How to stick together with your partner

In the next 3 minutes you are going to learn:

• Why it is important to experience negative emotions and let your partner do the same.
• Why you should spend time separately despite living together.

The coronavirus era is beyond doubt an unprecedented experience for you. Being locked up in your house, you have to spend more time than ever before in there, adjusting your work, your relationships, your family, the childcare of your kids and your household organization to this new reality. Even your social life depends on technology. On top of that, you have to handle not only your feelings of worry and perhaps fear, but also the negative feelings of your loved ones.

Many changes are happening simultaneously, so you are absolutely right to feel tense and awkward. Remember though that there are many life lessons we all need to learn, so an incident which gives you a hard time today is a lesson to make you stronger and more conscious.

Another thing that is extremely important is your relationship with your partner which may be put to the test due to the setbacks caused by the pandemic. To take care of your relationship in the best possible way take the following seven steps:

1. Allow yourself and your partner to experience your feelings. When you give yourself permission to experience your full range of emotions it is likely to wind down and be relieved from stress. This understanding makes negative emotions disappear much more quickly. Acknowledge that it is normal for your partner to experience more negative emotions and tension. He or she will need to find his/her own way to handle these emotions, so don’t expect him/her to be your only source of relief from stress.
2. Take care of yourself. Taking care of your relationship should begin with taking care of yourself. What is your daily self-care routine? For example, if you used to work out find a new way to include exercise in your daily routine. Endorphins released when you exercise are valuable for handling stress and improving the mood.
3. Schedule effectively your everyday life. Create a plan together with your partner especially if you have a family. A nice routine including good nutrition, exercise, good sleep with regular bedtime for the whole family, will help you be productive and at the same time creative during the day. Create a timetable including work time, self-care and fun time, as well as time with your partner and family.
4. Maintain your daily schedule. If you manage to maintain your daily schedule you will balance your relationship and family. There will be a role for everyone and every role, as well as your daily schedule will be clearly defined. There will be a sense of joy, satisfaction and development.
5. Define your personal space. It is very important for you to have a personal space to isolate, whether you use this space for rest, work or self-care. Instead of being together all the time, you should spend time with your partner as you have jointly planned.
6. Praise your partner wittingly. Maybe you haven’t learnt how to be the perfect partner. But if you do your best to please your partner and every chance you get you acknowledge his good behavior and thank him/her, it will definitely affect your relationship positively. The more grateful you are, the more moments to be grateful for you will experience. Remember that being grateful is a positive multiplier.
7. Increase your positivity. It is crucial to increase your positivity during this time. Choose wisely the sources of your daily updates. Your subconscious is quite vulnerable to negative information, so you need to protect it. Communicate with optimistic people avoiding to talk about bad news. Give your mind positive food for thought on a daily basis by reading a book, attending a self-improvement seminar or doing anything that works best for you.

Finally, you could establish a weekly meeting every Sunday with your partner and your family to plan the coming week in the best possible way. There are so many things in life which are out of our control and now we are more aware of that than ever before. But it is relaxing to have a plan including positive behaviors which are under our control and positively affect our lives.