269 - Close Quarters Relationships

Full transcript available

Living in close quarters

We (and many others) have given advice in the past about what to do when you’re in a long distance relationship: how to manage being apart from a partner or partners, keeping in touch, etc. However, especially with what’s going on in the world right now with the coronavirus pandemic, many people in the polyamorous community are isolated with one partner and aren’t used to living in such close quarters or spending so much time together. Pandemics aside, this could also occur if one partner has a career change and starts working from home, or other situations take place that call for spending much more time together.

Working from home

In this case, we have some tips for those of us who need to spend more time at home, as well as some on how to manage a relationship where you’re suddenly stepping all over each other.

These tips make working from home and staying home a lot much more manageable:

• Sticking to a routine. Instead of falling into the common cycle of staying up super late and then waking up in the middle of the day, adhering to a similar schedule that you might have had before can be extremely helpful in helping you maintain your mental health.

• Exercising. Exercise helps release endorphins, which will automatically brighten your mood, and spending so much time at home means some of us have more time to set attainable exercise goals.

• Siting in the sun. Vitamin D deficiency can contribute to a poor mood, and seasonal effective disorder is a real problem sometimes. Spending some time out in the sun every day can help keep your serotonin levels high and steady.

• Working on your personal mental health. Most mental health professionals are doing virtual telehealth visits, but it’s also important to speak to friends and family, or maybe use this time to journal or meditate.

• Limiting social media and media intake. Social media use raises cortisol levels, which are responsible for stress, particularly in a time like this. Additionally, spending too much time reading or watching the news can have a negative impact on your mental health. It’s not irresponsible to step back from these things for your own good.

• Letting yourself off the hook. Be gentle with yourself during this time, and don’t stress about productivity too much.

Isolating together

For those of us who are quarantined with a partner right now, sometimes it can feel like everywhere you turn you’re bumping into them. Not all of us are used to such close quarters, and taking these points into consideration can help you keep your relationship smooth during stressful times:

• Create physical distance when you can. Make sure you effectively ask for this as well. Spending time physically apart, even if it’s just in different rooms or facing away from each other, can give you some valuable alone time that all of us need sometimes.

• Divvy up housework. Even if one of you isn’t working right now or has been laid off, it’s still important to divide household chores among yourselves so one person doesn’t feel like they’re doing all the work.

• Set boundaries and relay expectations. Make sure you and your partner know how you want your work from home situation to look. Do you need complete silence for certain meetings or have confidentiality you have to adhere to for your work? Additionally, make sure you express when you need personal time or time alone.

• Continue to do check-ins or RADAR. If necessary, doing more frequent mini check-ins can also be helpful. Even if you’re spending more time together, you still need to keep having check-ins to make sure you’re both feeling okay emotionally.

• Work on your communication skills. Now is a good time to go back and utilize the Triforce of Communication, employ HALTDD if necessary, or take your relationship to the repair SHOP.

• Find the silver lining and express gratitude. If you can, take this time to enjoy having more time to spend together, and lean on each other for emotional support.

  Image credit to Disabled And Here.

Transcript

This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Jase: On this episode of The Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about strategies for dealing with an abundance of time with a partner, spouse or roommate, or maybe living and working in very close quarters with a partner, a spouse, or a roommate. Right now while we're recording this, many people are totally isolated, while others are dealing with being stuck together with other people that they're maybe not used to spending this much time with. Both for that, but also for other situations where you might find you've just moved in together and suddenly have much less space, or you've started working from home and now you're in the same space all day without the same break that you would normally.

In any case, we wanted to cover some strategies for setting up emotional and physical boundaries with your partners, creating time for yourself, as well as some other tips and tricks for close quarters relationships.

Emily: Yes, so the three of us are in different configurations of being either alone or being sequestered with another person for a very long period of time. I know we're going to get into this a little bit later as well, but I wanted to discuss how all of us are dealing with that, because I know personally I usually spend a lot of time outside of the house, and that is not the case. My life has very much changed recently in that way in the last month, and I am seeing more of my partner probably than I ever have in the five and a half years that we've been together.

For the two of you, how are you feeling on different ends of that as well?

Jase: It's funny because I feel like we've gone to the extremes of that many times already where for Dedeker and myself, like right now we're apart across different hemispheres, across the world from each other. I'd say every year, for the last few, we've spent about half the year like that. Usually not a whole six months at a time, but maybe two to three months at a time being pretty far apart. Then we'll spend other parts often pet sitting or staying at an Airbnb in some other country where we often are in a pretty small space, maybe a little one bedroom apartment, also tend to be in a place where we don't really have a social network, we don't have friends and we both work from home. It's like we go from these extremes of hardly ever seeing each other to every hour of the day pretty much being in the same space.

Dedeker: It's like interval training for your relationship, is how I'm thinking about it.

Emily: Wow, there we go. I love it.

Jase: Yes, that's good. Actually this is something that we've wanted to cover for a while and it just makes a lot of sense to do it now because over the years, we've been in both extremes and we've done a couple episodes on long distance relationships, but we've never done one on close quarters relationships. We've done someone co-habiting, which is similar, but not quite the same as you're not just living together, but you also are both working from home and so you're around each other all the time, or you're taking a long trip together, and so you're stuck together, or you're quarantined, lots of different ways that could happen.

