06: Staying Connected with Your Partner in a Crisis
Over these past few weeks of physical distancing, I've seen and heard my friends who are in relationships start to fall into one of two camps:
Camp A
Finding it hard to "clock out" when your offices now span the kitchen, living room, and bedroom.
Getting into a routine of work, eat, TV/news, refresh your social media feeds, then bed.
Struggling to find ways to connect when you are used to going *out* for date nights.
Camp B
Confused why if you are spending time together you don't feel connected.
Finding your partner's little quirks a touch more irritating.
On edge about the money talk you *know* is coming.
Which one are you in? A or B?
Regardless, spending time together in a shared space doesn’t mean you are connected. Today, more couples find themselves sharing space in a way they hadn’t anticipated. Now is the BEST time to invest in your relationship and connect on safety and security at home. If you want to invest in a fun way in your relationship, I’m hosting a FREE 7-day challenge from April 14-21, 2020. All you have to do is be on my email list, and you’ll get the prompts to participate.
-
[00:00:00] So for years, I have had this idea that one of the most romantic things a couple can do is go on a midweek lunch date. I don't know why, but just the idea of being able to leave your place of employment and meet up at cute cafe, preferably outdoors and reconnect with your partner just feels, felt so romantic to me.
[00:00:34] And for years I've been trying to make it work. I shouldn't say I, we, my partner and I have been trying to make it work, but it's surprisingly hard when you don't work in the same town and you know, you have meetings and clients and traffic and things like that. So in our many, many years together as working professionals, my husband and I have only been able to make it work once.
[00:01:06] So when we were self quarantining, we started on March 13th or 14th. So at the time of this episode, we'll have been in self-isolation for a month. I thought, well, now is the time. We are under the same roof. We are having our fricking lunch date, and this is what happened. I'd say, Hey, Do you want to have lunch at 1230?
[00:01:33] And he'd say, I can't. Can you do one? And I'd say, oh, shoot. I've got a client. Okay, maybe tomorrow. Repeat, repeat, repeat. So what is my point? I'm sharing this with you. My point is that just because y'all are spending a lot of time together under a shared roof in a shared space, It does not mean you're actually connecting or connected.
[00:02:01] So in today's episode, I'm gonna talk about the importance of connecting with your partner at any time, but particularly during a crisis. So let's dive into why staying connected with your partner right now, I mean, is always important, but why it's so important in our current situation. I was reading in the Harvard Business Review that in the Chinese city of Xi'An, that just had that big COVID outbreak, that they have had a skyrocketing number of people who are filing for divorce, which is not surprising at all because any sort of underlying relationship issue was bound to be exacerbated in the face of a ton of stress and daily routines being totally flipped on their head and being stuck together.
[00:02:59] Right? But I don't want you to have to experience what they had to experience there. We have the beauty of having some insight. The fact that you even turned on this podcast episode tells me that you're interested in staying connected with your partner at all times, but particularly during chaotic situations or in crisis situations.
[00:03:25] So let's make sure you don't have that spike in arguments or fights, or forbid if you guys are married that spike in divorce. So let's talk about what you can do and why investing in your relationship is paramount at all times. But particularly when there's a global stressor or crisis, like what's going on right now.
[00:03:50] Again, I'm recording this in April of 2020, my partner and I have now been quarantined for, it'll be a month to the day on the day that this podcast episode is released. But it's about three weeks right now at the time of this recording. So, as I mentioned in the intro, that little story, just because you're spending time together doesn't necessarily mean you're connected and now is the absolute perfect time to invest in your relationship.
[00:04:19] And I know you're like, are you kidding me? I don't have extra time to do anything right now, and I feel you. Before I recorded this podcast, it took me mm, six, seven, no, probably a dozen times, if I'm being completely honest, to get the intro recorded because I have a dog. She's two. She's adorable. She's a Portuguese water dog.
[00:04:42] And she has a little bit of jealousy, and so anytime I am near my phone or computer, she wants the attention. So she likes to throw things around and get my attention or actually shut my laptop or my phone or tug at things. So we had a lot of that going on. So I know that there is not extra time. I don't have kids.
[00:05:06] I can't even imagine what life must be like right now if you're trying to homeschool kids or even just wrangle them and get work done. I can't imagine if you're trying to work from home with kiddos, I know time is a precious, precious resource and is very limited right now. And for me to come out and say, now's the time to invest in your relationship can sound a little bit counterintuitive, but now is absolutely the time because if you guys are not a united front, if you guys are not a sound unit, this crisis will show all of the cracks and flaws in your relationship. So now is the time to communicate, to invest in your relationship, and to create some solid ways to be connected. So let me dive into a few different things that I want for you to consider so you can deepen your partnership.
