CONNECT TWO

12 STATEGIC TIPS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR MATE

Seeking more of a love connection with your partner? Who isn’t? Yes, the strains and demands of
parenthood can certainly atrophy a couple’s sense of closeness. Here, career and life coach Renée
Peterson Trudeau gives you her best advice on how to nurture your relationship with your significant other.

“You can be right or you can be in a relationship.” —Anonymous

Connect Two

1. Make your relationship a priority.
Devote energy and time to the relationship. A marriage is a living, breathing organism. It needs time, space, love and attention to stay intact. If it’s not on your radar or is not a priority, it will fall apart, just like anything that is neglected.

2. Schedule (and keep) regular dates. Ideally, you should have a date with your partner at least every two weeks — three to four hours of time for the two of you to connect, talk and just be alone together. You can have some of your dates at home in the evening if you can’t get a sitter, but I recommend you ban any conversation having to do with kids or money. Also, save movie watching for another night, since it keeps you from engaging in conversation.

3. Nurture yourself first, so you feel like giving to your partner. If neither of you is making your self-care a priority, you won’t feel like nurturing the relationship. Schedule alone time for self-renewal just like you would schedule a doctor’s appointment. Then you’ll be able to fully enjoy and be more present during your time alone together.

4. Touch each other every day. Hugs and kisses in the morning and at the end of the day, quick neck or shoulder massages, gentle arm touches and holding hands are all thoughtful gestures and easy ways to stay physically and emotionally connected to your partner.

5. Create a bedroom that celebrates your marriage. A feng shui consultant once asked me, “Why do you have all these pictures of single women up in your bedroom? Where are the pictures of you and your husband?” Great point. Hang up pictures and place mementos of the two of you in your bedroom: special photos, candles, your intention statement or anything else that celebrates your partnership. Some people even create marriage altars in their bedrooms for these special things. Try to have your bedroom be a toy-free zone; make it a space for relaxation and connection.

6. Get your financial house in order (or at least discuss it!). The top two reasons couples fight stem from issues around money and communication. Make a commitment to have monthly discussions about finances, create a budget, address your debt, decide who will pay bills each month, meet with a financial planner or coach, or find a way to come to peace with your money issues. Everyone has them. Decide how and when you and your partner are going to address yours in a way that best supports your relationship.

7. Get support, sooner than later. Don’t wait until things get really bad to get the support of a therapist or relationship coach. Visit www.imagotherapy.com to find an Imago therapist near you (a really effective dialogue-based therapy model), ask friends for referrals, or if your partner is unwilling to go to marriage counseling, go by yourself. Author Wayne Dyer says, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

8. Develop some ground rules or learn some tools for communicating with your partner. Relationship work can be challenging, and many of us don’t have strong models to follow. In my marriage, one of our reminders to each other is “do you want to be right or be in relationship?” I also often resort to “quiet breaks” when I feel like I’ve reached my limit and am about to blow. It’s always better to go this route than to say things you may later regret. I also know that my partner shuts down and withdraws when my voice escalates, so I try to be mindful of that. One friend sits down with her partner every Sunday night and they have family planning meetings for the upcoming week to ensure they’re communicating and are on the same page. They find it helpful, too, to give one another a heads-up if one of them has a particularly challenging week ahead and may need some extra support and TLC.

9. Take turns stating your relationship needs. “Three things I need from our relationship are ...” Simple but powerful. Your needswillchange depending on the time of the year, your life stage and your kids’ ages.
Intention Statement

10. Connect every day for at least 10 minutes. At the end of each day, share your high and low moment of the day.

11. Go away alone together for the weekend or for at least 24 hours. Have a family member help out or swap child care with a mom friend. You can stay in town at a hotel or visit a nearby bed and breakfast. I am always amazed by how powerful it is to be alone with your partner in a new environment. I have had friends who were on the brink of separation return from weekend trips and share that the getaway helped them see their partner and relationship in a whole new light. They felt reconnected.

12. Write an intention statement for your partnership. This can be a powerful way to communicate what you want your relationship to represent. Frame your statement and place it in your bedroom in a visible spot.

These tips were inspired by Trudeau’s book The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life. Visit www.reneetrudeau.com to receive monthly self-renewal and life-balance tips, order the book or learn how to start/join a self-renewal circle using the guide. Trudeau is a career/life-balance coach and president of Austin-based Career Strategists.