How To Strengthen Your Relationship During Quarantine

We’ve been spending all our days together before we had to.

Every time I post a picture of my boyfriend and me on Instagram, I call him my partner in everything.

We‘ve been together for almost three years, and well, we are partners in everything.

Three months after meeting each other, we started our own business. At first, we worked on several different side-businesses for around a year and a half.

In 2019, however, we decided to quit everything that doesn’t serve our purpose and shared vision.

We jumped into ice-cold water and started a crazy journey to balancing entrepreneurship and love.

For more than half a year, we’ve been spending all our days together.

We wake up together, we go to the gym together, we eat all our meals together, we work together, we gossip about others together, we visit our families together, we meet friends together.

The only times we spend separately are when one of us meets a friend without the other, when my boy goes for a run, and I go to my Zumba class or when I take care of my little sister, and he decides to stay at home and work.

All in all, I’d say we spend 98% of our time together.

Not because we have to but because we want to.

When we first met each other, both of us were in a relationship. Thus, openness and honesty were absolute must-haves right after our first encounter.

And quite soon, we realized we have a common vision of an ideal future we dream of: We both wanted to pursue the path of entrepreneurship, and we knew we wanted to build a business together as our main goal was to live life to the fullest together.

Fast forward: Three years later, that’s how our reality looks like.

And obviously, some of our friends and followers have been admiring how we handle spending so much time together as it’s not a common thing among relationships.

Once COVID-19 hit our country and everyone suddenly had to stay at home and spend more time with their partners, tons of emails, Instagram DM’s and Whatsapp voice memos made their way into my inboxes.

Friends, acquaintances, and followers were asking how the fuck we manage to spend so much time together and still be a couple.

Yesterday, a friend sent me five voice messages asking what she could do to add a little spark to her relationship during self-quarantine.

She explained how her relationship felt more like a living community with her boy than a romantic tie.

And she’s not alone.

A few hours later, a girl who once participated in one of my workshops emailed me asking what they could do to stop annoying each other if both are working from home.

First, let me be honest for a second:

We didn’t figure all of this out either.

We fight, we cry, we curse and we annoy each other.

But we found out why we’re doing all of this.

We know why each fight and each discussion is worth it, and we’re fully convinced we’d chose to fight with each other than going separate ways.

When I first received all these desperate messages from friends and former coachees, I answered in funny, motivating ways.

Yet, after the first few days, I realized they’re not joking.

This whole quarantine thing is a tough examination for many relationships.

I guess there’s no worse time to realize you’re with the wrong person than during times of social distancing and isolation, but that’s the reality for thousands of people right now.

However, even though many people might decide to go different paths once all of this is over, I believe social isolation can be a massive opportunity for couples to strengthen their relationships.

Those who haven’t been together for too long might get to know each other on a profound level, and couples who’ve been spending the past decades together might finally find a new spark and joy in their relationship.

There are many things to do to strengthen your relationship from home.

You can play games, try different activities, do sports together, cook together, try different sex positions or whatever.

Yet, what my partner in everything and I found is that there’s one particular conversation that always helps us find joy and deep connection, even if we annoy each other from time to time.

Talk About Your Why

You might know Simon Sinek’s famous TED talk about the Golden Circle and how great leaders inspire action.

Or you have heard about Ikigai, which is a Japanese concept centered around your reason for being.

Now, both concepts clearly communicate why it’s so important to have a strong passion, a why for whatever you are doing.

Sinek convinced millions of people through his talk sharing how successful organizations are those which have a definite purpose, a why.

And Ikigai is a concept used by people all over the globe to find out what they actually want to do in life.

It’s quite apparent it makes sense to have a purpose for your business and an idea of what to do with your life.

But what about our relationships?

Did you ever ask yourself why you are in a relationship?

Why do you choose to stay with your partner while you could have thousands of others?

Why stand all the struggles instead of just choosing a happy, single life?

Weird questions, right? Admittedly, they might be weird.

But they are incredibly powerful.

While most people right now are just working from the same place, my boyfriend and I are working on the same projects, for the same business.

We need to get on well with each other. An emotional fight might ruin our business results and a dispute about business issues might harm our romantic bond.

Finding balance in those is not always easy. It has never been.

At the beginning of our relationship, we had many fights, which might have ended in a break-up.

But for some reason, that didn’t happen.

We kept going, and we became stronger, more compassionate, and more joyful after each dispute.

For a long time, I didn’t know how we managed to become so much more powerful, but now, I know the answer.

It’s because we have a shared vision. We know what we want. And we want it together.

We know how we want our relationship, our home, our business, and our lives to look like in five, ten, or even fifteen years.

We don’t have concrete plans in any field of our lives, but we share the same big picture.

Even if that might sound obvious, during all the talks with my friends throughout the past weeks, I figured out that’s what most of them are missing.

They don’t know why they are together.

They don’t know why they chose their partner over so many others and why it’s worth to get over all the struggles.

John C. Maxwell once stated the following:

“Find your why and you’ll find your way.”

I believe that’s true for anything in life.

Not only in your career but also in your relationship, you need to be able to answer the question of why.

I’m not a relationship expert. And I’ll probably never be. But I believe I figured some things out that most people struggle to deal with. Because I had to.

From time to time (and now is undoubtedly a great time), you need to sit down and talk.

You need to find meaning in being in all of this together.

You are next to each other because of some reason.

You chose your partner over others.

And whenever you feel annoyed by his or her present, remind yourself of why you made that decision back then.

What’s your common goal?

What are the things you are looking forward to together?

How do you want to wake up, communicate, or go to bed in five, ten, or fifteen years?

If you can openly discuss these questions, I believe you’ll find meaning in being together, and probably, you’ll even enjoy being in quarantine together.

Loving and cherishing each other through the better and the worse, the richer and the poorer times, in sickness and in health, is surely easier once you know why you want to fight all the storms.

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