Welcome back to the podcast. This week, I have another episode of Dear Katie where I answer one of your questions and we start to dive into some of the challenges that we're experiencing in our long term relationships, and what are some tools we can start to use to work on those. This week, we're going to be talking all about communication. The longer we've been together, the more of a rut we get into and how we talk with each other. And this listener's question is valid for, I'd say, all of us really, how do we start to look at having better communication, even after being together for so long and in the thick of life right now. So go grab yourself a warm drink, and let's dive in. Welcome to relationship, reset, reignite, reconnect, rebuild. The podcast for high achieving couples who want to transform their relationship from surviving to thriving. I'm Katie Roessler, a relationship coach and counselor with over 15 years of experience helping busy, overwhelmed couples rebuild connection, trust and intimacy. If you've been together for years and feel stuck on autopilot, disconnected and frustrated by constant miscommunication, you're in the right place. Each week, we'll explore practical tools, relatable stories and strategies to help you reignite the spark, rebuild your bond and create the relationship you've always dreamed up. Because no matter how long you've been together, it's never too late to hit reset. Let's dive in. Speaker 1 1:38 Okay, so here's the question, dear Katie, my partner and I have been together for over 25 years, but love each other dearly. Due to stress lives with kids and aging parents, our communication is short lived at times. How do we as a couple keep communication lines open, honest and authentic, so our partner knows what we want without the conversation turning to a fight or an offense. We're struggling with us time between busy jobs teens and aging parents, so currently, our communication is about what needs to be done, not about our dreams and life together as it used to be when we were younger. Do you have any advice for us? Thanks so much. Lost in the whirlwind. Okay, so I'm so glad you asked this question, because I work with couples on this topic on repeat, it really is, how do we get out of the just practical part of being together, and how do we get back into connection and dreaming and really enjoying our relationship? And really, how do you do that when you're kind of the ham in the sandwich the middle, you're taking care of aging parents, but you're also having to deal with teenagers at home and all while trying to keep your own sanity. This is such a big challenge. Okay, so let's start from the beginning. So one of the key things I think we forget how to do the longer we get into the practical part of our relationship, right? Planning, delegating, following through on things is how to even be friends with each other, how to really connect on that level. So I would say that's the first thing we want to start with, before we even get into how do we have conversations that don't lead to a fight? Because honestly, when we have a good relationship with someone, and I don't mean good and like we work well together. We're getting things done. I mean, a good, healthy relationship, where you're able to dream together, you're able to talk about the future, you're able to have that connection. When you have a good friendship and relationship with someone, you are less likely to get defensive and fight, because you're able to still expect the best of them, right? If you think about like our friends, people we talk to on a regular basis, we're probably not getting super defensive at everything they say, because we take the time to really build a friendship. We take the time to check in on them. Hey, how are you? Tell me what's new, what's going on. Oh, how did that thing go last week? Right? We connect, and that often disappears when we're in just the practical day to day of life, or you might feel like one of you is really good about checking in on the other, but the other doesn't reciprocate it. Why is this? Because when we're super stressed, like when we're just really, I mean, it's like, layered on right now, and what you're going through right now is just very clear, like it's just layered on our brains. Don't think creatively, and they don't think beyond really kind of fight or flight, like I gotta get stuff done. Okay? And here's the next thing. And even when you have a moment to take a deep breath, your mind probably is thinking about all the other things that needs to get done, or it goes blank. Frankly, when I work with couples like this, and I sit down and go, Okay, let's just take a session to dream together. What do you want like, two years from now, to look like they will look at me with just like, blank stare, and I'm like, I know you haven't thought like this in a while, or if you do, it's usually like, I'm burning it all down and moving away, like it's rarely, hey, let's really dream of what we want things to look like, because we're so in the thick of it, we can't dream beyond the moment. It just seems unrealistic. And the hard part, even more so is when we have aging parents, we know that dreaming of the future is going to be impacted by their health, their needs, and eventually their death. I'm sorry to be harsh about this, but it's true, there will be a point where our aging parents are not there anymore, and it's like that grief process we don't even want to go ahead and start. We're just in the midst of it. Then on top of it, you've got your teams right, and they've got their developmental challenges right, emotions, frustrations, their own relationship drama, trying to figure out what's next, as far as what they want to do if they want to continue schooling, you're just trying to help coach and navigate them without them, like falling off the deep end or making choices that will permanently scar their lives, and you're just like, Okay, where's the time for me and where's the time for us? So it is hard to build that friendship during this time, but it is so essential. So I want you to just try something. I want you to take 10 minutes. I'm not even going to say 15. Usually, 15 is the recommended, but I'm going to say 10 minutes every day, and it needs to be either first thing in the morning, a phone call, maybe at lunch, when you both have the time, or in the evening, where one of you gets five minutes to just share, hey, here's my life, here's what's going on. Here's how I'm feeling. Da, da, da, just like you would with a friend, and the other one gets the other five minutes. And this ensures that daily, you're doing a check in. How are you what's going on? How did that thing go yesterday? Right? Like actually being friends, as we start to build that part of our relationship back, we start to feel that connection and a little bit of the spark start to grow again. And honestly, the couples I work with who've been together for 25 years or so are still able to have a healthy sex life while healthy in their terms, right? They are like, Yeah, this is fine. I'm good with it, so I'm that's why I'm not going to like, hey, let's bring back the romance. I want you to bring back the friendship. The reason that two of you really joined together, which was