Can You Use AI to Improve Your Marriage? We Tested ChatGPT In Our Relationship to Find Out

AI is changing the world. But can it change our most intimate relationships? Should it?

As relationship authors and coaches, we set up an experiment to answer this question.

For a few days, Nate decided to use ChatGPT as his personal AI love coach, asking it for guidance on conflicts, communication, and intimacy.

What happened? Here's Nate's account.

Day 1: The Marinade

It all started with a missed Monday morning chicken marinade.

Let me explain. The night before, Kaley asked, "Could you marinate the chicken for tomorrow night?" to which I replied, "Yeah, I'm on it."

But, the truth is, I wasn't. Moments after I said that, I started watching Sunday Night Football and totally spaced it. Whoops. 

So after receiving a frantic Monday morning text from Kaley, who now had to make the marinade because I was out of the house, I turned to my AI love coach.

I explained the situation and asked, "How can I make this right?"

The answer?

Well, it was a little overwhelming. To make up for the mistake, I was told to:

• Acknowledge and apologize
• Help her make dinner
• Make it up to her with a "special" gesture
• Suggest a fun new activity
• Communicate better next time
• Have a reflective conversation about how I could be better in the future.

I followed two of the six AI generated ideas (apologizing and helping with dinner) and it worked, almost too well. At one point, Kaley said, "Enough, you have sufficiently atoned for the marinade."

Lessons learned? Two things. 

First, my AI coach is kind of a misogynist. This idea that Kaley is the de facto cook in the house struck me as pretty darn sexist. 

Second, my AI coach seems to struggle to distinguish between big and little problems. My missed marinade was a pretty minor oversight. But the magnitude of the repair ChatGPT suggested felt on par with resolving a more major breech of trust.

Day 2: The Evening Walk

The next day I took a different approach. "Could my AI love coach spice up our after dinner walk conversation?" 

So I asked it for some engaging questions.

Then, as Kaley and I walked around the lake near our house on a cold January night, I asked Chat GPT's first question, "How was your day?" To be fair, I ask her about her day all the time.

It went well. Kaley seemed to like that one.

Then, I asked ChatGPT's second question.

Me: "Is there something on your mind you'd like to discuss?"

Her: "Why are you assuming that I have something on my mind that I haven't already shared? I feel accused."

Me: "How could I be accusing you? I didn't even come up with the question. It's from ChatGPT."

Her (while side-eye-ing me): "So you decided to outsource your questions for our walk?"

Yes, I did.

Day 3: The Loving Text

For my final AI love coaching session, I asked for help writing a loving text.

I told ChatGPT, "My wife is leaving on a trip today. Could you craft a short but sweet text message to her wishing her luck on her trip and expressing my love?"

ChatGPT cheerfully complied, and I copy-pasted the following message:

"I'm going to miss you so much, but I know you'll do amazing things. Travel safe, and remember that I'm thinking of you every moment. Can't wait to hear all about it when you get back. Love you lots!"

Two hours later, my phone rang. It was Kaley. How would she respond? Would she love it? Hate it? Even notice?

Me: "Hi babe!"

Her: "So either your phone got hacked or your brain was invaded by aliens, or ChatGPT wrote that text because I just threw up a little in my own mouth."

The AI Love Verdict

After running these tests, I'm not  worried about losing my job as a relationship coach -- not yet anyway.

But I also see the potential here. 

Is this the kind of customized coaching you would get from a top-tier A-List marriage therapist? No.

But is this advice a whole lot better than what most couples are doing when they allow their default habits to run the show? Yes, absolutely.

I think the key here is discernment. ChatGPT has some great ideas and some horrible ones. If you can select the good and discard the bad, turning to AI to assist with relationship problems could lead to some good results.

But then there's the question of how your partner might respond, knowing that your loving words and actions arose, not from you, but a machine learning bot.

In my experience, the answer was: not so well.

Whenever Kaley realized I was acting, not on my own volition, but on the advice of ChatGPT, she seemed understandably outraged. 

So I think transparency is also essential. Saying up front, "I got these questions from ChatGPT -- let's see if they're any good," is going to lead to better results than pretending they came from you.

P.S. If you have a great -- or terrible -- ChatGPT inspired story from your relationship, we'd love to hear it!