This is post #11 of the 30 blogs in 30 days challenge I’m participating in. Thanks for being here! Your comments help make my blog better and more interesting, so please share. My topic every day this month is “stressful relationships”— Please go to askevelynbrooks.com and tell me what your biggest stress is right now, especially if it’s related to a relationship. I’ll answer your questions here in a post! (And don’t worry, it’s confidential, so I won’t use your name or email address.)

This weekend… even if your relationship is rocky… I suggest you make a big effort to…

Reconnect!

When both people are stressed out with work, finances and other challenges it’s easy to slide into the bad habit of sniping at each other, blaming each other and in general withdrawing from the relationship.

Each person secretly holds a grudge that the other isn’t magically perfect and making all the bad stuff go away for them!

Oh, I’m not saying that you actually believe that, but a wish similar to that is at the bottom of a lot of stress in relationships. We want so much for the other person to be our rescuer, and when they are stressed out instead, it feels like a betrayal.

You can choose to do things differently.

Look at what you’ve been doing lately on the weekends. Do you end up filling the days with chores, errands, TV? Have you left out time for fun?

Take a contrary action– instead of fighting, do something you enjoy together.

If the stress is in a friendship, make plans to get together. Using a stressed marriage as our example, make a “Saturday Night Date” with your Significant Other.  Ease up on the endless discussions (fights?) about bills and household repairs. Go to a movie, for a walk, stroll around the shopping mall, take in an art gallery or museum. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. Use your imagination and think back to when you were dating and it was a thrill to hold hands and browse a bookstore together.  And while you’re at the grocery store stocking up for the weekend, grab a pretty bunch of flowers to surprise your mate with “for no special reason.”

Renew that connection you used to feel with him/her. Make the effort to be nice, loving and interested in their life. You might be pleasantly surprised that you are able to have fun in the relationship … at least for a few hours. And when you do that, you start building a foundation to strengthen the relationship and get the stress under control.

your happiness guru,

Evelyn