Keeping Your Relationship Healthy

Cohabitators everywhere are spending more time than ever with their significant others during the coronavirus pandemic. “Shelter in Place” and “Stay at Home” orders are keeping everyone inside, working from home rather than going off to life as usual. Add to that some couples might be dealing with one if not multiple layoffs. There’s a lot to manage right now!

While some people may find this to be a great time to re-connect and even learn more about their sweetie, others might find it challenging to be in such close contact day-in and day-out. This is a big change for most couples, so it’s okay if this time has put a strain on your relationship. Here are a few tips for keeping your relationship healthy, sane and even sexy.

Build a Routine

Before the pandemic, we all had our daily routines whether we thought about them or not. Being home more often means that those routines have been disrupted. Even if you worked from home and your partner didn’t before, you probably had a rhythm to your day that has been changed now that someone else is there with you.

The key to relationship sanity is making (and adhering to) new daily routines. Your routine doesn’t have to be super strict. Chances are that if you are working, you have work schedules that require you to be available during specific times. That takes care of a big part of the day.

But what about meal breaks and exercise? If you were used to having breakfast together, stick to that. If you lunched separately, continue to do so unless it feels more natural now to share lunch. If not, dinner can be a time when you reconvene as a couple.

If you walked or rode a bike to and from work, you still need to get your steps! Build this into your day. It’s important to move your body throughout the day. Most of us don’t just sit in an office. We walk from place to place and that movement is important for out physical health. You can schedule stretch brakes together or just get up, walk around and stretch on an as-needed basis. Set a goal of at least one stretch break an hour.

For those who are not working, you need a schedule more than anyone. Besides building in time for meals and movement, think about how you want to devote the bulk of each day. Do you have projects you can be working on? Grants or loans you are eligible for? Remote positions you can apply to? Books you want to read? Make a list of all the things you’d like to do then plug them into a calendar. Resist the urge to marathon-watch shows and movies everyday. You can save that as a treat for the weekend!

Schedule Alone Time

Now that the basics are covered, I want to address the importance of alone time. Most of us have some portion of our day when we’re alone with our thoughts. This is a really good, regenerative activity through inactivity. Giving our brains the chance to roam freely is important for mental health as well as cognition. When we are confined to our homes with other people, it may be hard to find this time or to ask for it. But trust me, you need it and it’s worth asking for.

Downtime has become recommended for productivity and unplugging is now a new way to vacation. We can’t just work and work and work, no matter how tempting that may be when you’re home. You need to tune out. The best way to do that is to schedule some solo time every day.

You and your partner can talk about why you both need alone time. You may need time to watch tv, listen to music or just veg out with out disruption. Some of us have spiritual practices that are done alone. Whatever the reason, just know that you deserve to have this time and it’s okay that you want it.

Scheduling alone time can be hard for couples in small apartments or who share a room. You can frame this conversation as being good for both of you. One of you might stay in while the other takes a walk or maybe you need some unstructured alone time to think about a project. Maybe you need a cat nap or time to absorb what’s going on in the world! Let your partner know that you will do the same for them when they need it.

Check In

This is an incredibly emotional time no matter who you are. Some people will go inward with their emotions while others will have unusual outbursts and unpredictable moods. You might see behaviors that you don’t like in your partner or vice versa.

Be generous with each other. No one knows the right way to handle everything that’s going on. What we are all grappling with is grief in its many forms according to David Kessler, the foremost expert on the subject of grief. In a recent Harvard Business Review interview, Kessler recommends that “it’s a good time to stock up on compassion. Everyone will have different levels of fear and grief and it manifests in different ways…So be patient. Think about who someone usually is and not who they seem to be in this moment.”

It’s a good idea to check in on each other at least once a day. A simple “how are you doing?” is really enough to get a healthy dialogue going. Let the conversation flow without judgement. Resist the urge to fix whatever is bothering the other person unless it has something to do with your own behavior. Sometimes just venting is enough to move through tricky emotional waters.

Plan Dates

It may sound silly, but you should still plan dates even when you’e stuck at home! Plan them in advance, especially if you are intending them to be sexy dates.

In her book Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel discusses how erotic energy is generated through and sustained by novelty. This is something that cannot easily be achieved when you see the same person every day, let alone every minute of every day.

I recommend planning special dates at least a week in advance if not more. Think of some element you can add to the date that will be special. Maybe it’s cooking a dish together that you both love or trying a recipe for the first time. Maybe it’s actually ordering delivery because you’re both so tired of cooking all your meals.

Can you get flowers delivered that day? Is there an activity you both like to do that you can make a mini version of at home? Is there a new sex toy you can introduce?

Use your creativity and make it fun! You can even dress up for it. I know many of us are working in our pjs all day now, but dates can be an opportunity to turn it up a notch (or 8).

You can even use these dates to dive a little deeper into your sex life and desires. If you need ideas, check out the Pillow Talk game by The School of Life.

It might be hard to imagine that this could be an amazing time for relationship exploration, but being confined inside is actually begging for us to expand what it means to be in a relationship. I fully expect that couples will be tested. Some will come out stronger and some will be weaker. Some will emerge with a newfound respect for each other’s boundaries and talents and others will realize that they were ill-suited for trying times.

These are trying times. We are all trying, and hopefully our best efforts will bring us closer than ever before.

Want to learn more?

To learn more about how to maintain a healthy relationship with good communication, check out my ezine’s The Communication Issue. Also, make sure to read my post, “How to Keep Dating Your Partner (and Why It’s so Important!).”

You can also chat with me. As an experienced sex and dating coach, I’ve worked with people from all walks of life have healthy and happy relationships and repair their relationships with their partners. I’ve also helped people better understand their bodies, answer questions that they may not feel comfortable asking others, and improve their sex lives and dating strategies. Click here to learn more about sex and dating coaching with me.