10 Ideas to Stay Connected to Your Partner

“I miss you, sweetie.”

This was a com­ment my fiancé made today. He doesn’t mean he misses see­ing me, but rather he is feel­ing dis­con­nected. It has been a hec­tic week so far and, as he put it, this week feels like we are just pass­ing in a hall, but not connecting.

He’s right; it’s how I feel as well. Chores, tend­ing to our kids, din­ner prep, and work, all attrib­uted to this. Arriv­ing home from teach­ing at 10:30 last night after work­ing an 11-hour day didn’t help either. I am not wor­ried though because the fiancé and I know the for­mula for suc­cess to keep our rela­tion­ship healthy. It’s sim­ple, actually:

Do the work nec­es­sary to keep the rela­tion­ship on track.

Last week­end, for exam­ple, we had a kid-free, relaxed week­end to reen­er­gize our rela­tion­ship after the busy work­week last week. We were slow to get up in the morn­ing, went to two movies, had interruption-free con­ver­sa­tions (hard with four kids at home), ate out at great restau­rants, enjoyed cook­ing together, and watched hockey. To us, it was perfect.

Real­is­ti­cally, it’s not always pos­si­ble to carve out that much alone time for most busy couples.

Here are some quick, easy ways to do the work to stay con­nected when life gets busy:

1. Place a love note in a brief­case or coat pocket.
2. Reach out in the mid­dle of the day with an I-love-you text or email. Bet­ter yet, a quick call.
3. Do some­thing unex­pected.
4. Estab­lish a weekly in-home date night. It could be watch­ing a video, see­ing your favorite TV show, or hav­ing a later din­ner with­out the kids.
5. When you have that moment to con­nect, give all of your atten­tion to your part­ner (i.e., no elec­tronic devices)
6. Wake up ten min­utes ear­lier to snug­gle before the day begins.
7. Email a link to a YouTube video of a spe­cial song you both love.
8. Slow dance in the mid­dle of the liv­ing room.
9. Get up early enough to see the sun rise together before going to work.
10. Ask about the other’s day, and lis­ten attentively.

Please share: what are the small ways you work to keep your rela­tion­ship fresh and healthy?

by Kelly Sajo­nia

Kelly Sajo­nia is a writer for many sites, but spends most of her time writ­ing for her award-winning blog Naked Girl in a Dress. Her inspi­ra­tional blog cel­e­brates redis­cov­er­ing life and love at any age. Kelly also has a full ser­vice social media mar­ket­ing busi­ness, runs a social media site for writ­ers, teaches blog­ging, and occa­sion­ally takes a pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­phy gig.

Kelly Sajonia

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