I can talk to you about things, are you encourage me, or you're always there for me, whatever it was that was, like, the friendship part of what brought you guys together, we need to rebuild that now. Struggling with us time is a common issue as well, and I think something we have to start learning how to do is getting more creative. If you're able to have dinner together as a family after dinner, you just say, Okay, we're gonna go for like a 10 minute walk around the block and have that 10 minute conversation, right where one of you talks for five minutes the other talks. Months, the other talks for five just having a pause from the normal routine to get out and exercise and be out, hopefully in nature or away from the normal things will feel like, huh, we're doing something for us. We often think that us time needs to be like multi hour long dates and we're going to a restaurant or we're going to the movies, but no, let's get real. Sometimes we only have the 10 minutes to go for a walk with each other. That's it. So be really clear on what type of US time the two of you can have right now. Is there a chance that you could get away for a weekend? I don't know. That's for you to look at your schedule and to plan maybe eight months in advance. But what can you do today or this week? You probably could go for a walk together, and, dare I say, maybe even hold hands on it, just so you know, we're in this together. Both of you are walking through the fire right now, and it gets really easy to just feel like a wounded animal in a cage being poked at constantly. So eventually we're going to fight back. So when our partner, who's supposed to be there with us, points out something we forgot did wrong. Hey, can you do more? Add it on our plate, right? We will react, because we're just so broken down. There's so much going on for both of you. So there's nobody who's exactly right and there's nobody who's exactly wrong. Our defensiveness is often the sign of our limit being pushed, not by our partner, but by life. So when we start to bring back a chance for the two of you to communicate about just life in general, and not just about what needs to get done, or who's going to be picking up who taking care of what? Then all of a sudden, we open up discussions for other things, like, Hey, I noticed the other day when I said this one thing, you got really defensive, and I just want you to know I didn't mean to make you feel like you're failing or not doing enough. You really do a lot. I'm so grateful for that, right? Just starting to appreciate our partner and acknowledge we see that they're getting frustrated. We see that there's challenges. Most of my clients come in and want to fix their communication immediately, and often, I just say again, first, we've got to work on the friendship, but second, we've got to start working on your appreciation of each other, because you're not going to hear any of the constructive communication that needs to come through in an argument if you continue to have walls up to each other. So how can you make appreciation and gratitude a normal part of your week, even your day? Is it writing each other a little message? Heck, you might even need to set an alarm on your phone to remind you to do that. It's okay. There's no shame in that having a little note on your calendar with a little ding that reminds you to go and send a little message. And it can be one sentence, I really appreciate that you took care of that thing off my list. I forgot that I even needed to do. I'm so grateful that you stand beside me as my parents are struggling with their health right now. Thank you for being the one that I choose to have next to me every day through all of this whirlwind we're going through, gratitude is where it's at when it comes to improving our communication. I haven't even gotten to you guys arguing better. I'm really just trying to build the foundation of your relationship. Again, when I work with couples in my rebuild program, this is the first steps we do. We have to rebuild the foundation of the relationship, because the amount of cracks it has in it and how unsettled it is, it's going to eventually break. And we often think that it's we need to argue better. We need to have better communication. Well, first, we've got to be curious. The two of you still know you're on the same page. You want to be doing the same thing, right? Like you have the same goals. How to get there might differ, but in the end, you have the same goals. And then we start to say, Now, let's look at our communication. Let's look at how we start to shift how we talk about things. Let's make sure we prioritize checking in on each other and sharing gratitude before we go. Did you do this? Did you remember to take care of that? Have you called and made that appointment right? Like our priority is the health of our relationship, but if we make the to do list the priority, then the foundation of our relationship will slowly break. So I would say those are the key things. Number one is working on finding ways to connect beyond the plan that needs to get done and really rebuild the friendship. Number two, get creative with us time, even if it's a 10 minute walk around the block, that is something. And the more you do it, it builds up, and you start to feel on each other's side again. Then the last thing is about appreciation and gratitude, not taking our partner for granted and not being taken for granted as well. So this is a two way street. All of these tools need to be things you both are working on. But these three things are what is going to improve how you argue. Because as soon as you start to rebuild this foundation, and then you go work on your arguing style, it moves so much faster, truly, the couples I work with in the rebuild program, once they get this piece in a good groove, even again, short amount of time together, but still making it purposeful and intentional, they're able to improve their arguing style so much faster. So I hope this helped you lost in a whirlwind, and of course, reach out if you'd like more information about how to continue to rebuild the foundation of your relationship. And to those of you listening, if you're like, Yep, we're in this season two, set up a relationship game plan call with me. It's a 45 minute complimentary call where I'm able to really listen to what are the nuances of the challenges you're facing, and I can point out some key areas that can start to shift so you see the results that you'd like and be able to start stepping into the relationship you know, that you guys can have together. Okay, so that wraps up this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I can't wait to hear how it helped you lost in a whirlwind. And for those of you as well who are going through this time, let me know which tip really stuck out to you and was the most supportive. And I'll see you next week. Thanks for tuning in to relationship reset. If you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend who might need it too. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It helps more couples discover these tools to rebuild their connection too. And be sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss next week's episode. It's gonna be a good one. See you next week!