At Brigham Young University's Department of Family Life, professor Stephen Duncan agrees that playfulness is important. But he adds that he would not go so far as to say, "Everything I know about relationships I learned in kindergarten."

And if you are not feeling very lighthearted or imaginative this Valentine season, then Duncan will suggest a game you could play.

Duncan likes "The Love Map 20 Questions Game." You can find it in a book, "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work," by John Gottman and Nan Silver. You can also find Gottman's questions online. Or you can make up your own.

The point of the game is to ask each other questions like, "What is my favorite dessert?" or "What is my least favorite form of exercise?" or "Which of my parents do I think I am the most like and why?"

The object of the game is not to prove that your spouse doesn't know you as well as he or she might. The object is to listen and learn — and to enjoy each other's company.

Duncan says Gottman's theories have been validated, empirically. Knowing things about your spouse's dreams, joys, worries and fantasies validates the relationship, he says.

Playing this game helps spouses discover more about each other, so that they can love each other better. After all, Duncan notes, love should feel more like play than work.

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Happy couples

• Create a "culture of two" through shared activities.

• Use a deeply personal nickname for their spouse to bring them closer to each other.

• Aren't afraid of doing things others might see as odd.

• Develop comforting habits that they repeat at bedtime, or while traveling, etc.

• Avoid corrosive communication: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, withdrawing and hostility.

SOURCE: "What Happy Couples Do" by Carol Bruess and Anna Kudak

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E-mail: susan@desnews.com