Dedeker: Yes. For me currently, Jase and I are a part. I am staying with my partner, Alex, and that's basically been my pattern for the last couple of years, is spending part of the year with one partner, and part of the year with the other partner often alternating two or three month chunks of time essentially. It is interesting because this is the thing that I do think that, specifically people who are in non-traditional configurations for their relationships, this is a little bit of a unique situation-- At the time of this recording, we're dealing with the pandemic and isolation orders and things like that. Even outside of that, that there's a lot of people in this community who have the experience of having both a close quarters relationship and sometimes a long distance relationship, and then maybe sometimes a local relationship that's not necessarily long distance but it's not necessarily cohabiting relationship, all of those experiences at the same time, which I personally think is really cool. Other people think is really weird or stressful or things that.

Yes, for me right now, it's stuff like that dealing with both of those extremes of staying connected to a partner who's very, very far away, as well as staying with a partner where we're both working from home. I do feel I've had some good training because of the fact that Jase and I usually are from home together essentially, and so my partner, Alex, switched to working from home. It was a little bit less of a jarring transition, I guess. I think with a lot of people, they're experiencing that for the first time.

Emily: None of us have kids. We don't have that added layer of maybe potential stress.

Jase: Right. That's an added complication. Yes, definitely.

Emily: Yes, exactly, or a challenge. Usually your kid might be at school for some of the day or a daycare or something along those lines, and that's clearly not happening right now. In those instances, we can't quite talk about that from personal standpoint, but hopefully some of these things that we'll discuss will apply to that as well.

Dedeker: We're recording this at a time where pretty much everyone's had to adjust to working from home to it.

Emily: If they are still to working.

Dedeker: Yes. Adjusting to maybe being around a partner potentially, or a roommate, or a spouse, or a family member that maybe they're not used to being around all the time. We looked at some stits and stats for this specifically on the front of people working from home and how that's probably going to be increasing in the future. We're probably going to be seeing more people having to deal with close quarters relationships more frequently more in the future, but bear in mind that we understand that also there's a lot of different reasons why you may be in a close quarters relationship. You could be somebody's caregiver, for instance, the living situation, the job situation, there's so many different factors that can go into it. It's not just about working from home.

Anyway, just to look at what we might be seeing in the future. As of 2017, about 5% of all Americans worked from home, and that's around 8 million people. That number has been rising for a number of years. It's probably going to continue to rise, especially once this pandemic is over. Especially since we've seen a number of industries adjusting to people working from home, and maybe even finding, hey, this is maybe even better for us to have our employees working from home. The Gallup survey showed that 43% of Americans do work from home at least some of the time. That's almost half of the population.

Emily: That's a huge amount.

Dedeker: Yes. The median earnings for people who do work from home is higher than people who commute to their job, which is ironic because a 2017 study from Princeton University found that job applicants were willing to receive an 8% pay cut in order to be able to work from home. We are seeing that also teleconferencing, telecommuting is just increasing people's ability to remote work is increasing, and so we're going to be seeing a lot more people who are able to stay at home, get their job done, make an income, and that means maybe less of that naturally built in separation in the middle of the day.

I'm willing to bet we're going to start seeing more of this with education as well. We've already been seeing of course, for the past decade or so, a lot more online education, but I think we're going to start seeing that more for public education for school kids and things that. Even before the pandemic happened, there were already a number of budding online public schools. A friend of mine, actually a teacher at an online public school, and I think we're going to start seeing more and more of that. I don't really know enough about it to start going into what potentially could be the pros and cons of that. I do think we are going to start seeing more of that too, of kids not necessarily having that natural builtin break in the middle of the day when we're all separated.

Sorry, I don't want to go off a cliff here talking about this, but I do think it's ironic that it's as humans, we came into this world a little bit more tribal and being around each other all the time because that was our survival basis. Then now in our modern day, we have so many family relationships and friend relationships and partner relationships that I think to a certain extent sometimes only work because they're based on us separating for eight hours a day and then coming back together. I don't know. I just think it's ironic and funny.

Jase: It is interesting to think, though, that we've had this move though from, say, if you'd look way back in history, this tribal living, where you're with a relatively large group of people, though. Maybe a 100, 150 people. I think you can still be apart from other people while you're there. As opposed to there's just four of us that live in this house, and we're the only people we ever see every day, is a little different. That's not quite the same as going back to that communal living situation.

Emily: Well, yes. We haven't taught culturally. Some cultures do tend to have more of a communal living situation in terms of multiple generations in one single household. I think that specifically with this having to live together again all the time, that makes it a little bit more different than I would say, just having four or five people maybe living together, but they do, as you said, get to leave for eight hours a day or leave for even five hours or however long, they're at school or work or whatever, and then come back. I do think that this is an unprecedented time and in that being able to leave is not a thing right now.

Dedeker: Yes, I've been having this weird craving to go back to the Little House on the Prairie books.

Emily: The books?

