Relationship struggles are a common theme within our community which is why we wanted to share these tips for how to strengthen your relationship.
With the added stress and responsibilities of parenthood mixed with the monotony of keeping mouths fed, kissing boo-boos, and maintaining a house, it can be easy to fall into more of a roommate phase, and even foster feelings of resentment (something we talk a lot about in UM Club Episode, Strengthening Communication and Connection in Your Relationship). And just as falling in a rut of never getting ready in the morning can impact your mental health, falling into the roommate phase can be a slippery slope to feeling quite disconnected from your partner.
BUT we’re with our guys/gals for a reason, we love them and want to continue to build a life with them, and we deserve open communication and support to maintain a strong, loving relationship where you’re truly a team helping each other take on all that life throws at you. So if you’ve been feeling a little roommatey and want to shift more towards a rock solid team with sexy benefits, then this post is for you!
Other Articles and Episodes You May Be Interested In
5 Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life
Strengthening Your Communication and Connection with Licensed Therapist Sheina Shocket from Love After Baby
Sex Positive Monogamy with Nurse and Executive Producer of the top-rated sexuality podcast Katie Roberts from Clit Talk
Holistic Divorce with Divorce Coach and Author Olga Nadal from Holistic Divorce and Divorce For Love
Modern Swinger Lifestyle
What makes love stronger in a relationship?
Anyone in a long term relationship knows that love and connection can be more fluid in a relationship, there’s lots of ups and downs, especially when you add kids to the mix. It takes commitment to intentionally work at yourself and your relationship to keep the love going strong. You need to maintain that connection with each other through trust, support, open communication, respect, and affection, and it can take a bit of time to build back up if you’re trying to fix a struggling relationship. In doing so and putting in the work you’ll be more connected with one another, feel more supported, and see a ton of health benefits like better immune systems, stronger hearts, healing faster, and living longer. Who wouldn’t want that!
How to Strengthen Your Relationship
Whether you’re looking to strengthen a weak relationship, or just wanting to make an already great relationship that much stronger, you’ll love these practical tips for parents. We’ve taken these tips from several UM Club expert interviews so you can start implementing changes right away to make your relationship stronger. We’ll cover:
- Regular Check Ins
- Showing Affection Outside The Bedroom
- Talking About Things Before They Fester
- Communicating With Soft Starts
- Having Regular Connection Time
Regular Check Ins
Regular check ins are a great way to check in with each other to see how you’re doing, what’s going on in your lives, and how you can support each other. In keeping them consistent you can get ahead of the festering and resentment because they’re an opportunity to let things out and ask for things before they become a bigger issue.
Regular check ins look different for everyone. Some couples have bigger state of the union check ins that review most of what’s going on in your lives including finances, meal plans, schedules, mental health, and more. Other marriages or partnerships benefit from more casual approaches to check ins, by chatting about what’s going on in each other’s lives while cleaning up after dinner. Whatever your approach, it’s important to actually dig into things past the basic surface level. Are you actually fine, or do you get really stressed out during dinner and could use a 5 minute break away from the family before you get started so you can be more patient with everyone around you while you cook? This is your chance to actually reflect and request help and support, and see how you can better support and acknowledge your partner.
We all know how we can have great conversations with a positive outlook on new things you want to implement, but the reality is, most of those new changes start to fade away within a few weeks as everyone falls back into their default mode. Regular check ins are helpful in actually making those great ideas consistent so you can see the lasting changes from them rather than them fading away and ending back at square one.
Here’s a few things you may want to cover in your regular check ins:
- How each one of you is truly feeling
- Acknowledging one another for all that you do
- Reflecting on where you’re struggling and how you can better support each other and yourselves
- Review upcoming schedules and how you can tackle the extra things that need to be done like managing dinners around a busier than usual schedule, or accepting that it’s ok to drop the ball in one area while you have a busier than usual schedule
- Review finances and get on the same page with expected spending habits
- Create meal plans together and decide who’s responsible for what
- Talk about your goals and aspirations and how you can help each other with them
- Chat about your sex life and things you may want to try
Show Affection Outside The Bedroom
As women, we need a whole lot of warming up. Like Olga from Divorce From Love said in our recent IG Live, “foreplay for women starts with coffee in the morning”. For the most part, we crave affection and connection outside of the bedroom, and when we’re not getting that it can cause us to further shut down when we are touched because it feels like there’s an expectation attached to it #NotAGoodSituation
So, how can we get more affection outside of the bedroom to strengthen our relationship? You can ask for it, positively reinforce when they do do it, show them the affection ourselves, or a combination of all three. Before you jump into asking for it, we definitely recommend you jumping down a bit further in this post to learn more about soft starts for a smoother combination.