[00:06:03] Number one is self-care. And again, sounds a little strange when you're like, we're supposed to be connecting. How am I supposed to connect if I'm taking care of myself? Well, I'll tell you why. Because everybody is running on basically fumes right now. We're trying to work. We're trying to remain good citizens and adhere to social distancing.
[00:06:27] We are trying to navigate what's going on with our parents or our grandparents. And if we have kids, we're trying to figure out what's going on with them. We're trying to. Make sure that our jobs are secure. We're trying to navigate just day-to-day life on top of this. So, we're running on fumes, and when we are running on fumes, when we have exhausted our coping skills, we are more likely to snap, right?
[00:06:56] So the little snapping of the gum that your partner did might irritate you on a good day, but on a day where you're on day 21 of being quarantined together and you have not taken a minute for yourself just to breathe, that snapping of the gum might just make you snap, right? So this is really important for you and your partner to talk about how can we each take care of ourselves?
[00:07:23] How can we carve out space for each of us so that we can rebuild our capacity to cope with this? Very unique stressor. And it doesn't have to be again. Cause I know our time is all super limited. It doesn't have to be an hour and a half long bubble bath while listening to classical music though, if you can do that, kudos to you.
[00:07:48] It can be, I need to be able to take a shower and you cannot let the kids run in. Okay? I just need 10 minutes of alone time. It can be, I'm gonna take the dog for a walk and I actually wanna go by myself, and there's nothing wrong with that. What you are doing by taking care of yourself means you have more resources to be a more available partner in your relationship. So that's number one is finding some ways to really practice good self-care. Double down on making sure your basics are covered. Are you eating nourishing healthy foods? Are you drinking enough water? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you making sure that once you are able to power down your work for the day, that you aren't going back to it?
[00:08:39] Right? So the basics of survival are also really paramount in our world of self-care. So that's number one is self-care. Number two goes along with self-care in some ways because it's all about planning and communicating your days, kind of having a starting point for the day of what each of your days are going to look like, communicating about what's happening and what you need from your partner when, so for example, I might say to my partner, Hey, I've got three clients back to back. My door is shut. Please, please, please do not enter while I'm doing my client calls. He might say to me, Perfect. Lindsay, that's totally fine. Just fyi, I have to hop on a group call for my master's program. I need to make sure that you take the dog out while I'm on that call so I can really be present, right?
[00:09:40] So we kind of prioritize what are the most important things for us in our workday and how can we get our partners support. My partner and I have kind of divvied up the house as a way to make this work a little bit better for us. Now that we're both working from home. He's kind of taken the downstairs.
[00:09:57] I've kind of taken the upstairs and that has worked out really well. And then if we need things, we've created the system where we're able to text each other. We both have Google phones, which, and I think you can probably do this with an Apple phone too. I'm just talking from what I know. Where you can text right from your laptop.
[00:10:17] So I can be doing emails and just text and be like, Hey, is it, is it okay if I run down to make lunch real quick? And if he's like, no, I'm on a call for another 20 minutes, I might just have to hang out for 20 minutes. Not the end of the world. Right? But doing those quick things, or if our dog, as I mentioned, is going crazy and I really need to be present to write out a series of emails or record this podcast episode, I need to be able to do that as well. So planning and communicating about what's happening and what your days look like and how you can each support one another. And also like when is your power down hour. By that I mean like when are you officially off the clock? We're both working really weird hours right now because our lives are like most of you-- very challenged right now. So it's not like at 5:01, both of our laptops shut. You know, there might be some nights where we're working till 7, 8, 9 o'clock, which I know is not super healthy, but it's temporary because of what we are doing and we need to make sure to communicate that. And then there are certain times where I might even say to him, look, I need you to help me make sure that I'm off my laptop by six. I cannot work past six. I'm going to want to, but nothing is that emergent that I can't spend like dinner time with you or something to that effect. Right? So planning and communicating your day. So that you can support one another during this time is hugely important. And also along with communicating, not just communicating what's going on in your day, but like communicating how you're doing and making sure that you're actually talking in a deep and reciprocal way.
[00:11:59] The third thing with this crisis of how to stay connected is to create boundaries around. What is going on in the world in terms of how often you will or won't talk about it, when the news has to shut off, you know, when can you not refresh your Twitter feed or your New York Times app? What are the rules and boundaries around that?
[00:12:24] Because we want to be informed and at the same time, there becomes a point in time where it no longer is healthy. Yes, the news is changing at a rapid pace, but the reality is if something changes that is going to drastically impact us, we will find out. So for example, when our governor here in Michigan put us on a stay at home guideline, we found out like immediately, right? We had friends and family texting us. Our news sources were all going off, emails were coming in. There was no way we could not have gotten that information. So if there is something emergent, you will find out about it. So really carving out boundaries around how and when you will and won't talk about the crisis.
[00:13:11] And then number four is, to have some fun. How can you find ways with your partner to reconnect and laugh a little bit? For years, my partner and I, before we go to bed or at dinner, just depends on the day, we always say, tell me something funny that happened. And it's shocking that all these little, quirky, goofy things can happen throughout our day.