Dedeker: Yes, because I'm thinking, I'm like, "Wow, this just feels like there's some similarities of like well, it's just like the four of us out on the prairie, and there's no one around for miles. There's nothing to do, but pull some weeds and pet a donkey, and maybe once a month, we'll take the two hour wagon ride into town, and that's our only socialization, and then we'll come back and then the rest of time, it's just like, well, I got to make the jam and do the knitting and maybe read." I don't know.

Dedeker: There's something about me that's thinking about that time, I suppose.

Emily: I love it. Well, with all of this, and I know, Jase, you are the one of the three of us who's super isolated, and I wanted to talk a little bit about that because I know when one is isolated, just in general, but definitely if you are isolated during this time and during just any point in your life, it's really important to pay attention to things like your mental and physical well being. Can you maybe talk a little bit about that? How are you coping with this time? How do you cope just in general, when you do tend to be more isolated?

Jase: Again, this right now is not my first time in that experience. For roughly similar period of time, I've been here by myself for about a month now. I've had that in the past where I've been in Japan, in a little studio apartment by myself for a month where I don't really have much of a social life or anything, and pretty much all my interaction with people happens online through video chat like this.

This is not my first time with that, which I do think was really helpful, like the interval training thing that Dedeker was talking about with the relationship, but with also just with having a very different social environment around me. For this episode, I think that there's a couple of things at work here. I think in the first half of the episode, we're going to talk more about ways to maintain your own health and mental and emotional health, while in one place all day every day, whether that's by yourself or not.

Then in the second half, we'll talk about specifically the being in that place with other people all the time, like being trapped together in a little box with other people. That's how we'll structure this, but I will say just with this first part in terms of having some social interaction and stuff, maybe it is adjusting that, but it's we're very fortunate that at least we're in a time right now where that's possible. It is possible to have a lot more social interaction, even when you're alone in a house than it was-- Just the availability of video chatting and voice calling and international calling being free if you're doing it online.

We have a lot of options now in online gaming if you want to have community that way. That's important, but that's not as much what we're going to focus on for this particular episode. Not so much the community aspect, but more about what to do in your space while you're here. With that, we wanted to go into a list of six things that you can do for yourself to maintain your well being while you're stuck in the same place all the time. This could be because you're stay at home ordered to be at home. This could be because you just started working from home. This could be something that you do by yourself or with roommates or loved ones or whatever, but this is about self care. Then in the second half, we'll talk more about relationship care with each other.

First thing here is keep a routine. This one is interesting, because I've seen a ton of people who are now suddenly working from home regularly for the first time, all talking about sleeping in until whatever and just wearing their pajamas all day and stuff like that. As someone who has worked from home for quite a while, I'm like, "Wow, I always get dressed in the morning." For me, it's important to have this clear separation of like, "Okay, I'm up." I still set my alarm to get up at a certain time.

Dedeker: You set alarm so that you then get off at a certain time.

Jase: I corrected it, but if that's what you want to hear, that's fine. I have my alarm to get up in the morning, and then later I have an alarm to get off after work, no.

Dedeker: Oh, boy.

Jase: Routine, you don't you don't have to do this. You don't have to keep it as strict as that. I know some people where this is like they have a room in their house. This is assuming they have the luxury of a separate room in their house, like a study, but it's like they change, go into their study, do work, don't get bothered by anything, don't do any chores in the house, don't do anything while they're at work, and then come out, change into their like home clothes and then that's where they'll make dinner and do their chores and stuff. Some people were it's an extreme separation like that. I tend to be somewhere in the middle, but it is really helpful to do something for your body to have a routine and to know what's going on.

The University of Virginia in a study talked about it's ideal to have a mix of things that you need to do and also things you like to do. Not just a schedule of like, I get up, I workout, I work all this, I do these chores, I make a meal and then I exercise and then I read a book and then I whatever. Mix it up with stuff that is fun, stuff that you like to do as well, and that this approach to your day is actually part of a treatment for depression called behavioral activation that can help to prevent depression. I would say even if you're not someone who is clinically depressed, I think this is definitely helpful for avoiding falling too far into a slump of just temporary depression if you don't have any schedule or anything that you're doing regularly.

Emily: Yes, absolutely. I think I've had to do this personally for myself a lot just because right now I don't have, besides Multiamory and Drunk Bible Study, I don't have a job right now. For me, I've really had to create a routine and had to create these things that I'm doing every single day, just so I do feel like I'm being productive in a sense and feel like I'm getting things done in a way that I need to be doing and not getting myself in a slump. This has been incredibly beneficial for me during this time too.

Jase: Yes, just have it. What's your routine look like?

Emily: I get up around 9:30, and then generally, I'll eat breakfast while doing a little bit of Animal Crossing, which is like fun right off the bat. Then afterwards, I'll take a shower and then I'll go for an hour walk. Sometimes, like today, that walk also included me going to Trader Joe's and getting some groceries that I needed to get and then walking home with them, but I tend to try to do some movement every day. Sometimes that movement is instead an hour long yoga class, for example. Then generally, it'll be around 1:00, I'll have lunch. Then I'll try to see if I need to do any work on the podcast. That might be working on writing the book or working on doing an episode or checking in with you all. From that stuff, that's essentially it.

