Schedule Time for Your Relationship
Is your weekly planner so full of appointments that you never find time for your partner? Do you often find yourself in disagreements over scheduling conflicts?
Newsflash: If you don't set aside time for your partner in your weekly agenda, chances are you will never make the time!
You need to make your relationship a priority in your daily life.
Let’s take Brenda and Jason as an example, who had lost sight of each other in the busyness of their lives. With two young kids and both working full-time, it’s understandable that they found it hard to make time for each other. Still, their lack of time together and the distance that was growing between them was fraying the edges of their marriage. Without making some serious, proactive changes, Brenda and Jason stood to live a life at best as roommates, not as lovers and partners. Or even worse, if they didn’t start doing things differently, they were on the slippery slope toward even more unhappiness – and potentially divorce.
We had them start with one easy modification that we call The Couple’s Calendar.
The Couple’s Calendar
This is just as it sounds. On this calendar, you can put all of your weekly activities in one place. That way, you can all be on the same page and know where everyone is at any given moment. You can have a heads up on any evenings that someone may be working late or have plans outside of the house, as well as if someone is going to have a stressful week that could impact their mood.
Even more specifically, there’s a couple of things that are good to do to make sure your Couple’s Calendar is as coordinated between you and your partner as possible.
You might have a weekly meeting to go over the next week's upcoming activities. Make sure to keep your calendar up to date so that neither you nor your partner are caught off guard.
Most smartphones have a free calendar/planner app that you can share with others. We recommend using a virtual calendar/planner, so changes are updated in real time and you keep an open line of communication open with each other. If you like a paper calendar better, go old-school and write things down in a central place, but also remember to keep it updated with any changes.
Schedule Time Together
The most important thing you can do on this calendar, though, is schedule time together.
When you have your weekly meeting, make it a priority to mark off some personal time in the weeks ahead. That is, schedule date nights. This is essential whether they be at-home activities like making dinner or watching a show together on Netflix, going out to dinner or for a picnic in the park.
We understand that quarantine and the slow opening of many states makes it difficult to plan activities outside the home, but now is the time to get creative!
(If you’re looking for ideas, we’ve created a 30-Day Quarantine Challenge full of unique ways to spend time together and reconnect in this weird time of quarantine caused by the pandemic. You can get the prompts here: https://couplessuccessplus.com/30-day-quarantine-challenge-cs/)
The point is that you set aside time to spend together, just the two of you, as partners and people who love each other. The importance of time to deepen your emotional connection and to develop intimacy cannot be understated – it is essential to keep your relationship safe from divorce.
Brenda and Jason will testify to that.
So, if you don’t already, start now. Set up your Couples’ Calendar and schedule time for your relationship this week.