With long working hours and the never-ending struggle of juggling your home life with your professional life, you may feel that you spend too little quality time with your partner or spouse. And if you work radically different hours, you may find that whenever you do have spare time, they are working – and vice versa. This can make it incredibly difficult to enjoy time together and put a real strain on your relationship.
When you live parallel lives you often miss out on the fun things that other couples take for granted such as meals out, trips to the cinema, or simply snuggling down together in front of the television. Here are some ways to keep your relationship strong even when you struggle to find quality time together.
Make the time you do have count – don’t spend time arguing about who has the worst job, or who should take a bigger share of the household chores. Instead, value your time together and make it special.
Have a long-term plan – you might put up with the short-term pain of missing each other if you can see the long-term gain – for example, if you are studying for a qualification or your partner is putting in extra hours to secure a promotion. But if you can’t see an end to your current situation, you may want to reassess your priorities and make big changes so that you can spend more time together.
Keep in touch – even if you can’t get together during the week, make time to keep in touch by text or email.
Sit down and schedule – once a month, sit down together and look at your diaries to find those little pockets of valuable time where you are both available to spend a weekend, day, or even just an evening together. Having regular time to look forward to really helps when you are missing one another.
Make sure you know how they are feeling – when you’re busy it’s easy to forget to ask ‘how are you’. So rather than rushing out of the door, find five extra minutes to catch up on your news and make sure your partner is okay before heading off.
Rekindle common interests – when you hardly ever see your partner, you may find that you quickly lead separate lives that appear to have nothing in common. Find a couple of hobbies that you can enjoy together – even something as simple as reading the same book, will draw you back together and give you something to talk about when you do get together.
Agree how you will manage the household chores – if you’ve worked a busy nightshift, you don’t want to come home in the morning to find last night’s dishes are still unwashed. But equally, when you’re facing a hectic day at work, you simply might not have the time for housework before you rush out the door. Have a system for dealing with the housework so that little niggles don’t turn into bigger problems.
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