Couples in Quarantine

Work, school, church, entertainment, food prep and clean up. More of these things are happening at home during this pandemic, and they are happening all the time. But there is no more space in the home for these things. Just about every function of life now has to happen from home.

For couples who are trying to make this all happen, scrambling to make sure they are accomplishing their work, uncertain about whether their job will even continue, trying to appear professional in a Zoom call in their staged Zoomroom in a home that might look like a disaster area just outside of camera view, negotiating work space and technology with their partner - couples feel the added pressure of carving out space for work that only a few weeks ago was intended specifically for not working.

Couples with children are trying accomplish this work scenario while managing their children's education, feeding their children meals, while managing and attending to their children's presence emotionally while feeling the grind of a collection of additional responsibilities.

All of the normal routines of presence and sound are limited and changed with work and school boundaries dictating the patterns and rhythms of home. Where you can be. What you can wear. Sounds you can and cannot make. Tasks you can and cannot perform.

It's no longer safe to walk around in your pajamas or less in your own home because someone else might be on a Zoom call.

It's no longer safe to yell something into the other room because all of your partner's co-workers might hear it.

Who gets the good space to their videoconferencing? Who gets the good computer? Who gets the...?

More communication is required in order to arrive at shared expectations of limited time and space. While each is trying to persist in continuity of work and school, couples are having to do all of that in space that was supposed to be a sanctuary from all of that.

Here is some "couples in quarantine" advice:

1. Have a couple meeting for the purpose of getting all of the needs on the table. Your work and school is asking for access to your time and your space. Get a sense for how much is being asked of each of you and you as a couple. It will surprise you just how much is being asked of you when you get it all on the table.

Take a breath.

2. Have empathy for what your partner is going through. You know the adjustments you are having to make, but you might not have considered how challenging it is for your partner. Giving the empathy your partner needs can go a long way toward getting the empathy you hope you could get.

3. Acknowledge what you've lost. You've lost considerable structure, rhythm, and space. Couples both working from home have lost a lot of freedoms they have enjoyed in their homes. Even though this loss is temporary, it is still a loss. Acknowledge it. It is ok to feel sad, angry, pressured, imposed upon. Every unexpressed feeling will assert itself in some other way if neglected for too long.

4. Encourage one another that this is temporary and you're committed to doing what it takes to get through this. Your partner is your most important relational asset right now. Nurture that relationship with empathy and encouragement.

5. Set up regular check-ins to assess how you're doing in managing this new way of using home space. What is working and what needs adjustment. Keep blame out of this meeting, but make sure to acknowledge everything your partner does that is working well.

The added pressure this pandemic is adding to couples is significant. It can feel like a grind. It is. The opportunity for couples is that they can sharpen their efforts at mutuality, empathy, encouragement, support, and communication.

Aroma Therapy

Aroma Therapy

One of my favorite memories as a child was roast for lunch after Sunday morning church. Upon arriving home from church on Sunday we were met with the most delicious, mouth-watering, and savory aroma off all time. Roast. I would walk into the house after church, and it surprised me in the most pleasant and wonderful way every time. Oh yeah, roast!

I never saw the preparation my mother did each Sunday morning. I was still asleep or in the shower while mom got out the roasting pan and cut onions, carrots, and potatoes. She even made mashed potatoes. I did not see her planning earlier in the week to make sure all the elements of the roast feast were in place. I did not go to Rainbow grocery store and see her select just the right roast for the Sunday meal. I did not see any of the labor that went into making that aroma possible. I have no memory of any of the preparations.

What I cannot forget is the aroma.

Furthermore, growing up in Minnesota added to the delight. In the cold winter months when the drive to and from church was not long enough to get the car warm in the below zero air, we just stayed cold and bundled up going from one place to another. However, when we arrived home, we would all hurry from the car into the house to get warm. On Sundays, we piled the house to fell the rush of warmth at the same time as that first whiff of the roast aroma. It felt like the roast itself warmed our frigid skin.

I smiled at the aroma of roast. In the midst of the aroma of roast, it is almost impossible to be down, sad, grumpy, and out of sorts. The aroma is re-orienting, re-directing, and the most inviting distraction to whatever it was I was worried about, but somehow now can’t recall. The power of a delightful and delicious aroma is difficult to overestimate. But it is not the power of force; instead, it is the power of irresistible invitation. My mother could have worked all day long telling me to be happy or to smile or get over it, but instead she made roast and the happiness and the smiling took care of itself.