Then I tend to like quit around 6:00 or 7:00, and then be done for the evening and then try not to go to bed past midnight, even though sometimes it's like, I find myself being in bed and I'm like, "It's one o'clock and I need to frickin get off Animal Crossing or off of Twitter or whatever." It is challenging. I feel like I went to bed earlier back in the day when I still had a job every single day that I had to commute to, but I'm glad that I'm not going to bed way late.

Dedeker: I feel like I'm noticing a lot of like, I have a number of clients who are like, "Yes, we now stay up until like 3:00, 4:00 in the morning just regularly." Where I am right now, I can actually see into a lot of people's apartment buildings, and I'm not a creeper. I promise.

Jase: I am watching.

Dedeker: It's just in passing. In passing, I just noticed. I'm like, "Wow, someone's up at 2:00 in the morning exercising or learning how to dance." I've just noticed, I think a lot of people are shifting into the night owl routine.

Emily: Yes, that is interesting.

Jase: I've had to resist going too far that way as well. I still have some nights where I'll stay up super late because I'm like, "Whatever I can," but I try not to make it a habit because I do know that just from my experience, for me I end up usually feeling pretty shitty if I do that for too long. I guess that's affecting my mood and my focus and things like that.

Emily: No, I agree. Well, you said the magic word exercise that occurs which I talked about just here, but that's the next one on this list, is if you can, to exercise because it does release endorphins which can improve your mental health and your mood. I think that a lot of people might actually find that during this time of working at home, they might actually have more time to work out than not. Which is interesting because I have heard that it's like, "Wow. I actually can't make the excuse." Like, "I don't have time to go to the gym or do whatever," because you do have time now. If you do have that luxury of being able to go do some workout in some manner, there are a lot of great online videos. I've found a lot of cool ones that have no equipment or whatever so you can just do them from your home. Then there are a lot of online yoga classes and things like that. Then again, of course, going outside if you can.

Dedeker: Yes, and I think it doesn't have to work a particular way. Just moving your body in the way that your body can move.

Emily: Yes, absolutely. I have read that if you want to have some goal making during this time, maybe just do attainable goals like adding more sit-ups to your routine or getting one rep on the-- What is it? What's the bar?

Jase: The pull-up bar?

Emily: The pull-up bar, yes. There's a pull-up bar in the house and I'm like, "Okay, maybe I'll be able to do one by the time this is over. That would be really cool."

Jase: That's awesome.

Emily: Yes, so something along those lines, some easy, attainable goal. Then along with that, getting out into the sun is important just because vitamin D is super, super important for you. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real thing. I know right now Jase you're in Seattle, so you said that you did have this when you were living in Seattle full time. That Seasonal Affective Disorder was a thing for you in LA even. It's been super, super foggy, and grim outside.

I think on the days when you can see a little bit of sun, it's really good for your serotonin and dopamine levels by being able to get outside.

Jase: Yes. This is one that actually I just recently started doing, is just forcing myself. It's funny. I had to force myself maybe the first couple of days and now I'm like, "I can't wait to do it."

Emily: I got to go on my walk. Yes, exactly.

Jase: Yes. I don't go for as longer one as Emily has been, but yes, just taking a walk and trying a different path each time. I like to take this, I don't know, Zen or Taoist approach to a walk where you don't set out knowing the path you're going to take when you start. You just know your neighborhood well enough that you can get back. It's been really nice. It's getting a little bit of exercise because I'm out there walking, but it's just moving my body and walking around and having my receptors in my eyes absorb the sunlight, is really helpful for that stuff that Emily was talking about with Seasonal Affective Depression, as well as just like getting your circadian rhythms in place, getting those working properly.

Emily: Yes, absolutely, and do exercise caution when going outside during this point. I'm always wearing a mask and stuff for the most part. Otherwise, I would say get out into the sun as much as you can.

Dedeker: Our next one is to work on your personal mental health. I feel this should be top of the list, kind of in both our lists. Both in the stuff that you can do for yourself, and the stuff that you can for your relationship, or that you and your partner can do together. I know from my personal experience that when my mental health is on point, I can handle anything. Sorry, not like I'm signing myself up for too much, but--

Emily: Wow. That's impressive.

Dedeker: That truly is how I feel, is that I can handle isolation, I can handle being in close quarters, or being stuck with someone, being stuck inside. It's like the days of my mental health is good, I just have so many more resources, like emotional, mental resources available that help make things feel much less stressful or much less rocky, I suppose. For me, that involves things like carving out my own personal time. We're going to talk about that a little bit later on. If you can access your therapists. I know right now when you're stuck in the house, there's a lot of services that will let you access your therapist via Telehealth or via the phone or things like that. In addition, whatever it is that you need, so whether that's things like I need my alone time, I need my time not talking to people, or if it's time talking to people, being able to make sure that you stay in touch with your friends and family.

Also, especially that's part of the reason why we started offering our bi-weekly hangouts for our listeners of the show, is that, especially for people who are in marginalized communities or in non-monogamous relationships or some other non-traditional relationship, it can be hard to feel like you have anybody to talk to. Honestly, that's even on a good day, on a non-pandemic day.

There's a lot of people who just end up feeling very personally isolated. That's why we started our hangouts, is that it's really important to reach out to the community. That's also a really important part of your personal mental health. This is a really good time to work that into your routine, work meditation into your routine, or journaling, or I like Emily's routine of a little bit of video games over breakfast. Even something like that is really, really nice.

