‘we don’t have time to spend just being together…’

♡LOVE NOTE – Saturday December 3rd, 2011

Travelling to teach the Getting The ♡LOVE You Want Couples Workshop this morning we drove along Melbourne’s Yarra River at about 8am. What an amazing amount of people were out and about this early on a Saturday morning!

Paths full of people jogging and walking, groups of fitness classes on the lawn, rowers on the river, parents running with their kids in prams or on scooters, bicyclists, groups of people having BBQ and picnic breakfasts. Such an active and alive place.

I started thinking about how this same scene is repeated in Brisbane and Perth and Seattle and in fact any city or town we come into… And thinking about how committed people are to their physical fitness and how much time and energy and money they invest in it. And that most of the people out and about do seriously schedule regular time into their day and week.

Then I started reflecting on how much time people invest in their relationship fitness and health and spending time being with their partners.

One of the most common things we hear is

‘We don’t have the time to spend just being together…’

“We don’t have the time to go out on dates together and have fun, or the time to talk about things that are about us and not the kids, or work, or the finances or the house or the chores, or_____________(fill in the repeated topic that comes up over and over between you and your partner), or even the time to have sex! There is no time for us!”

What we do know is couples need to have regular time to totally focus on each other and their relationship without outside distractions.

All relationships need regular time for enrichment and the sheer indulgence of each other and time for connection and caring.

And unfortunately, one of the biggest reasons marriages/committed relationships fail is that partners don’t spend enough time together, especially ♡LOVE-ing and ★FuN time.

Questions for you:
Do you schedule and spend daily connecting and ♡LOVE-ing time with your partner?
A good way to find out is to ask your partner and/or the people who you care about, if they think you are available.
Do you prioritize them in your daily schedule?

♡MIRROR their sharing.

NOTE: You can apply this same format to your children and family and friends as well as to your primary ♡LOVE relationship.

CALL TO ACTION:
There is a practice that we suggest and teach which is called the
♡FOUR CRITICAL MOMENTS EXERCISE or
♡TEN DAILY FOCUS MINUTES

The idea is there are 4 critical moments in each day that will set the tone of the relationship throughout the day. By attending to these 4 special times each day, which only takes 10 minutes in total, you will create an atmosphere and a mood that will benefit any relationship.

By the phrase “critical moment” we mean

an “important, crucial, key moment” in the day.

Professor ♡John Gottman, who is the Executive Director of the Gottman Relationship Research Institute in Seattle, Washington [https://www.gottman.com/] that was created to foster research on marriage/committed relationships, couples, parenting and families has gained international repute as a researcher who KNOWS what makes marriages last and what makes them fall apart.

He suggested that the two most important times of each day for couples are the first 4 minutes both partners are awake and the first 4 minutes they are both home in the evening.

Dr ♡Linda Duncan, Professor and Director of the Professional Counseling Program at Tarleton State University added the idea of the morning “Goodbye” and the evening “Goodnight”.

Dr ♡Gary Brainerd – http://www.relationship-help.com/ – one of our valued Imago Relationship Therapy colleagues, created a form for couples to fill in where they interview each other to discover what are the WORDS, TOUCH and BEHAVIOURS they would like at the 4 critical moments in the day.

Essentially in this process couples are identifying the ♡LOVE Language of each partner and creating a do-able relationship-strengthening process which
– takes just a few minutes,
– is something anyone can do and
– it will indeed pay big dividends in terms of your relationship.

♡Gary has also developed A HANDOUT that goes through in detail the sort of options that one could fill in for The Four Critical Moments Exercise.

He gives examples of WORDS, TOUCH and BEHAVIOURS.

Emotional Bank Account

10 minutes a day is a good beginning and a minimal amount of time needed for ♡LOVE and intimacy to grow.

Think about the time you spend together like deposits in each others ♡EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT. The more you deposit the richer your ♡LOVE and life will be.

Research proves that 90% of your HAPPINESS OR MISERY is dependent on your primary ♡LOVE relationship.  It is important then that people invest in learning how to do this well.

Spending a minimum of just 10 minutes of each day of quality time nurturing and strengthening your ♡LOVE for your partner and your primary relationship is fundamental to creating success.

♡FOUR CRITICAL MOMENTS: Making Relationships/Marriage Work

A.     4 Minute ♡GOOD MORNING Time 

Words:
Touch:
Behaviours:

B.     1 Minute ♡GOODBYE

Words:
Touch:
Behaviours:

C.     4 Minute ♡RE-CONNECTING Time

Words:
Touch:
Behaviours:

D.     1 Minute ♡GOOD NIGHT 

Words:
Touch:
Behaviours:

Imagining you exploring, discovering, indulging and connecting…

♡LOVE and Gratitude, Susie.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

See this post for a detailed account of the ♡EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT: Break-Throughs & Break-Ups happen every single day

For a copy of INTERVIEW HANDOUT leave a request in the Comments below.

For those doing the 30 Day Being-♥LOVE Campaign with your partner as the focus of your ♡LOVE-ing, this Exercise is a great way to make deposits in their ♡Emotional Bank Accounts. You might also like to adopt the ♡FOUR CRITICAL MOMENTS as a structure for when you do your ♡LOVE-ing actions.