Daily Tips to Manage Stress in a Relationship

Stress in a relationship can be a troubling time for both partners. It can be hard to be in a relationship or a marriage that is particularly stressful for you in the long run. The stress can become difficult with time and lead you towards a sea of problems. There are things you can do to learn how to deal with stress in a relationship,

There’s a lot to dealing with stress in a relationship when it appears. Living side by side with a partner you are no longer able to tolerate can be difficult. You have to come up with new strategies to keep your marriage afloat and have to make sure that nothing comes between you and your spouse. We have combined a list of tips from experts to make sure that you are able to navigate the tough times in your relationship and succeed through them. Sometimes, how you learn to navigate and to deal with stress in a relationship is all about being equipped with tools and resources.

Calm It Down with the Criticism

Now is not the right time to go all guns blazing with your criticism. As an understanding partner, you should understand the anxiety and stress that most couples are going through because of the pandemic. Hence you should make sure that criticism is limited or entirely eradicated for that matter. 

It is easy to point fingers at your partner and ostracize them for doing things such as not making your favorite meal or not cleaning the lavatory area as you would like, but the bigger person would understand why it is necessary to keep the criticism low during this time period. 

Instead of going all out with your criticism, it is necessary that you take your time at home as an excuse to appreciate your partner for what they do. If your partner is tirelessly working from home, looking to make ends meet, you should walk over to them and tell them how proud you are of their actions and how you are so happy that they haven’t let the pandemic and its repercussions get to their head. If you want to be close with your partner during this period, you need to realize that there isn’t enough room for you to be critical. 

Closeness and criticism cannot work together here. If you keep pointing out their failures and issues every opportunity you get, you are just igniting conflict and making the lockdown period even harder for you. So, keep the criticism at bay for a while and try to find solutions to your problems rather than bickering. 

Also, try to shut down the negative thoughts and anxiety of being in a lockdown by helping your partner feel special through continuous praises and appreciation for what they do. Hold hands with your partners and promise each other that you are going to pass through this period in good health, with love and trust in each other powering you through. The more you trust each other, the better it is for your mental health and also your stress levels. 

Be More Curious Than Furious

The Coronavirus has brought out a new set of responsibilities for every relationship to abide by. Gone are the days when you would interact with family members only at dinner time or at the food table. Now, with everyone stuck at home, your responsibilities towards your family have changed. One such responsibility is to not readily get furious at what the other person has done and to be curious about what prompted them to do what they did. 

Most toxic relationships can get out of hand when one partner is suddenly aggravated or becomes aggressive when the other partner mentions something or does something that does not resonate with the way they prefer things. In such a situation it is easy for you to immediately turn furious and gaslight the situation further. 

We prefer curiosity over furiousness because it motivates you to ask questions and understand what the other person is going through. This understanding is what can help you pass through the challenges of a relationship during the current lockdown. 

Talking and becoming aggressive when you and your partner are already stressed is the worst possible thing for you to do. Instead, you should take out your time to make sure that you are relieved of the stress and are not furious. 

Certain things won’t go in the direction you want them to during this pandemic. Chances are that your partner won’t do everything the way you prefer. And chances are that you would possibly get furious at that. But, the only way to kill that furiousness is by being curious. Allow your curiosity to overtake and defeat the negative emotion of sudden anger and despair. Being curious allows you to investigate things in a calm manner and ask questions related to what just happened and how it can be avoided going into the future. 

Let Them Feel Their Own Way about the Stress

Partners and families are going to differ in their understanding and their reaction to the current crisis. Every partner would have their understanding of the situation and would feel bad or OK based on that very understanding. 

Rather than blatantly disagreeing with the perception your partner has of their stress; it is better for you to figure out what they are thinking and what prompts that line of thinking. Do not immediately dismiss their line or way of thinking because that will eventually lead to more conflict and misunderstandings between you and your partner. 

Every person is processing information and news related to the virus in a different way. Chances are that your partner is also processing news related to the virus in a different manner. They have different perceptions related to the news and don’t look at it in the same manner that you do. Empathize with your partner and do all that you can to make sure that you understand why your partner feels the way they do. 

Also, if you want to be heard in your relationship, it is necessary that you practice active listening yourself as well. Listen to what your partner has to say and hear them out if they are stressed or really upset about how the situation around them is. Saying something as simple as ‘You sound really upset or stressed’ can put things in perspective for them. Safe conversations over stressful topics only work when they are two ways. Conversations that aren’t two ways will fail to have the kind of impact you want. 