I know for me, something that really helps my mental health, especially if I'm not able to get into regular therapy sessions, is to, in the mornings, have reading time. That's both reading time of just reading for pleasure like whatever the heck I want to read combined with reading something that is really uplifting, like Buddhist essays for me, or poetry or philosophy or stuff like that. Just in little doses. It just help to fortify me for the day, so I really recommend that to people.

Jase: Yes. I definitely have found that to be helpful at certain times of either reading-- For me it's often like reading, is what I really need sometimes. Reading fiction specifically where it takes my mind away from my life but is still engaged with things rather than vegging out and watching nonsense on TV. It's a way of escaping a little bit while still being an active participant in the thing.

I've definitely found reading can be really helpful for me during times when I'm getting too caught up in my own head and my own worries. Yes, I definitely recommend that one.

Dedeker: Yes, and this one is very closely related, but that's to limit your media and social media intake. We've talked about this a lot on the show before. Studies show that social media raises your cortisol hormones, your stress hormones. It can make you feel worse. It can make you feel less connected to the outside world, and it can make you feel less connected to the present. I find that's the big thing with going down a deep rabbit hole with media or social media, is that it completely cuts you off from what's happening in here now, who's around you, what you're experiencing. To a certain extent, I think that's also why we tend to go into those deep dives, is because it has a numbing effect. If what we're going through is really stressful, or if we're not super happy with the present moment, it's really nice to turn to that as a numbing effect sometimes, and that's why it's so addictive.

Yes, we recommend limiting your intake especially right now during the pandemic of COVID-related news, if you can. There's this really great series on medium written by a psychologist that's specifically all about just taking care of your personal mental health during isolation. He really recommends what's known as resourcing, which is just like one of the things that can ground you in the present moment. That could be something as simple as like going to your partner if you're with your partner, and hugging them for at least 30 seconds. Doing an actual really long hug. That physical touch actually is really, really grounding, and really comforting, and sets off these biochemical processes in your brain that you're probably not even aware of but they do. They help contribute to your well-being and into lowering of your cortisol.

Even things like if you're completely isolated, it can be things just like grabbing yourself or stamping your feet. It's these physical means of resourcing yourself is really helpful. Anything that you can do to limit your social media intake and also ground yourself in the present as well is really helpful.

Jase: Yes. I think specifically the over-consumption of news media, social media too, but I feel like when you say we consume too much social media, most people, even if they still do it, are like, "Yes, I realize this now. I understand this is not good for me and maybe I still do it." I think when it comes to news, though, people do still buy into this idea that like, "Oh no, I need to. I'm being a responsible citizen. I need to be aware of these things." This is something that it's just not true. It's just not true. I know that people right now might be resisting hearing that, but you can get all that same amount of news that you get by just having it on in the background, especially if you're just home with your TV on to the news, and then my parents do this. You can get just as much information, just as much news, but without all of the extra anxiety and worry and emotional noise that they're giving to you so that you keep watching. You're able to get just as much of that by reading a news summary every day, maybe taking 15, 20 minutes reading a newspaper and then putting it in the recycling and not having the TV on. You are reading it online or whatever it is, you can get the same amount of information and be just as well prepared, maybe even arguably more so because you're not having all the emotional content pushed onto you as well without having news on all the time. It's seriously, it's like made the biggest difference in my life to move away from that. I know a lot of other people who recommend that like a low media diet, I think is what it's referred to sometimes.

Emily: I like that.

Jase: That brings us to step six here. I think it's actually really great with all of these, is to also let yourself off the hook a little bit. It can be easy to get down on yourself and feel bad if you're not being productive right now, or if you're not exercising, or if you're not creating these amazing videos like everyone else on TikTok is. I've gone through all of these things.

Emily: Oh, boy, I'm sorry. I still don't know what Tik Tok is. No idea. I have four Instagram accounts. I don't need that too. I don't. podcasts, but still ridiculous.

Dedeker: That reminds me, I also recently read someone's editorial about how as a parent they felt pressured to be performing the best like quarantine parent routine basically of, look at all the arts and crafts I'm making my child do, and look at all the baking that we're doing, and look at how wonderful time we're spending together as a family. That even in that arena, it becomes this arena for competition and trying to show the world that we're making the most of our time.

Emily: I think there's still, especially for me who like I think all three of us tend to want to go, go, go, go, go all the time. I have in my head so often like you need to be doing something or else you're failing at life. Especially right now, I think that that's why I've created such like a regimented routine that I stick to every single day, but on the weekends I'm really trying to let myself off the hook of that routine. I'll get in my exercise five days a week, I'll get in all this stuff, but on Saturday and Sunday, I can just edge out and do whatever it is that I want to do. If that includes playing video games all day or drinking some wine or something along those lines, that's a nice blend of both worlds because it really is during this time it is traumatic for a lot of people, and it's completely understandable just regardless of what period of time we're in that you're not always going to be on and you're not always going to be accomplishing things, and that's okay.