When it comes to relationships, whether the relationship is intimate like marriage, functional like work, social like neighbors, spiritual like church, or some meaningful interplay of two or more of these, the power of roast can tell us something. We accomplish something substantial when we go through the effort to create a delightful and delicious relational aroma.

We all have desired outcomes for our relationships, no matter the kind of relationship. We all want healthy, safe, trusting, meaningful, and effective relationships. We want to be a good relationship partner in intimate, work, social, and other relationships. We also want partners who are good partners. Sometimes when it feels like the partner is not holding up their end, it can be tempting to get that partner to do their part by force. And there may be times when that is appropriate. However, the reality is that you have very limited ability to force much in another person before they feel coerced, manipulated, and objectified.

Instead, working on yourself to be an inviting and delicious aroma (context) for the other person may be what inspires the very best in that other person. Being a good relational aroma inspires connection rather than resistance. Being a good relational aroma puts the sense of goodness and safety everywhere. A good relational aroma builds the anticipation that something good is going to happen while also relieving other people of the fear or anxiety about something bad that might happen.

Good relational aroma takes work – on yourself. Just like the Sunday morning roast didn’t just magically happen Sunday at noon, you cannot be a good relational aroma in an instant. There is prep work. There is planning. There are aspects to the work that have no aroma at all – and some parts of it can bring tears like cutting onions. The relational and spiritual discipline it takes to be an inviting and delicious aroma in your relationships requires behind the scene work. 

But it’s worth it. The effort worth that delightful, delicious, and irresistible aroma. Can you smell it? Yum.

Rules of Attraction in Romantic Relationships

Rules of attraction in romantic relationships:

1.     Do not confuse attraction with compatibility. Sometimes opposites attract, as they saying goes. However, attraction does not mean that people can get along, especially when times get difficult dues to outside stressors or conflict between each other. Attraction may serve as a relational onramp to investigate whether there is compatibility, but is not sufficient to discern whether a relationship has what it takes to last.

2.     Just because there is attraction does not mean there has to be action. Some people think attraction means much more than it actually does, that it requires that there be an investigation of whether a relationship could happen. The reality is that you will find attractive qualities in people throughout your life. This person is beautiful and that person has a great personality while this other person is oozing with courage – all attractive. Each may inspire feelings of attraction. What does it mean? It means they are attractive, not that there must be some sense of whether there could be something between you and that person. God intentionally made people attractive, but not for the purpose of your acquisition.

3.     Attraction is generally chemical; love is decisional. Attraction is in large measure a natural chemical reaction that feels good, but is all too often mistaken for love. Attraction, as special and awesome as it is, is not love. Attraction takes no effort or investment – it just sort of spontaneously happens as neurons fire in the brain. Love, on the other hand, is volitional. Love takes effort, thought, intention, and most importantly, love takes time. You can know in one second whether you are attracted to someone, but you cannot know whether you are in love. Attraction is like lightning. It is instant, powerful, and pretty much out of control. Attraction holds lots of energy, but is hard to do much with. Love is like a garden. There is intention in planting. There is nurturing through feeding and watering. There is waiting for growth. And in the end, there is a harvest that sustains.

4.     Attraction is not going to be what gets your relationship through hard times. Attraction disappears in interpersonal conflict and it can’t pay the bills. In hard times (and every relationship will have many of them), the brain needs to function in other ways than attraction. The feel good firing of the neurons shift to problem solving and sometimes survival neuron firing. Hinging an entire relationship on the spontaneous firing of neurons that cause initial attraction is like banking on birthday cake for all of your body’s nutritional needs. You can try it, but it cannot sustain a relationship through the long haul.

5.     Attraction alone depends on qualities that, in general, fade over time. Attraction is often linked to some physical characteristic or ability. These characteristics generally fade over time. Skin wrinkles, hair greys, body parts sag, younger people outflank your swagger, muscles soften, and in general, people age. People who count on that initial attraction as the glue for sustaining the relationship over time will be disappointed and lose motivation to be in the relationship. Any attractive quality found in one person can be found in another. Therefore, they may seek out another when that glue no longer sticks.