In a world full of adversity, political chaos, and daily stressors, it is important to feel heard and supported by your partner. When life gets tough, navigating external stressors is imperative to the health of your relationship. Allowing space for stress reducing conversations allows you a chance to deepen your connection with your partner. These conversations also allow you to work as a team to externalize the stressors instead of allowing these stressors to squeeze their way in, and cause relational issues with your spouse. When prioritizing these daily stress reducing conversations, your relationship has the opportunity to withstand challenging circumstances, while also building your emotional intimacy. These stress reducing conversations can be done in a few easy steps:
1. Give One Partner the Floor. Set a timer to allow each partner 15 minutes to have the floor and discuss their current stressor or anything outside of the relationship causing distress. During your partner’s time, make sure to be attentive and empathetic while your partner shares.
2. Listen to Understand, Not just to Respond. Be mindful of really utilizing active listening skills to truly understand your partner’s perspective. This is not a time to offer solutions or advice, simply practice listening to understand.
3. Stay Focused. Do your best to stay focused and avoid distractions. Putting your phone down, or turning off the tv may be good ways of increasing your ability to stay engaged.
4. Validation. Find something that your partner is sharing that you can validate and express this to your partner so they know that you empathize with their feelings. The important part here is to make your partner aware that their feelings matter and are important to you. Example: “I can see how that would be upsetting and I am sorry you experienced that.”
5. Maintain a Team Perspective. Be sure to demonstrate that you are on the same team regarding whatever your partner brings to the conversation. While you may have suggestions or different ways of doing things, it is important to let your partner know that regardless of the situation you are on their side and fully support them. Be mindful of not taking the side of the antagonist and making your partner feel unsupported and isolated. Using “we” language can also help cultivate the team perspective.
6. Make a Gesture to Demonstrate Care. Making eye contact, nodding to show understanding, placing your hand on your partner’s shoulder or simply offering a kind word or statement are all ways of demonstrating that you are present with your partner in the moment and care about their distress. This can look different from relationship to relationship so do what feels most natural to you based on your relationship and your partner’s needs.
7. Repeat. At the end of the discussion, you switch and the partner who took the listening role first now gets the floor to share their stressors and we repeat the process.
Overall, the goal is to have a safe place to be vulnerable and talk through these stressors. This allows you to have a meaningful point of connection with your partner so your partner stays aware of what is happening in your internal world. After all, our partners are generally the most important people in our lives and it’s important to be able to learn to manage stress effectively together.
By Dr. Adaria Warner, LMFT
Dr. Warner is a therapist with Mathews Counseling. You can learn more about her availability here.
All April, we are focusing our blog series around Stress Awareness Month and identifying stressors and implementing coping mechanisms. You can find the series here:
Part 1: How Couples Can Reduce Stress and Deepen Emotional Intimacy
Part 2: 10 Everyday Stress-Relief Techniques That Actually Work
Part 3: TIPP Skills: Temperature, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing & PMR for Stress
Part 4: Coping with Stress as a Young Adult: Practical Tips for Everyday Life