Jase: This pressure to feel like you're not putting out enough into the world, or you're not being productive enough, also comes up if you're just working from home for the first time, or not or even doing it a long time, it can still come up. This idea that I'm somehow failing, it's like, well, I should have all this time now to do all these things I said I would do and I'm not. I'm such a failure. I'm terrible. It's really easy to beat yourself up. Really number six here is just about be kind to yourself. Let yourself off the hook a little bit. Something I've slowly gotten better over many years that I'm still slowly getting better at, is accepting myself and how my productivity or creativity cycle goes, and that for me it tends to be periods of lots of creating and doing, and then periods of just totally unable to focus, and I just want to play video games all day.

I know for other people, it's very much I do best when I have the same routine exactly the same every day, and I just chip away and do a little bit every day. I've found this too listening to lots of the podcasts or articles about productivity or about entrepreneurship or whatever. I've heard the same thing, that for some people it's like this one way of having a little bit everyday works, and for other people it's like, no, I have to binge on the project that I'm doing, and then I just can't even think about it. I can't do anything with it. Just to know that wherever you are in that, that's okay too to learn that and figure that out.

Before we go on to talk about now, how do we survive this close quarters relationship with other people, we're going to take a quick moment to talk about how you can support this show and help keep all of this content, including our discussion groups and our online Hangouts and things going and available to everyone for free. Please, take a moment, listen to our sponsors and maybe join our Patreon.

Emily: We wanted to get more into the ins and outs of dealing with a very, very close quarters relationship which Dedeker and I are sort of in right now. As I said earlier, not with each other, with other people, but she's halfway across the world, unfortunately. Right now I'm personally seeing more of my partner probably than I ever have ever in five and a half years, which has been really interesting, and actually great in so many ways, really, really great. I think to a degree I've led things off the hook more than I would have otherwise, just because it's an intense time, and it's like you've got to pick your battles when you're around this person so much because yes, if something like small pisses you off, it's like just let it go. It's not a big deal.

Also I know personally for myself, I felt so much more domestic than I have in the past, which is in its own way, something that I'm reconciling with because I shy away from domesticity in many ways, and yet I'm generally the one who's doing all of the shopping. I'm the one who's like doing dishes every day and stuff just because he's still working and helping me out in a lot of ways, so I'm trying to contribute in certain ways as well. That's been really interesting.

Dedeker, have you found differences in this time in your life?

Dedeker: Well, I will say that I'm very fortunate in that my living situation right now quarantining or isolating with Alex is I think more workable because of the fact that we do have very separate workspaces essentially. There's a separate office, and so that really helps me to be able to just have a room with a door that closes. I know that's not the case for everybody necessarily. For me, that's why I really want to rope around to the personal mental health thing because I find for me, if my mental health is on point, I have a much easier time just rolling with the punches and letting things off the hook and things like that.

Jase: Yes, it's like prepare yourself so you can do better to other people.

Emily: Yes.

Dedeker: Yes. If I don't, I pick all the battles. Jase knows this, he knows this quite intimately. The silver lining is at least I know that about myself, so that I know that if I see myself picking all the battles and I'm like, hmm, there's probably something about my own mental health that I'm neglecting here, or there's something about my emotional health that I'm not taking care of here.

Jase: It's funny, I feel like for me it's, if I'm not taking care of myself, is when I become a lot like needier and more insecure rather than

Emily: That makes a lot of sense for both of you. That is interesting. I do think my fuse is way shorter when I'm not working on myself, but also I'm really quick to blame myself.

Jase: Let's go back to your point about letting yourself off the hook a little bit.

Emily: Exactly. That is something to realize.

Dedeker: This time right now is just like such a pressure cooker. It's really like a crucible, it's like anything that was already there is going to be amplified times 10. Any negative things, any stressful things, any things in your relationship that maybe weren't working or that were getting on your skin already, this is going to be amplified right now. Anything with your own self esteem is just going to be amplified right now. That's why it's important to look at the list that we went over of what you can personally do to ensure that you're managing your own stress and anxiety. You can go and listen to our episode, two episodes ago, where we talked about stress reducing conversations, which is some really good concrete tips for helping to dissolve and work through stress together with your partner. We're also going to talk about some more specific tips of like what could help you and your partner, you and your relationships if you're in close quarters relationships together? This doesn't have to be during quarantine time. This can also just be when you're both at home together or seeing a lot more of each other than you used to, or if you're living in a tinier space than maybe you wanted to, things like that.

Jase: Like we were saying earlier, Dedeker and I have been in the two extremes of this quite a bit. Number one, and this is actually something I was just talking to my mom about recently because she was struggling with her husband. It's creating physical distance from your partner when you can. This means just literally being in a separate room. It could look different ways, and this you'll have to negotiate and figure out what's right for you. I know for Dedeker, she'll have like, this bedroom is going to become my office right now or whatever it is. When she goes in there to work, if I come bother her when that door is closed, it's like death stares. She really needs that space to be hers, and I've actually come to really appreciate that. Then it's my time working can be my time to just focus on that or whatever or playing a game or whatever you're doing, but having some time where it's not only you're in a separate space, but there's an understanding that also people are going to leave you alone.

