7 Ways Jigsaw Puzzles Improved my Marriage – Fun Things to Do At Home as a Couple

Are you looking for fun things to do at home as a couple? After years of marriage, there may be a tendency for a couple to communicate lesser. Your conversations may revolve only around kids, paying the bills and other mundane affairs.

The chemistry and passion felt during the dating phase is long gone. Instead, you come home from work daily and sit on the couch to watch Netflix. There are no other interactions apart from brief exchanges and comments about the show.

You may still be very much in love with each other. However, there is a serious lack of fun things to do at home as a couple. This makes life monotonous and boring and is unhealthy for your marriage in the long run.

So What Do You Do to Keep The Fun Going?

In order to find sources of fun to keep the relationship going, you turn to activities outside home. You end up going frequently to fancy restaurants to enjoy that romantic atmosphere. Or maybe, you look forward to the next overseas holiday. Otherwise, you spend money on trinkets to get that surge of happiness from a new purchase.

All of the above cost money. If made into a habit it is going to drain your finances in the long run.

How Jigsaw Puzzles Improved My Marriage

For the record (in case my wife reads this), my marriage is not on the rocks. This is simply a discovery I made about Jigsaw puzzle. I discovered that Jigsaw puzzles are a fun thing to do at home as a couple.

I am sure most of us have played with Jigsaw Puzzles at some point in our lives. All my life, I have never gotten really interested in Jigsaw puzzles. I did not think that I have the patience for it.

However, one day while window shopping aimlessly with my wife, we stumbled upon a shop selling Jigsaw puzzles.

The line up of beautiful pictures of completed Jigsaw Puzzles captured our attention. The idea of hanging the completed work in our house and having some fun in the process of piecing the puzzle together crossed our minds.

We decided to start off with a challenging 1000 piece Jigsaw Puzzle.

It turned out to be one of the most fun things to do at home as a couple we ever tried.

Improving Relationships by Playing With Jigsaw Puzzles

Studies have shown that playing with Jigsaw puzzles has some surprising benefits. I did not realize how fun Jigsaw Puzzles were until I tried them again as an adult. I have always avoided them when I was young as I thought that it was very challenging and yet boring.

Now, I know that I have been very wrong. Not only are they fun, they have also helped create a common source of entertainment for my wife and I.

The following are 7 ways Jigsaw Puzzles Improved by Marriage.

1. A Common Goal as A Couple

Upon opening the jigsaw puzzle this was what we were confronted with. Right from the start we looked at each other and knew that we had a huge challenge ahead.

We had to transform this “mess” into a beautiful picture and hopefully have some fun at home together as a couple in the process.

This common goal gave us something common to talk about for days. We would be walking to lunch and discussing our strategies on recognizing the shapes and colors of the pieces and grouping them together.

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Some times we would be eager to finish up activities outside and rush home. At the back of our minds, we both wanted to play with the jigsaw puzzle at home.

Having a common goal and project together as a couple helped improve our relationship as we had much more to talk about.

It was definitely better than watching Netflix or going out to watch movies.

2. Cultivates Team Work between a Couple

Throughout the project of building the up the puzzle, we helped each other numerous times.

As the pieces were distributed all over the table, each of us had a so called “field of fire”. This meant that we were more likely to look for pieces placed directly in front of us. Even if we were to stand up and look over to our partner’s field we were more likely to only skim through and go back to our own field of fire.

There would be times when we were each looking for a unique piece with certain features (a particular pattern, a unique shape etc) and our partner would have seen it before in their field of fire.

Voicing out and asking for help from each other and allowing your partner to really find that piece and help you complete the missing piece is a very rewarding experience.

It makes you feel needed by your partner and vice versa and helps improve your relationship in the process.

3. Improved Communication with Each Other

In the process of helping each other with pieces in the puzzles, we started to talk a lot more to each other. I would describe in detail what kind of shape or pattern that I was looking for and my wife would help me to look out for it.

When I saw that she was just doing trial and error sometimes on certain challenging regions we would discuss our strategies and work on other regions first.

