Do you feel a sense of persistent disconnection with your partner? Do you realize that there are numerous issues that you and your spouse need to address that you can’t seem to ever get around to? Do you and your partner have financial stress and strain that you can’t resolve together? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, then you need to read on to help your relationship.
The Need for a Relationship Check-ins Has Never Been Greater
We are in a time when so many couples are suffering from significant degrees of disconnection, and there’s never been more need for relationship check-ins than there is today. Couples are so fraught with taking care of older family members or children, as well as having scheduled their days and weeks such that it allows for a little time for you as a couple to have time to just talk about things in an uninterrupted space. Add to that the distractions of cell phones, Internet technology, and the opportunities to talk one-to-one undistracted are severely limited.
Relationship Check-ins, and the Distraction Culture
If you find yourself and your partner struggling to have time to talk about anything that’s of any importance, you are definitely in the majority. That doesn’t negate the need to find time to talk about important matters, both emotional and financial that are impacting your family situation. Finding time to do this can be a tremendous source of difficulty, but the need regardless is still there.
How Relationship Check-ins Can Work
It is first a matter of setting aside some time, hopefully as much as a half hour every week or two for you and your partner to sit down uninterrupted and be able to talk face-to-face about things that are going on in the relationship. In the book Marriage Meetings for Lasting Love, Naomi Berger, LCSW offers one format for how these meetings can work. Having some basic structure of talking about things that you appreciate or are grateful for in your partner, as well as discussing to-do’s, planning for fun activities for the two of you, as well as addressing any manageable or bite-size issues of an emotional nature can be very important to discuss. You can also meet to talk about finances, but these may need to be separate meetings that are scheduled on a time when you’re not doing the relationship check-ins.
Common Issues in Relationship Check-ins
The first of these is finding a time when the two of you can meet undisturbed. In many cases, childcare issues can get in the way of being able to have these meetings. The check-in times could conceivably be shorter, but that can come at the expense of being able to have quality time to talk. It is important also in talking about emotional issues to be able to keep these to low to moderate level intensity issues, rather than big ones that really need a lot of time to discuss. It's also important to be able to limit the discussions about the issues to only the current issue at hand, rather than getting into the long history of this or other related or unrelated issues, which was dubbed ‘kitchen-sinking’ by the famous couples therapist Esther Perel.
What If You and Your Partner Struggle with Relationship Check-ins?
I’ve been helping my clients and improving their relationships for my entire social work career, and have used relationship check-ins to better my own marriage as well. Struggles with couples meetings can be a sign of the need for couples therapy. I’d be happy to talk to you about whether I might be able to help you in your situation. I encourage you to fill out the form below or call the number at the top of the page to get a free 20 minute virtual consult scheduled to help you get a better idea about whether I can help you in your situation. You do owe it to yourself and to your relationship and family to be able to take care of and address issues as they arise, instead of letting them accumulate and become overwhelming. I support you in making the best and first step in reaching out for the help that you, your partner, and your family need and deserve.
Visit our page on couples therapy to find out how Scott can help you with couples check ins.
About the author: Scott Kampschaefer, LCSW is a private practice therapist in Frederick, Maryland. He has an extensive background in working with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder at a clinic for older adults with these disorders in Austin, Texas. He now works with adults and adolescents 14 and up in private practice. His most recent book is titled The 5 Pillars of Addiction Recovery and is available for purchase on Amazon and in paperback on this website.