I do think there's a little bit of negotiation with it too, but it's just creating that little bit of space, even if it really is just okay, after we get up in the morning, the bedroom becomes my space for a while because we don't have any other rooms in the house. You get the living room, I get the bedroom whatever it is. Finding some way to get that space, or at the very least, being, I'm going to put my headphones on, and when I have my headphones on, it means I'm in my bubble. Right now I'm in my space. I want to make sure that this is not saying, well, you all have to have your own wing of the mansion. It's like, no, you can you can find some version of this that works even if you are in a quite tiny space.

Emily: Yes, absolutely.

Dedeker: Yes. It's also important. I think it's hard when we cohabit with someone because we're, I think, trained to think, well, once we lived together, it's all going to be great, and everything's going to be wonderful and it's going to be okay. Obviously you're living together because you love spending time together.

Jase: Right. So you must want to spend all of it!

Dedeker: Yes, and it's an important skill to develop, to be able to just honestly and compassionately ask for that or tell a partner that like, "Hey, actually I need some time just with the door closed, not talking to anybody." Or, "Hey, actually I'm going to go over here and just watch my silly YouTube videos for half an hour or whatever it is." It is important to be able to develop those skills.

Jase: Communicating it is key, right? It's developing that skill of saying, "Hey, I'd really like to have this. I'm excited for us to hang out later and watch our shows or whatever we're going to do later, but right, now I want this time", so that they understand and it's not just you try to do it and then when they come over to talk to you, you're like, "What? Leave me alone." It is important to communicate that and make sure they understand.

Emily: Yes, and communicate it initially as well, as you're saying, so that it's not like, "Whoops, I didn't realize that that's what you wanted from me."

To move on, number two is to divide up chores, housework, and childcare. There is a possibility, especially during this time, or just in general and living with another person and perhaps one of you is working from home and the other one is not, or the other one is not in a position where they're currently working, maybe that's the case. Perhaps that other person might be the one to pick up more of the household duties.

I think it is still important to try to divide it up as best as you can. Even if that means okay, for example, personally I generally do the dishes and clean the kitchen and stuff and sometimes cook, but my partner will take out the trash and do the cat box and do things like that, and we have these are your duties, these are my duties. Even if you have kids, I think that it's really important in terms of childcare to do that as well. Perhaps while a partner is working during the day and the other partner is the one who has the childcare duties, that they can give the kids to the other partner during the evening time to be, "Hey, it's my time in the day to stop and have some moments to myself." That's very important as well.

Jase: I think part of it goes along even thinking about a situation where one person's working from home and the other isn't, or one person is a stay at home parent, is it can be easy to think of the person who's doing whatever they're doing from home when you're not there thinking that must be so relaxing.

Emily: They're fucking around with someone.

Jase: They've got all this time that it's no, they're still working in one way or another. It is that really important, say you do have one person who is staying home and taking care of the kids, to also have opportunities where it's like, "Hey, you get time off. I'm going to take care of them now so that you can do whatever, watch your YouTube videos by yourself or whatever it is that you need to do." That is really important. I think right now that's just amplified for everyone, with making sure we're giving each other that time.

Dedeker: Yes. I just wanted to give people a book recommendation regarding this, actually. Again, this is a bigger topic than I think we necessarily have time for. Another thing to think about when dividing of chores, housework, and childcare and things like that, is there's this concept known as the mental load, which is something that comes up a lot in feminist thought, which is very much related to emotional labor. Essentially, the mental load of figuring out, of keeping in track in your mind, like when do the dishes need to be taken out of the dishwasher, when does the laundry need to get started, how many days before we run out of toilet paper, what time is my child's after-school Zoom call going to be, and how do I set them up that often. That mental labor disproportionately tends to fall on women.

There's this great book that I found called Fair Play by Eve Rodsky, where she comes up with specifically a system for managing that so that specifically the project manager side of dividing chores. Also, that labor gets divided as well. That's also something to think about when you're splitting these things up. Yes.

The third one, something that's really, really important to maintain in your partnership, is to have your own boundaries and to relay any expectations that you may have. At this point, especially right now at the time of recording, if you've already been isolated with a partner for quite a while, it may feel it's too late to do this, but it's not, I can assure you. It's really important to establish expectations for what you have, what you want your routine to be, what you want your home situation to look like, things like that, or the conditions that you need to be able to do your job. Whether your job is having to be on a Zoom call for eight hours a day, or whether your job is taking care of the kids or things like that.

Then on the flip side, it's also incredibly important to discuss if you need time alone, if you need time to do things by yourself, if you need help with something, if you actually need to carve out a specific special you time together, like carving out specifically quality time or date-time, that's separate from just the regular time that we're spending together just passively while you're stuck together at home. It's just really important to make sure that this is a good time to be working on those skills of communicating who you are, where you begin and end, what your boundaries are and what your expectations are as well.

Emily: Yes, and we talked about this in our previous episode, but don't make your partner the only person that you ever talk to, and don't make your partner your therapist as well. A good way to do that if you can't afford a therapist or if you don't have one accessible to you, is to give yourself time to speak to friends and family and not just the person who you're living with 24/7 right now. That's very important too because you can get other viewpoints from your friends and family, and a lot of things are great to be able to relay information to them and not just have one person who you're constantly in communication with.