Buy Some Time Alone

Alone time is obviously a necessity when it comes to keeping track of your emotional and physical feelings. While you do need alone time regardless of whether there is a global pandemic or not, the need is felt more during these tough times. Sit down with your significant other and have a romantic moment with them as you try to keep the spark burning and put your differences to rest by being the young, excited romantics you once were. 

You might have to barter a specific time period with your partner, as the both of you won’t have alone time on your hands to begin with. Try to fix a schedule with your partner that has half an hour or an hour of alone time for the both of you. You would want this alone time to be only for the two of you, when you don’t have any children-related tasks to look after and are also not required to oversee any other responsibilities or chores. This alone time is necessary as it gives you a chance to be just yourself during this pandemic. You can be the way you want to be without worrying about repercussions as such. 

Follow the Ancestors

Our ancestors did greatly value the importance of intimacy because of the almost immediate impact it would have on their relationship. Intimacy comes from continuous and uninterrupted sexual relationships between partners so that the spark never dies. Many times in the world today, we see couples, married or not, living together without the desirable intimacy between them. 

Too much stress and togetherness without any intimacy can have an unsexy effect on the bond you share with your partner. Getting the barriers out of your way can allow you to be as sexually close as you want to be without thinking that you have some hindrance in the way. 

Getting it on can be a good way to kill stress for some partners. It also offers partners a nice break from Netflix and other boring pass-time activities during this pandemic. Our ancestors figured out the importance of intimacy in a relationship, and it is high time that we did some calculations at our own end to figure out why intimacy is so important and why we should follow it. 

Figure out the Right Plan for Your Days

Parents are expected to look after a wide array of responsibilities because they have kids at home. They don’t have to run off to office and have to look after everything at home with due diligence. While the typical dinner time conversation back in the day would be about how your entire day went at work, dinner time conversations today are more about what’s needed to plan correctly for the day to come. 

A good way to distribute your tasks for the week is to make a calendar on Sunday mornings. The calendar should distribute responsibilities evenly. Equally distributing responsibilities is in itself a major responsibility. 

Make Appointments for Fights

When applied, this is a killer tip that can stop fights and arguments from brewing up in many a home. Once you find yourself entering an argument or a spat with your significant other, it is important that you or your partner call a time out. Once a time out is called, both the partners should set a time slot in the coming 24 hours for the fight to continue. 

Once the time slot is set, the couple should meet again at the given time and avoid each other till then. In almost 95 percent of all cases, when couples come back together, they don’t argue with the same intensity as they did before. Both partners are able to understand each other’s perspectives, and there is a lot of common ground between them. The feeling or sense of being attacked by the other partner has subsided, and the partners are more rational now. 

Take Your Fights Outside

The last thing you would want to do during and after this lockdown period is to fight in front of your kids. Your kids surely don’t want to see you fighting, which is why you should make it a habit to always take your fights outside so that they don’t have to see the disturbing visuals and hear the offensive audios of your fights. 

It is also an understood fact that couples can mitigate a fight by going to a different location or a different environment. For instance, you start fighting over finances in your dining room. The fight elevates and voices are raised. This should be the right time for you to go out for a walk or to take your car out and go for a drive together. The kids shouldn’t get first row seats to see you fighting it out. 

Going out for a walk, or better yet heading out for a drive, can diffuse the situation and can also give you the level of understanding required to understand each other’s perspective. In an ideal situation, this is exactly what you need to handle situations in the manner that you want to. Sometimes people understand each other’s situation better when they are walking. They are side by side and are continuously exerting physical pressure through their legs, which is why there is a flow of fresh blood to keep the brains recharged and refreshed. 

Be Clear in Your Communication

Yes, mind games and mind reading activities look all wonderful and cheesy in love, but you ought to know that now is not the time to expect your partner to excel at mind reading. Your partner could be a wonderful individual, but you are wrong here for expecting them to read your mind and determine what you might be looking for. 

Saying ‘I hope you can cook dinner tonight’ is a lot better than saying ‘I wish you would get up and do something tonight.’ See the amount of ambiguity and lack of clarity in the latter? Don’t expect your partner to decipher all your requests right now. They are probably going through a lot at their end, which is why the last thing they would want to do is play mind games with you. 

The tips mentioned in this article will help improve your camaraderie and kill the stress in your relationship through tips you can follow on a daily basis.