It's late in the evening, the kids are in bed, you have a few more dishes to wash and one more paper to grade. Your husband took off a half hour to watch “the game” and now he too has deskwork to finish. Exhausted you both climb into bed. He falls to sleep immediately. You toss and turn, desiring to talk or even to make-love. Tears slowly trickle down your cheeks as you listen to his gentle snoring. Or, it could be the other way round. You have finally put the baby to bed and before your head hits the pillow you are ”out”. Your husband misses you and reaches out to give you a hug. You are so soundly asleep, you don't even feel his tentative caress. Disappointed and feeling empty, he picks up a book and wonders, what happened to the spontaneity we once had? What has happened to “us”?

As cold as it may seem, blocking out time for relationships, much as one might block out time for a business meeting or a soccer game, is a smart choice to make. Too many couples wind up giving at the office with little left to give at home. All too easily, partners forget what they originally saw in their mate and what made them fall in love in the first place.

In day's gone bye, people lived more regulated lives. They resided in communities or smaller towns where mom usually stayed at home, or if both partners worked, they spent their time predictably working eight or ten-hour days, family time was an automatically built in event. However now, especially with the advent of the ubiquitous computer, people work ever expanding and unpredictable hours and all too often family time has become a sloppy interval, squeezed in between life's other activities.

When a couple comes to me for help, I try to encourage new habits such a weekly lunch together or a date night once a week. Such changes can make an amazing difference in a couple's or even a family's relationship. Couples tend to forget what each other look like out of a pair of jeans or their old comfortable bathrobe. Slowly, as they meet mid-day when each is excited about their daily activities, they remember the person they chose to live with-their delightful quirks, or sense of humor, how smart they are, how attractive, or just that something special about the bond that brought them together.

Few couples last happily and unharriedly from weekend to weekend without a mid-week date. Five days without real communication is too long a gap to try and make up over a busy weekend half filled with errands and other obligations. Even our kids are so over-programmed, that they rarely have time just to be themselves and to know their parents in a spontaneous and unstructured way.

Take a hint from business world structure and emulate it in your personal life. Make a memo to build in time for those you love. They are the most precious and sustaining relationships you have. Take time to work at them. The rewards will be worth it and the relationship you save may be your own.

Life is too hard to do alone,

Dr. D.

Dorree Lynn, PH.D.
Nationally Syndicated Talk Show Host
On The Couch

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