Summer is just around the corner. With summer comes longer days, more sunshine, brighter sunlight, warmer temperatures, activities that need planning, and vacations to be had. Any movie or show that has scenes of a summer day or beach-filled night, shows couples relaxing together or even taking a late night romantic stroll. To be honest, I wish I could go on a romantic stroll with my partner every day; however, if you are like me and have kids, we all know it’s not always that easy. Because the other side of summer is busy schedules, coordinating times where one partner is with the kids or the other, later dinners because of sport practices, crying children at the nearby amusement park, or any other thing that adds extra stress this time of year.

Five Concrete Steps to Solve your Solvable Problems

Every day our kids are on summer vacation, we are forced to face countless issues and situations that must be solved by you and your partner. Dr. John Gottman describes five concrete steps to have you and your partner solve solvable problems, such as where to go on vacation this summer or even which relatives to spend time with over the summer, in a very skillful manner. (Please note that these skills are much more detailed in Dr. Gottman’s book entitled The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work.)

These skills include:

Lead with a soft start-up.
Make and receive attempts to repair issues in our relationship.
Practice self-soothing exercises for you and separately with your partner.
Compromise.
Process issues that don’t want to leave so that it doesn’t ruin everything.

Still, if someone were to ask me to add one additional step, I would suggest that partners schedule time to connect with each other in a way that is not only intentional but lessens the load each of you carries separately.

Once you have children, it is no longer as easy as “I’m going here” or “I have to be there” especially during the summer months. It’s as if we forget that we are supposed to have meaningful conversations without bringing up our children every 10.4 seconds. Yet, we are supposed to be independent, have close relationships, and live a quietly fulfilling life. It’s as if our output becomes exhausted and we are faced with the fact that we not only spend much of our time with our kids, we almost always find ourselves enjoying our times with them much more. It’s like our brains begin to default to the topic of our kids and we forget that we are supposed to have real adult conversations with our partners, friends, families, and loved ones. Still, the hard truth is that being a parent is only part of who we are. We are also partners, children, siblings, workers, and more. We have to begin building our relationships with our partners in subtle ways that are not only forgiving but fulfilling.

How to Create Balance with Your Partner during the Summer Months

There are many ways that we can work to create meaningful connections with our partners even over the summer months; however, no matter what we do, we must find the balance between intimacy, connection, positive experiences, and couple time. All of these things together not only pushes things to be overwhelming for some but some also find this time of year to be just as or even more difficult than the holidays. My guess is because summer is longer than the winter out of school session. I mean think about it… our family routines are shifting, our children are home for more hours in the day, and we have higher expectations of ourselves and our family members than we have when our children are in school for 6+ hours in the day. This is why it is often easy for us to feel a lag in the relationship or even find that we are arguing with our partner more often.

Some things that we can do to help us prevent the lag, the extra argument, or even to accept the bid for connection that our partner is dealing with includes:

1. Look for Times to Share more Couple Time

I get it, you’re busy all the time when your children are around. It feels like it was just last weekend, probably because it was, that my son who is 23-years old and expecting his first child went out of town with me. I truly believe that he tried to pack so much into our weekend that I felt exhausted, drained, and full of negative emotions. I was too busy to connect with myself let alone my partner. Sure, this was only for a weekend but what would happen if you went all summer racing around only at the end of summer to feel like you and your partner had not been connecting but rather coexisting all summer long. What would you do? How would you rectify this issue? For me, I would ask my partner if we could do weekly check-ins. For my couple clients, I would ask if they could add weekly check-ins to their weekly repertoire. So, if you were to add only that, you and your partner would have pre-scheduled once weekly times where you two are experiencing intentional time.

2. Minimize your Vacation Expectations

Traveling with our children, no matter their age, can be the most exhausting times in your life. Not only do you need to fulfill your expectations but you also need to fulfill theirs as well as your partners. Summer is mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially exhausting. I mean what other time of the year can you carry your child on your hip for more than ten hours a day for five consecutive days while they are spun out on sugar and needing a nap more often than summer time? Poor planning, financial strain, lack of intimacy with our partner, and mismatched travel styles can all lead to more stress than it may feel it is worth it. The fix for this is not easy though. For this, I strongly encourage you to plan goals for your vacation. Let me give you a for instance… if I’m bringing my kids to Disneyland is it my goal to stay in the park until closing? Stay half-day? Arrive late? Eat every item on a list of carefully curated items? Or am I trying to sit at the Lodge’s pool and soak in so many sun rays that when I leave from my trip, I feel completely restored and rejuvenated? While each of these experiences may sound great, you will limit the stress, arguments, and possible hardships you will undoubtedly encounter if you talk to your family, particularly your partner, even before the trip; this will allow everyone to be on the same page.

