Doing this household task is the best way to keep your relationship on track

I swear the best way to keep your relationship on track is not necessarily to organise a date night or weekend away, but rather to buy a piece of flat pack furniture and assemble it together.

Any problems or tensions fade away as you bond over what feels like a tsunami-like task with too many pieces and no end in sight, let alone a piece of furniture.

Once you start, there’s no turning back. The desire for that coffee table, outdoor bench or set of bunk beds is so strong that it spurs you on to the finishing line. You have no choice but to communicate effectively with your partner, and get the job done.

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My husband and I agree and disagree on many things but, at the end of the day, we just have to put together a piece of flat pack furniture to remember what an awesome and invincible team we make. Cheaper than therapy and perfect for our interior design.

We had a lot of practice back in the early days with our daughter’s cot, which we assembled and disassembled many times as we moved house, transferred her to a big bed, then had daughter number two.

And despite the chaos of family life, we always succeeded in our task – and felt more united than ever.

There have been countless items since then, and each time the process pretty much follows the same pattern.

We open the box to find the job much harder than we initially thought. Then we realise that we don’t have adequate space in our house to assemble it with any sort of ease.

Once unpacked, there seem to be too many pieces and not enough nuts and bolts. And the instructions, my husband’s area of expertise, feature nothing more than a series of pictures with little explanation.

However, we push on and after managing a few steps with some success, we feel enthused and think maybe we can do it after all. Only to hit a dead end when we realise we’ve put a piece on back-to-front and have to undo it.

It continues in this manner, up and down like a rollercoaster, until somewhere in the middle we slide into our individual roles, each bringing different skills to the situation.

When one of us is flummoxed, the other steps in with a solution, and vice-versa.

Slowly but surely, we reach a sense of calm and forget the frustrations of constructing furniture with nothing to guide us but an Allen key. We chat, we laugh, we bond over our difficulties and compliment each other’s contributions.

Then all too quickly, we see  light at the end of the tunnel, as well as a completed piece of furniture. And it feels amazing.

We went through this just before Christmas, when we purchased a desk for my daughter who was about to start high school.

Naturally it came in a very thin flat box and after sitting ignored in the hallway for three weeks, the day had come to put it together.

It also happened to be our wedding anniversary, and what better way to check in on our marriage than assemble a desk before heading out to dinner?

One might think it risky to attempt flat pack furniture on such a day, but I felt confident it would work in our favour – and it did.

We completed the desk in record time, with only minimal leftover pieces and still made our dinner date in good spirits.

The desk looked stylish, my daughter was thrilled and we had a great night, impressed by our excellent teamwork and carpentry prowess.