[00:13:40] And if we don't have an opportunity to reminisce on them, we lose them, we forget about them. So what I'm encouraging you here, if you like that, please by all means, take it. Ask your partner what's something funny that happened to them that day. But also it helps you to remember that there are moments of silliness and lightness and levity amongst all of the chaos.
[00:14:05] Everything is temporary. Good, beautiful, bad, and ugly, it's all temporary. So it's really important to find those moments of fun in your relationship, even if that means talking about something that was funny that happened in your workday to me the other day. I don't know why it made me laugh so hard, but I saw this post about, you know, cause we're all on these, these conference calls, these Zoom calls and whatnot.
[00:14:38] But about, you know, a, a nonprofit that was hopping on a zoom called a, you know, have a meeting like we're all doing, and the boss turned herself, somehow she clicked some setting and it turned her into a potato, right? A literal potato. So it was like her, like eyes and lips on a potato and the background was like, Soil and I was in tears.
[00:15:10] I didn't know who this person was. I didn't know who this company was. There was no video. I didn't know anything about it, but it just had me in stitches because this is our legs right now. We're all on these video calls and they all start with like, am I on mute? Can you hear me? Can you see me? Am I moving? Is my sound okay? They always start out so uncomfortable and awkward.
[00:15:30] Anyway, and then to just imagine what it must have been like to be the person who opens up that zoom call and you see your boss as a potato. I don't know, you guys, it just, it killed me. So have, have some fun in your relationship, even if it's just doing something like that in relaying a silly story, that is perfectly fine.
[00:15:59] If you want to have fun in other ways, you know, get outside, do some social distancing walks. You know, the stars are finally where I'm at in Michigan, finally starting to come out at night. Nice and bright and beautiful, so like going outside at night and just like looking up and seeing the constellations together is a nice way to connect and have a little bit of fun.
[00:16:21] I mean, these don't have to be like earth-shattering things. They just have to be things that remind you of like, oh yeah, I chose this person and they chose me for a reason. It's because we both are able to laugh at similar things, or even if we don't, we appreciate one another's sense of humor. You know, now is a great time for things like board games and puzzles and kind of returning back to some of the simpler things in life that are fun.
[00:16:47] So I wanna recap for you the different ways that you can invest in your relationship and stay connected with your partner in a crisis, and certainly at any time. So number one is self-care, taking care of yourself so you have the capacity and resilience to cope. Number two is planning and communicating about what's important to you and what's happening to you that day, and how your partner can support you and vice versa.
[00:17:14] Number three, setting up boundaries, and in this example I'm talking about setting up boundaries around the crisis, about how often you'll talk about it or share news about it. But in general, you can talk about boundaries around work, around kids, around whatever you need to be creating boundaries on. That's perfectly fine.
[00:17:33] And then number four is find ways to have fun right now, even though things seem very dark and heavy. Finding a moment to just let the corners of your mouth kind of tilt up a little bit into that smile is going to be super, super helpful for you. In staying connected with your partner, and as I mentioned, it's really important that you stay till the end because I am so, so excited that I'm going to be kicking off a free seven day challenge.
[00:18:08] Starting tomorrow, April 14th, 2020, for you to get connected with your partner in five minutes a day or less, I'm going to give you a prompt about like what to ask your partner or little activities you can do. I'm gonna sprinkle in some money talk because it wouldn't be me if we didn't talk a little bit about money.
[00:18:34] But what I'm trying to highlight and illuminate for you, that staying connected in deepening and strengthening your relationship in a fun way is more paramount and more needed than ever. Okay, so I can't wait for you to join me. If you're on my email list, you will already be opted in. Those emails will start going out tomorrow.
[00:18:58] And because y'all know I love my Instagram @MindMoneyBalance, what I'm going to do is be checking in with you guys on Instagram throughout the challenge, so the prompts will come to you via email, and then I want you to check in with me on social and the reason for checking in on social in a group way.
[00:19:20] Is that research has shown in some instances that participating with others who are going through similar things increases the likelihood that you will reach your goal or make that behavior change by 72%. Okay. So yes, it's about connecting with your partner and what works for you and how it feels good for you in your relationship, but it's also about knowing that you're not alone and these fun, light little challenges are going to show you that you can absolutely reconnect and deepen your partnership in under five minutes a day.
[00:19:58] So again, that kicks off tomorrow, april 14th, get your inbox ready to go. If you're not on my email list, head to my website, www.MindMoneyBalance.com, and you can get added to that email list today. If you're not a website person, just head to Instagram and DM me your email address, and I will make sure that you get on that list.
[00:20:23] So that is the exciting news on how to stay connected with your partner in a crisis, and we will be kicking off that challenge first thing tomorrow, April 14th.