Amy L. Johnson, MFT, PCC Trainee Under Supervision of: Jon M. Holmes, LMFT #45850 Materials Taken From: Dr. Vivian M. Baruch Couns 60 MINUTES TOGETHER Set a time limit of 60 minutes. This keeps it manageable. Aim to meet when you’re not too tired or hungry. Find a quiet place and minimize interruptions. It’s better to sit facing each other and make direct eye contact. Good times are when the kids are in bed or during a weekend afternoon. Keep your calendars and notebooks handy. Meetings should ideally contain four parts: Appreciation, Planning for the Good Times, Chores, and Problems/Challenges. These four parts combined together will renew your romance, solidify your friendship, stop potential conflicts before they begin, and help you smoothly run your household. Appreciation: All relationship meetings should begin with exchanges of gratitude. Start by talking about what has gone well in your relationship since the last meeting. Spending a few minutes expressing gratitude for each other brings closeness and opens up your hearts so you can love and listen to each other. You remind yourselves that you are fighting for each other, not against each other. Give each other five appreciations. Focus on specific actions. Making this a habit also means your mind focuses throughout the week on what you are grateful for. Look for what your partner is doing right. What you focus on grows. Planning for the Good Times: This is where you discuss upcoming events, dates and vacations. You make plans for when these things will happen and you make decisions about how to make these happen. This is the time to plan upcoming date nights. Discuss restaurants you’d like to try or activities you might enjoy. Put these ideas in a shared “fun” folder or jar. Add activities to your shared calendar. When you take time to plan you show each other and yourself that your relationship is important. Chores: This time is the “business of the meeting.” Here is when each of you talk about things that need to be completed, share calendar items, and discuss assignments. Arrange the list by priority. Take the time to assign who will do each task and by when. This is standard procedure in work meetings, so bring your work skills home. Brainstorm the best possible solutions. If you go by the shops on your way to work, perhaps it’s easier for you to pick up some items. It’s also good to assign tasks your kids. They need to feel part of the household and benefit greatly from being shown from an early age how to contribute to the family. Remember that chores are not meant to be split 50-50. A study in Norway found that couples who split housework evenly were more likely to divorce. If you’re keeping score on such things, you’ve already lost the battle. Happy couples work together as a team. There’s no my work or your work. It’s your home, so it’s our work. Think of this as a time to serve each other and the family. If you both give 100%, what needs to be done will get done. Problems/Challenges: You need to feel connected and invested in your relationship before beginning this part. If it helps, set a timer to make sure problems are not harped on until one or both of you shut down or become defensive. Keep in mind that 69% of relationship problems are never solved – that’s true in every relationship! You need to keep talking about issues to avoid gridlocking or stalemating on them. When there is “good enough” communication and a real desire to work together, couples usually see that the positive qualities in their relationship outweigh the negative qualities. Each partner is now given a chance to bring up a concern they’re having. Do this by complaining about the issue, not by blaming your partner. This is not a time for dumping on each other. Bring up only one grievance at each meeting. Work together to decide who will start as the speaker and who will start as the listener. The speaker will share their perspective of the event for a few minutes, without interruption, as the listener takes notes about what the speaker is saying.