Jase: Yes, I think that's both taking the initiative to reach out to other people, but then also giving each other the space to do that. I've just said I don't have to be involved in every single call with friends that you do. You can have some calls with friends on your own and I can have some on my own, as well as somewhere we might all hang out together and play a game online or something.

Emily: I will say going for a walk and getting to talk to someone on a walk is a great way to be out of the house and be away completely, and then also accomplish two things at once.

Jase: Yes, that's great. All right. Number four here is to keep to your routine check-ins, such as radar, if that's something you do, or just relationship check-ins. Contrary to what a lot of people feel like, time has not actually stopped existing, and the whole world and your whole life isn't actually on hold right now. Keep having those check-ins, maybe even have them more regularly. Having radar, which if you haven't, I definitely recommend checking out our episode on relationship radar, but it's a really good system for having an overall discussion of the state of your relationship, discussing what's happening in each of your lives separately from each other, as well as together. That's episode 147 where we talk about that in-depth, and everything's changing. Everything's constantly changing. Time is going on, life is going on. Your feelings are going to change over time and from day to day about different things. You're going to have different worries. Radar gives you a way to plan for those and to collaborate with each other and supporting each other in your own lives, as well as coming closer together.

Emily: I've found personally when I talk to my partner and literally sit there and be like, "Hey, how are you emotionally feeling right now?" It's really interesting to hear maybe something different than what I expected come out of his mouth because he may actually have a lot of anxiety underneath the surface and want to talk about that and get that out there in these moments, as opposed to me just being like, "Oh, he seems fine," whatever. It's like I'm assuming he's fine. It is very important to actually ask your partner or whomever you're living with at the time, like, "Hey, how are you doing? Do you want to just talk about your emotional life right now?" To me, that is very important, absolutely. I think that it's not always just going to be immediately there for something that you could see on the surface.

Jase: Yes.

Dedeker: Yes, definitely. Related to that, this is also a time to keep putting in the work on those communication skills with your partner. Now's a good time to go over our backlog of episodes.

Emily: Do it.

Dedeker: It doesn't necessarily have to just be us, catch up on any other resource that you find has been helpful to you. The Gottman Institute website has a bunch of great articles related to these kinds of things. This is now a good time to practice doing things like using the Triforce of Communication in conversations, employing halts, taking a timeout when things are getting heated, I think especially right now. Go listen to our repair shop episode for a framework on how to work through past fights, or the falling out that happened yesterday, and we haven't processed yet.

Right now, I know it can be tempting, I think that because everything's so stressful and anxious, and when you're locked in the same space with someone, it becomes really easy to just see all their flaws and to want to dredge up old grievances and really work out all that stuff. I would say that maybe avoid doing that unless you feel super confident that now's the time where we can have a productive conversation about those things from the past, maybe you can, and if you can, that's great, but if not, I think like Emily said, I think now's an important time to pick your battles, understand that we're all going through a lot of pressure and anxiety, and that we need to be gentle with each other.

Like we said, in the stress-reducing conversation episode, don't be a horse. By that we mean don't be a horseman of the apocalypse. Avoid the four horsemen, which is criticism, contempt, blame, and stonewalling.

Jase: Stonewalling.

Emily: Yes, we all know that one. Yes.

Dedeker: I know we all get tempted to do those things, even in healthy relationships, but just having an awareness of like, "Oh, yes, this is not a good habit to start," can help you during this time.

Emily: Finally, number six on this list, is to focus on silver linings and have some gratitude during this time, and during any time that you get the opportunity to be around someone else for a long period of time. Just because that's not always possible, especially, I'm looking at you, Jase and Dedeker, the two of you do get the opportunity to be together so intimately for maybe two or three months at a time, but then you have to go away for a while as well and maybe get the opportunity to be with someone else during that time. It is just nice to be able to focus on that if you can.

In terms of silver linings, for me personally, this whole thing has taught me that I do need to slow down sometimes, and that that's a very important thing. I feel like I have a lot of gratitude for the opportunity to do that, and maybe to focus more on my mental and physical health right now, I think that's really, really lovely. Gratitude, and thinking about things that you're grateful for that has shown in studies to, again, do all those good things for you, raise your serotonin and dopamine levels. That's very important. Yes, have some gratitude, even though it's a challenging time and people are literally fighting for their lives right now, and a lot of things along those lines, there is some beauty in this world right now.

Dedeker: Express that gratitude to your partner or to your partners. It's really important to build that culture of sharing, appreciation, and fondness with each other. I know not everybody is a words-of-affirmation kind of person, but it's still helpful too. Again, it really is about building that micro-culture in your relationship where we're able to freely share those things on a daily basis, the things that we appreciate about each other, things that we admire about each other, flirtatious things that we like about each other. It really, really does help, because those are the kind of things that maybe you would share more often when you were first dating and getting to know each other, and less so when you're waking up in bed next to each other the same way every single day. It's important to inject that back into your relationship.

Jase: Yes, that's great, and helps you stay focused on the fact that those things do exist in your life. Like Emily was saying, that the point of gratitude exercises isn't to trick yourself into thinking that shitty things are actually good, but it's to remind yourself and keep your brain aware of the fact that there are also good things even when they're shitty things, and that it keeps you from getting totally sucked into this world of just being focused on all the bad things.