3. Stop becoming Distracted

Filling our children’s time with pre-planned activities, screen time, and other experiences sounds daunting. Therefore, if you have a goal of having a connected summer with your partner, allow yourself to tune-in and turn-in by making schedules, talking over your to-do list items, creating tech-free times and limiting the amount of time we spend being busy. When I was younger my parents would go shopping once a week. They would go to all the stores and plan out which stores they were going to and in which order. They would go to Sam’s Club, Target, Walmart, and others. When they would be done with their itinerary for the day, they would go have lunch and work on a crossword puzzle together. In my younger years, I thought this was the strangest thing–them setting out on their weekly Wednesday adventure. Now that I am an adult, I see how they worked together to set-up their day, completed their busy tasks together, and still had time for connecting over lunch and a puzzle, all while saving gas. I often ponder on how they knew to do this and think about how this was their weekly Wednesday time together; no kids, no need for a babysitter as we were in school, and it was all about them. I don’t know how they did it. Summer is a time that is often as busy as my parents' weekly Wednesdays; however, with a little time for planning, you and your partner can work together to achieve things you only wondered were possible.

4. Manage your Exertion during the Heat

The heat from the summer sun can be excruciating but it can also lead to physical discomfort– the kind of discomfort that only comes from being too hot, not getting enough sleep, having too much on our daily schedule, and feeling stressed. Compiling these things together will have anyone feel short-tempered in no time. When we are not feeling ourselves, it is important to create balance in our life so that we can de-escalate ourselves and keep our emotions cooler than our physical temperature. Some ideas would be to take breaks when needed, don’t stay outside all day, and work on our breathing when stress is rearing its ugly head. Take my example above about going to Disneyland for instance… if we go to Disneyland in the summer, it may be important to take a break midway through the day or even to buy enough cool water to keep our temperature down.

How to Create Balance with Your Partner All Year-Long

Handling things during the summer months is often a reflective experience based on heat, body temperatures, and whether or not we are feeling connected to our partner. Connecting with our partner is something that each of our relationships long for. But how do we allow for connection while during one of the busiest times of our year? One of pop culture’s ways (ok, I knew of this but recently saw it on Tik Tok) of creating more intimate connections between couples is the 3-3-3-3 Rule, also known as the Rule of Threes. In this rule, couples are allowed to remember how often to connect by the same number (i.e. three) in their relationship. Remember that this is merely a guideline and not something that must be followed; however, here we are:

Every three DAYS we have some form of engaging interaction with our partner. For my couples, I recommend watching a 30-minute sitcom where the couples are in their partner’s breath space. I describe being in our partner’s breath space as sitting still near our partner in a non-sexual way; possibly sitting on the couch together, holding hands. Still, this can include going to dinner where you are gazing into one another’s eyes, going for a walk, playing a board game, etc.
Every three WEEKS the couple should go on an outside date. This one can be a little more daunting because the expectation would be that the couple goes on a date where they leave the house, spend time outdoors (i.e. partner A plans a picnic at the park), spend time doing an activity (i.e. following the picnic, the couple goes for a walk around the park), and spend time having some form of touch (i.e. holding hands as they walk around the park).
Every three MONTHS the couple should go out of town for a weekend or for an overnight. Remember that going out of town really does limit where you and your partner can go out of town. Some people even recommend that going out of town for more than 2 hours is not ideal. Remember that while yours and your partner’s romantic weekend getaway can be tailored to your own preferences, it is important to prioritize the quality time of your trip. For example, if driving is important since it would afford you time to talk to your partner, you should schedule a destination that is further than if your only goal was to have a spa or beach trip.
Every three YEARS the couple should go out of town for a week together, with no one else. No matter the destination, remember that planning is key in this experience. Planning a romantic trip that is also week long is important yet hard. If you see yourself in a hammock and your partner sees themselves on a cruise, ask yourself: what are the things we both want to accomplish on our trip and are there any similarities? Also, remember that a quintessential part of doing your planning is also researching your destination, great places to eat, and telling the hotel/restaurant/destination if you are celebrating anything important so you don’t miss out.

While there are many things we can do to help limit the stress and disconnection we may face prior to summer, some of us may feel that having the guidance from a trained professional will help the most. Knowing when to seek professional help will undoubtedly help you with this. If you are struggling with connecting with your partner, please reach out. There are trained therapists at California Couples Counseling here to help you find healthy connections with your partner. Please call (559) 245-6052 today; we are here to help!

About the Author:

Tammie Makely, LMFT
Tammie Makey, LMFT is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist here at California Couples Counseling · Fresno.
Tammies’s areas of specialty include:
Couples Affair Recovery & Infidelity
Relationship Issues
Sex Addiction
Trauma
Sexual Abuse
EMDR & Trauma
Co-Occurring Disorders
Codependency
Depression
Anxiety
Addiction
Sees clients at CCC Fresno, CCC Online, and Fresno Family Therapy

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Ways to Connect with Your Partner while Your Children are Home this Summer