How to Start Refocusing and Prioritizing your Relationship

Art Direction and Photograph by: Catie Menke. Model: Kendall Merritt.

Modal and Interview featuring: Kendall Merritt
Creative Direction by: Catie Menke

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Got any Relationship Questions? We want to hear them.

Send us your questions to hello@catiemenke.com and Kendall Merritt, Founder of Soul Saturations, Certified Energy Coach + Sex and Relationship Coach will be happy to answer!

I’ve been really busy managing priorities. From managing the household and taking care of the kids to home schooling and working full time, I feel like my relationship has really taken the back burner. How do I refocus and prioritize my relationship?

Identify Containers

KENDALL: The easiest way to refocus is to first identify the containers you have in your life. You may have different containers that can range from your relationship with your children to your work and career. When you start to clearly identify your containers, it allows you to focus your energy there.

Sometimes when you don’t have a clearly established relationship container, you’re not intentionally focusing your energy on that. And then your energy just kind of leaks out and you feel maybe spread a little thin. You feel a little chaotic. So when you really want to highlight and focus on your relationship, you have to establish those clear containers - and clear boundaries - and clear expectations.

Something to help identify those containers, I suggest starting off by checking in with yourself. Asking questions like:

How am I feeling?
And how am I feeling with my relationship?

Image from Interview with Kendall Merritt and Catie Menke.

Identify your Why

KENDALL: I like to coach my clients to go even deeper when identifying their containers by asking, “What is the purpose? What is the intention? And what is the impact?” By asking yourself these 3 things, it really helps in narrowing down your ‘why’ in your relationship. And by identifying your ‘why’, your relationship in return becomes more meaningful. More intentional.

When thinking about your purpose some questions you can ask yourself are:

What’s the purpose of having a healthy relationship?
Why is that important?
Why does that exist for me?

When thinking about intention some questions you can ask yourself are:

What are the agreements I share with my partner for our relationship?
How do I want to go about honoring my relationship overall?
How can I listen with presence and move with compassion?

When thinking about the impact it’s important to think about:

What’s that impact going to be for your own well being?
Impact on your intimacy with your partner?
What are those results going to be in the end?

Have the Conversation with your partner

KENDALL: Now that you have done some self identification, established a clear relationship container and found your ‘why’, the next simple step is to discuss these with your partner. (Which is not always as easy as it sounds.)

A suggestion I have for when starting a conversation like this, is to remember that you are human and having vulnerable discussions can be uncomfortable. It is definitely a lot easier to ignore conversations and relationship problems - hoping it gets better soon. But that is not the best strategy if you want to take control and have accountability of your relationship.

An example of how you could start this conversation could be:

“Hey babe, I want to talk to you about something. I really don’t know how to go about it - it’s kind of uncomfortable. But I just need you to love me through this because I think it’s going to make our relationship better overall.”

Another suggestion is to not start this conversation in the heat of an argument or before you’re about to get hot and heavy in bed. Be really thoughtful about when you’re going to have this conversation. Maybe schedule an evening walk or cook a meal together to clearly set the container around the conversation and letting them know prior that this is what you want to talk about.

Important note: Don’t just spring this on your partner and avoid the phrase “we need to talk”. Don’t cause them to go into total freak out mode.

Try to stay curious during your conversation. Some open ended questions you can ask your partner are:

How are you feeling about our relationship right now?
What’s been going really well?
What are the things that you wish were happening?

It’s important while discussing these questions to honor your partners perspective. Be sure to acknowledge the things they say even if you don’t always agree and include your own thoughts and perspective. Once you’ve been able to discuss openly together, you’ll be able to clearly identify the expectations for your relationship moving forward.

Some example of expectations or agreements could be:

One date night a week, prioritizing the time spent together. No phones. No TV.
Making time for intimacy and honoring the physical relationship with each other.
At the end of the day, set aside 5-10 minutes to share how each other’s day went and listen with presence.

By establishing these agreements, it will allow you to refocus and honor your relationship. Setting you on a path of intentional direction with your relationship. Taking it from the back burner to the level of importance you desire.