“(sigh) I don’t feel like I’ve seen you all week…how has your week been?” was the comment my husband said to me one Saturday morning quite some time ago. Does this sound familiar to you? Now just to paint the picture…we live in the same house, neither of us does shift work or works FIFO, we like each other – a lot- so it’s not that we try to avoid each other, we just found ourselves in a routine where we were so busy executing all of lifes ‘to do’s’ that we hadn’t factored in time for each other.
We had two small children to take care of, our careers were demanding and we were both elevating our levels of responsibility in this area, we both valued our health and wellbeing so we invested time in this area separately, we had limited child minding support so we weren’t planning in date nights, any opportunity we did have to have a meaningful discussion was often interrupted by a (very cute) “Mummy” or “Daddy”. We just fell into this pattern of ‘busi-ness’ and didn’t really realise it until we noticed that we hadn’t been ‘checking in’ with one another.
We were happy in our relationship, but if i’m honest we probably weren’t thriving in our relationship. It’s like with anything, energy flows where attention goes. We were putting energy into our children, our careers, household maintenance, extended family, our own individual health and wellbeing but not the wellbeing of each other. And at the same time we were speaking with couples who had reached a point of disconnection in their relationship. They had differing views on life, their communication had broken down and they weren’t happy. We knew that this disconnect has to start from somewhere and often it comes back to not nurturing a relationship in the first place.
Love and deep connection in a relationship is considered an important ingredient for both physical health and mental wellbeing. Healthy relationships prevent unhealthy relationships which are stressful and can have a detrimental effect on our wellbeing.
Heart health especially is improved in those who have love and meaningful relationships. Meaningful relationships contribute to our happiness and when we are happy, we have more energy. With this energy we tend to be more proactive in our physical health and wellbeing.
So we reevaluated. We took a look at what we could take off our ‘to do’ list, to make space for us again. We looked at how we could ‘multitask’ our needs, particularly in our health and wellbeing and we would combine our ‘couples’ time with our training time – we started training together a few times per week. We booked in time for us in our diaries, we made it a priority and created opportunities to nurture our relationship – we put energy into it.
We of course also brought with us to this evaluation a history of working on and understanding our own and each other’s communication style. This for us has given us a really strong foundation to maintain and flourish our relationship from. Understanding what each other is instinctively motivated towards helps us understand and interpret each other’s point of view when communicating thoughts and ideas. Understanding how each other sees or hears or feels the world leads us to each again interpret and better understand where each other is coming from. We understand each other’s stress triggers, what gives us relief and what support each other really needs. All of this makes for less pressure points, better communication and better support.
So if you’re feeling yourself in a situation where your relationship has become a state of two ships passing in the night, or you just feel you aren’t quite connected at the moment, then maybe you want to make some time to reevaluate what your lifestyle is bringing to your relationship.
Make time for one another. Like with anything, it is important to schedule time for each other into your diary. Reassess what is important and if your diary is already full you are going to need to take something off the timetable to make time for one another. If this feels difficult, ask yourself, what is the outcome we’re potentially facing here if we don’t make this change. Find fun activities to do together, go on retreat together, organise dates, multitask by spending time together while you are also looking after your health and wellbeing by training or cooking together. If children are your barrier, ask around for a babysitter amongst your friends and social groups, there will be someone who can take care of them, even if it is just for an hour while you take a walk together or get coffee.
If you would like a more guided and purposeful experience of this, come and join us on our upcoming Couples Retreat in July where we will simultaneously take care of your health and wellbeing and the wellbeing of your relationship. Details of upcoming retreats can be found at www.retreats.upliftingpt.com
