Getting Along with Your Spouse When You’re Together 24/7

Most of us aren’t with our spouses all of the time. Usually one or both spouses are at work and participating in activities outside of the home for a portion of each day. However, there are times, such as during vacations, during retirement, or during lockdowns for a pandemic, when spouses end up spending all of their time together.

Earlier this year, when many couples were at home together because of COVID-related stay-at-home orders, there were many jokes going around about how challenging it is to constantly be with your spouse. The jokes are funny, but the challenge itself is not a laughing matter—for many couples, it really is challenging to be together 24/7!

Whatever the reason for being together all of the time, how can spouses maintain a healthy, peaceful relationship? Here are some tips from the experts (see my references at the end of the post) and from my own experience.

How to stay married when you’re never apart

• Find ways to be alone. Marriage experts agree that it is important for spouses to have alone time. It is not unusual to desire this time, nor is it selfish. It may not be easy to find ways to be alone when both spouses are at home, but it is important that we find time and make space for it to happen. This may mean that spouses spend time in separate areas of the house, that one spouse runs an errand without the other, or that one goes for a walk alone. We need to get creative and find what works in our respective marriages so we each get the solitude we need!
• Make time to connect. It may seem like couples are connected all of the time when they are together 24/7. However, this isn’t the case. Simply being in the same house or even the same room doesn’t guarantee connection. In order to have this, we need to make sure we are not just going through the motions of our daily activities. We need to be intentional about connecting, which means doing things like setting aside time for a weekly or monthly meeting, having a date night, reading a book together, etc.
• Maintain a routine. It is easy for things like making the bed, showering, getting dressed, eating meals at consistent times, etc. to fall by the wayside when both spouses are at home. It is important that we continue doing these things because they create a sense of normalcy, which is important for keeping our stress levels low and maintaining our mental health. Our routines can be flexible, especially if both spouses are at home for an unexpected reason, but it is important to have some sort of a routine in place.
• Share household chores. Under normal circumstances (i.e., when one or both spouses are working), most of our households have a division of labor for household chores that works for our individual families. However, when both spouses are temporarily or permanently home, this division of labor may no longer make sense. Exactly how chores are divided will vary from one couple to the next, but it is important that we all find a balance so that one spouse isn’t responsible for everything.
• Be physically intimate. According to researchers, stress and too much togetherness can actually have an unsexy effect on couples. In other words, because it’s easy to become frustrated with our spouses when we are together all of the time, it’s not uncommon to grow uninterested in physical intimacy. Unfortunately, this isn’t healthy. Making the effort to be intimate, on the other hand, can benefit us by helping us feel close and connected to our spouses.
• Laugh together. Researchers agree that it is important for couples to find reasons to laugh at situations and at themselves. I’ve written about the importance of laughing together before, but what I shared there wasn’t in the context of being together all of the time. In a situation of constant togetherness, laughter is especially important because it helps dispel the stress created by your proximity to one another.

For additional information, check out my sources:

• Marriage in Lockdown
• Love Under Lockdown: How Couples Can Cope During COVID-19
• Happy Together: Six Tips for Marriage After Retirement
• An Emotional Playbook For Couples In Retirement
• Can Your Relationship Survive the Togetherness of a Pandemic?

Do you spend significant amounts of time in close proximity to your spouse? How does it go? How do you maintain a healthy relationship?

Shared at the following:

Encouraging Hearts and Home, Over the Moon, and Busy Monday.