about your partner. Usually it is information about you: an old injury, a fear of being replaced, a rule about sex or love you absorbed long ago,” Dr. McMahon notes. “The horrified partner in my fantasy example has learned more about themselves than about the person who confided [or asked the question].”
She shares that “the most useful thing a listener can say in that moment is: ‘I’m reacting strongly, and I don’t know why yet. Give me a minute.’”
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A Psychologist Explains Why Conversation Starters Might Open up the Question of ‘Am I Safe?’ With a Partner
In creating the “maps” Dr. McMahon mentioned above, she shares with Parade that understanding any of that in any given situation with your partner—specifically when answering questions in a card game like The Skin Deep—it all “depends on safety, and safety is more complicated than it sounds.”
“It is partly a fact about your partner, ‘Are they a safe person?’ and partly an experience inside you,” she explains, revealing, “The two don’t always match.”
So it’s important to figure out your own response to that question: do you feel safe when answering such deep questions with your partner? Dr. McMahon shares that there are many situations when it comes to “feeling safe” with a significant other, including:
“Some people feel safe with a partner who isn’t safe. They will take what you say and share it carelessly or cruelly. Or throw it back at you in a fight. Some feel unsafe with a partner who is safe, because their body is remembering an earlier relationship or a childhood [memory or trauma]. Some feel the alarm and override it, trusting their partner over their own reactions. Sometimes that is growth, and sometimes it is how people get hurt.”How do you know where you stand? The psychologist shares that a “simple way” to figure out “where each person starts” is an “old idea of ‘I’m OK, You’re OK,” which comes from a 1967 book with the same title by Thomas A. Harris. Dr. McMahon breaks it down as follows:
“The person who feels ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ can tolerate a surprising answer. They know that the answer is about their partner, and they can remain curious and not furious. The person who feels ‘I’m not OK, you’re OK’ hears a partner’s fantasy as a verdict: I’m not enough if I’m not comfortable doing what my partner finds arousing. The person who feels ‘I’m OK, you’re not OK’ judges the partner and learns nothing about themselves. The person who feels ‘I’m not OK, you’re not OK’ may find every card a minefield.”“Before a couple opens the box, each partner is already carrying an answer to ‘Am I OK, and are you?’ The deck never asks that question, and every card tests it,” she states.
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What Surprised Us Most After Playing (And the Questions That Hit Deepest)
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Shop The Skin Deep question cardsI say I was skeptical coming into the trip because my partner and I are already really open with each other. While we have different issues in the communication department, they mostly all stem from past trauma, and we’ve worked really hard to improve (which we have immensely since we started dating at the end of 2021). So while we have things to work on in the conflict-resolution department, being open and having deep, unprompted convos isn’t something we have problems with.
So with that said, I went into that week excited to do some personal reflecting and ask fun questions that get us thinking, but I wasn’t expecting any major revelations.
And while I don’t think we made major discoveries, the exercise (asking questions from the deck) was so helpful in creating a dedicated space for us to talk about how we see our relationship, ourselves and any current issues we might have or want to talk about.
I came away feeling heard; not that my fiancée doesn’t listen or hear me usually, but having a conversation devoted just to us and answering these questions created a nice, safe space for reflection and sharing.
It also made us realize that we need to make more time for relationship “audits” like this, so that any obstacles we do have don’t just get put on the back burner.
And while there weren’t necessarily “major revelations” made, the cards did offer us a chance to think about things differently or ask questions we’d never thought of asking before. Like one of the cards that really stuck with us was “If you could see the world the way I do for a day, what would you choose to see? Why?” We interpreted it differently, and it led to a really amazing discussion.
Another one was “What do you think I need to hear more often from you and why?” which really showed me that my partner sees me, my struggles and they want to do better (and vice versa).
Card after card, we were constantly saying “awe” to each other, or sharing sweet sentiments. It was genuinely a reset I wasn’t expecting, where, as a couple who is pretty bonded already, we felt a coming together again or reconnection that we didn’t know we needed.
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How To Play Relationship Games Without Feeling Awkward and Psychologist-Approved Tips on What To Keep in Mind
There are different The Skin Deep card packs for different scenarios, so you might feel awkward at first if you’re playing with someone you just started dating. But if you go to a Secrets Resort and use their card pack, or you get the Long-Term Couples Edition, then you most likely won’t feel super awkward (since you’re hopefully already having deeper conversations).
The recommendation Dr. McMahon actually gives is more about comprehending what the cards can and can’t do.
“So my advice is to understand that these cards, by themselves, have no power,” she states. “But the two people who intend to answer may have very different psychologies and expectations about disclosure.”
Because of that, she suggests you go “slowly” through the questions, especially any that are harder, deeper and bring tough things up for either (or both) of you.
“Start with smaller disclosures and watch what your partner does with them,” she shares. “Trust built that way is a track record you can rely on.”
Even though the cards don’t have power over your relationship, it is important to note that there are serious issues to keep track of if they come up.
“If the questions keep opening things the two of you can’t close, or one of you is already in serious distress, set the cards aside and talk to a couples therapist,” Dr. McMahon suggests.
Related: 300 Deep Questions To Ask a Guy or Girl—or Really Anyone You Want To Know Better
Is The Skin Deep Game Worth It? Our Final Verdict
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Ultimately, yes, I do think that The Skin Deep conversation cards are worth it. With their cost (starting at $22 for the digital versions) not being super expensive, and with how much it can get you and your partner talking, there’s a net-positive in terms of how it can benefit you.
Even though we knew we weren’t going to unearth deep truths about each other, as I said before, you never really stop learning about your partner. With my fiancée, it was less about learning about her psyche, hopes, dreams and ideologies, and more about uncovering what we silently observe about each other, how we see the other through our eyes and how we want to understand how the other’s brain works.
With that said, I do think other couples might learn new things or open up dialogues they never would have had. For us, it was mostly a great vehicle to continue conversations we’ve had, double down on things that have been on our minds and really reflect on us and our relationship. And that in itself did make me feel like our connection was reinforced and “renewed,” so to speak.
So if you’re a couple who needs that extra push—whether it’s questions to get a deep conversation going, or a dedicated time to reconnect—The Skin Deep’s cards are worth it. Even if you already have a dedicated relationship audit time and go online searching for question prompts to ask each other, these are great even if you just want more to talk about.
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Source:
Dr. Kathy McMahon, PsyD, is a licensed psychologist and sex therapist and founder of Couples Therapy Inc.Hence then, the article about this couples card game was the relationship reset my fiancee and i needed which surprised us was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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