Talk About Things Before They Fester
This one sounds like a no brainer, but it’s easier said than done. I think we all know what happens when we’re upset about things and don’t communicate it. We get caught up in our head, start getting pissy about all the small things, and eventually, it leads to resentment, not exactly what we’re going for. When you can push yourself to talk about these things before they start to fester, you’re in a better place to have the conversation, you’re not going down a thought spiral for days or weeks making the situation worse, and you’re able to talk it out right away, which (hopefully) means less repeated undesirable behaviour, and more connection and a stronger relationship. So get out of your head, and talk about it! BUT make sure to check out the next section about soft starts first.
Communicate With Soft Starts
Do your innocent conversations asking for help often turn into arguments? Then you need to hear about soft starts for having difficult conversations with your partner! They’re HUGE when it comes to strengthening your communication and relationship, which is something we dive deep into in UM Club Episode, Strengthening Your Communication and Connection with Licensed Therapist Sheina Shocket.
Often conversations can take a tone of, “You need to help more with the kids while I make dinner“, “Why can’t you just put the dishes in the dishwasher instead of in the sink?“, etc. And when we come from a place of you’re not doing something right, the other person understandably gets defensive. Soft starts are more about stating the situation and how you feel, and then having a roadmap for how to make it better.
For example, “I think you can notice that I’m really struggling around dinner time. With all of the noise and kids, and making the actual meal, I get really overwhelmed and I hate how I take it out on you and the kids. I was thinking about how I could make it better and I think it would be really helpful if after you get home and settled, if I could have 5 minutes alone to chill out a bit before starting dinner, and it may be helpful if you or the kids could help set the table too. What do you think about that?“. Do you see the difference? It takes practice, but it makes a world of difference for opening up your communication to work together and strengthen your relationship. And remember, bottom line, you’re on the same team. If one of you is winning, you both lose. It’s not about winning an argument, it’s about coming together to find a solution.
Have Regular Connection Time
Much like affection outside of the bedroom, we need that solid connection time too. It’s so easy to fall into co-habitating phases where you’re each sitting on the couch at opposite sides doing your own thing, and while there is definitely a time and a place for that, it’s important to mix in actual connection time to strengthen your bond and relationship. Date nights are fantastic, it’s great to get out of the house, perhaps dress up a little, but they’re not always that easy to do consistently, hello parenting throughout years of a pandemic. So here’s some ideas to get the ball rolling so you can have more connection time:
- Snuggle and watch a movie together
- Listen to a podcast and chat about it while tackling a household chore together
- Run errands together without the kids
- Have coffee together in the morning before the kids wake up
- Make a meal together
- Do yard work together
- Exercise together
Tips and Tricks For Having Difficult Conversations With Your Partner
Here’s a few quick tips to help you with those difficult conversations with your partner.
Talk While in the Car
It’s so much less pressure when you don’t have that eye contact, and when you’re in the car you’re kind of stuck together so it makes it a bit easier to actually work through the conversation instead of dismissing or avoiding it.
Talk While Going For a Walk
This is a tip from recent UM Club episode, Sex Positive Monogamy where Katie Roberts shared that men can be much more receptive to awkward or tough conversations. Having the physical movement can help regulate the feelings that come up, plus low pressure with minimal eye contact.
Listen to Podcasts as a Conversation Starter
Let people like me, Kate from Clit Talk, or Olga from Divorce for love do the awkward ice breakers for you. Put on a podcast about something you’re interested in talking about, and let that be your conversation starter.
And that wraps up our post about how to strengthen your relationship. Have questions or comments? Leave them in the comment section below, or join the conversation on social media where we break through taboos to talk about the real things impacting moms today. Want to dig a little deeper? Make sure to check out the blog posts and UM Club episodes below.
Other Articles and Episodes You May Be Interested In
5 Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life
Strengthening Your Communication and Connection with Licensed Therapist Sheina Shocket from Love After Baby
Sex Positive Monogamy with Nurse and Executive Producer of the top-rated sexuality podcast Katie Roberts from Clit Talk
Holistic Divorce with Divorce Coach and Author Olga Nadal from Holistic Divorce and Divorce For Love
Modern Swinger Lifestyle