We communicated and talked a lot more than previously when we would come home from work, discuss what to eat and then settle down in front of the TV or the projector room to watch movies.

Since we were so focused on the task, we were also playing lesser with our smart phones. This meant that we had time to chat with each other and make jokes and enjoy each other’s company while having fun on the Jigsaw puzzle.

Communicating more with each other would definitely help improve your relationship in the long run.

4. Lowers Stress

While playing with the jigsaw puzzle, we had music playing in the background via our Creative Bluetooth Speaker which I wrote about previously.

I felt a sense of peace as I could temporarily take my mind off my stressful work and focus only on the task at hand.

Nothing else could be more relaxing. The simplicity and purity of the aim of finding the next correct piece in the puzzle while listening to music from a good sound system in the background.

For a good 2 to 3 hours every night, my wife and I were able to lose ourselves in a world that we created ourselves. Time really flew by and I experienced “Flow” constantly.

Do read this book if you are not sure what Flow is. It is the ultimate state of concentration and sense of happiness from performing a task.

5. Improved Moods

With lower stress levels from finding a fun thing to do together, it naturally led to improved moods between us.

With both of us in good moods we had lesser friction between us. Sometimes when we were about to bicker over small things as couples do, we would be reminded of how we had happily helped each other on the puzzles previously.

We knew we could work together and resolve our differences so why not get into the habit of talking things out properly?

6.Constant Celebrations of Progress

Jigsaw puzzles are fun in the sense that you are constantly rewarded. Every time you find a correct piece and put it in place and snap it in, you are rewarded mentally and physically.

Mentally, you feel a sense of achievement when you find that last piece to complete an area. That bear in the corner that is missing a face. That flower in the center that is missing a leaf and so on.

It is even more satisfying when you help your partner to complete the area. You celebrate each other’s success and compliment each other for a job well done.

The physical feel of snapping the pieces together is also very therapeutic. You hear a “click” sound each time and that works like hearing a “well done” continuously.

On top of that, my wife and I love running our fingers across the jigsaw puzzle. Every time we come to a piece that is not completely flushed with the adjacent piece, we feel great satisfaction from pressing down on the piece. The feeling of the piece moving ever so slightly as it moves perfectly in to place is very rewarding.

I would suggest buying high quality plastic jigsaw puzzles as opposed to the cardboard ones if you want to experience the above. Read on further below where are make my recommendations on which brand of puzzles to buy.

The plastics jigsaw puzzles tend to be more well made and snap much more tightly together. The cardboard ones may be loose and due to the way they are manufactured, you may encounter certain layers peeling off at the connecting points.

7.Cheap and Sustainable New Hobby

Also, buying a Jigsaw puzzle probably costs us about $30 plus and lasts us more than a week. We have a fun thing to do at home as a couple every night instead of having to go out to spend money to keep ourselves entertained.

Not only has this brought us closer together, it has helped us to save money on indiscriminate spending when we have nothing else to do.

I would highly recommend the plastic Jigsaw Puzzles from Pintoo. I have bought several of their products such as flower pots and clocks. They are of extremely high quality.

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I have read numerous reviews of other Jigsaw brands on Amazon which have lots of problems with missing pieces and loose connections.

For Pintoo Puzzles, I have never experienced a problem before.

The pieces fit very nicely together. I would use the word seamless to describe how well they fit. The designs are beautiful and they decorate my house very nicely.

Jigsaw puzzles are definitely going to be a new hobby for me and my wife.

Jigsaw Puzzles – A Fun Thing to do At Home for Couples

And now, some pictures of the fun we had building up our first 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

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In Conclusion

If you ever feel bored with your partner and wonder what fun things you can do at home as couple, do consider playing with Jigsaw puzzles.

Not only do you have fun in the process, you also have a beautiful piece of art at the end of the day.

You can decide to frame up the completed work. If not, you can dismantle them and keep them away for future replay months down the road.

The process of building up the Jigsaw puzzle is as satisfying as the completion of the puzzle itself.

Best of all, it substitutes for other expensive hobbies and improves your relationship as a couple.

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