Five steps to reconnect with your partner

You get home, shattered. Your partner’s shattered. The kids are too loud, too demanding and far too enthusiastic for the evening. You all need feeding, watering and attention. Then your head hits the pillow, and the cogs still aren’t slowing down.

Where in your days and weeks do you catch up with your partner? How many weeks drift by without either of you realising you aren’t really connecting at a deeper level?

This can be the slippery slope to coexisting with each other before drifting apart emotionally.

Don’t let love slip away. Something that has worked wonders with many couples is so simple it almost sounds untrue until you do it.

Five steps to reconnect with your partner

Step 1: Dedicate one hour each week to catch up with each other

Each person gets to speak about anything on their mind, whether it’s work, the future or the relationship. No input is required unless requested. Just listen.

Step 2: Discuss any feelings that are preventing you from loving fully

It could be an unaddressed midweek argument or a disagreement about the in-laws. Whatever it is, discuss it in a loving, sensitive and productive manner.

One of Stephen Covey’s habits from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Step 3: Label different things going on in your lives as “projects”

Spend time catching up on what each of you thinks or has done on each one.

It might be discussing which school to send the kids to, moving abroad, renovating the house, or simply ensuring each weekend has some quality time where you have fun and connect.

Leaving any one project to drag on and on may bother one person more than the other. This can be avoided by a quick catch-up, and it is a way of actively designing the life you want to share.

Don’t let life-clutter get in the way of love.

Step 4: Think of everything you can be grateful for, individually and as a couple

This can help you remember what is working, not only what needs attention.

Step 5: Schedule the next catch-up

Celebrate the feeling of connecting fully and designing your life together.

Now, I said at the start that it was simple, and as you can see, it is. The challenge is doing it regularly. Start this weekend.