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Carlee
Are you in a relationship that has physical distance due to work, travel or just living in separate states, are you in a long, long distance relationship? If the answer is yes, you are in the right place. Hi, I'm Carlee Myers, your friendly stress management expert. And this month we're talking about love, sex and relationships. And I brought on Dr. Kristina, who is a psychologist and relationship coach whose husband works out of state half of the year. She focuses on helping other other couples navigate the unique challenges of sticking together while they are apart via coaching and her podcast, which I've been a guest on, Together Apart. Welcome to the show, Kristina.
Kristina
Thank you so much. So you really talked a lot about sort of my history and my background about being in a relationship where my husband is out of state half the year. And this is a topic of conversation that when you're meeting new people, they sort of ask, oh, what does your partner do? Things like that. And whenever I would meet other couples where one partner would be away from the other, for whatever reason, I always found that they were the most unique and the most sort of rich conversations that I would have because we would always hit it off and discussed the really unique aspect of our lives. It was a real point of connection. And there were often these sort of me too moments where I would talk about putting my son to sleep when my husband was away and a friend of mine would say, oh yeah, you know, and what I do is this, this and this to help them understand how Daddy's away and when he's going to come home. And we would just talk and talk about these strategies that we would use to help one another. And I thought this is an area where people could really benefit from understanding more about how to navigate these challenges. And so I really came up with the idea of helping people bridge the gap and stick together while they were apart through my personal experience, but also from being a psychologist and being an expert in communication and an expert in relationships. And so this really offered me the perfect opportunity to use both my personal experience and my skill set to help people who really needed it.
Carlee
I love this. Yeah. So let's let's dive right in. You know, for our listeners that are in a together apart kind of relationship, what do you recommend? What would your tips be for them?
Kristina
So when I think about it together apart relationship, there are really three tips that above anything else I tell my clients most often. And the first one would be communicate for the betterment of your relationship, not to be right. The second one would be to cultivate in your relationship an environment of trust, and the third one would be and this is going to sound silly, but know your partner. And what I mean by that is know your partner so well that you can find ways to stay connected while you're apart. So you don't have the luxury when you're apart from your from your partner to have that daily face to face interaction. And so you have to be creative in finding those avenues to connect. And if you know your partner, you can do that. So those are the three sort of areas that I tend to focus on most often. And if we go back to kind of area number one, you and I talked about this a lot when we were just talking about the idea for this podcast today. And it's really communication.
Carlee
Yeah.
Kristina
When you enter into a together apart relationship and you are often away from your spouse or your partner. You rely on communication that is either verbal or if it basically communicates communication that is verbal, you don't have that luxury of having the nonverbal communication unless you're over face time. And even then, sometimes it gets lost. So there are issues that come up in every single relationship that you're in and if you communicate for the betterment of your relationship and not to be right. So, for example. You have an idea in your own mind about how to resolve this conflict and your partner doesn't agree, and so you hold on to and hold on to and hold on to your idea about what is right in this conflict. And you don't communicate to reach a solution. You communicate to be right. You're losing an opportunity to connect with your partner, and you're also losing an opportunity to really compromise with your partner and communicate well. So oftentimes, I will have couples really practice using I language, for example, when such and such thing happens, I feel X, Y and Z thing. So when you don't answer your phone and it's seven o'clock at night, I feel abandoned or I feel worried. So you are communicating in a way that is very doesn't allow the other person to doesn't doesn't put the other person on the defensive.
Carlee
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's funny. So just thinking about this first tip of communicating for the better, for the betterment of the relationship not to be right, I can tell you a probably a million examples of how I've not done that. Right. And it can be so easy to just hold on to. Well, my idea is right. This is absolutely what you need to do to you know,
Kristina
You're making me worry. You're making me upset.
Carlee
I feel like it can be so easy to, you know, get caught in that trap. So what would you what would you recommend for for folks to be able to let go of that? Because I think at some point the this solution and the example that you give it becomes a mantra like, well, he needs to do that. He needs to do that.
Kristina
Yeah. You know, when you think about. When you think about your values as a couple, you want to always align with those values, you want to do both. You know, you you you want to be able to let go of blame. And once you let go of blame, you have the opportunity to communicate for the betterment of your relationship. So it's not his fault or her fault. It's this happened. This thing happened. I felt this way when this thing happened. How do we solve it? Versus you did this to me, which creates an environment of blame and resentment and resentment is something that breeds really quick in a together apart relationship.
Carlee
Yes. And you know, what's coming to mind for me is is almost a sense of accountability, individual accountability. Right. But I feel this this is this is my you know, your partner may not be abandoning you, but you're feeling abandoned. So-
Kristina
Yeah.
Carlee
-there right. And so, you know,
Kristina
it's self reflection and ownership.
Carlee
Yes. I think that that's self responsibility, too. Can go into this first. Yeah. So how how do we cultivate trust really quickly.
Kristina
Yeah. So when you're thinking about cultivating an environment of trust, if you, when your partner is away from you are thinking about all the ways and the reasons that they're not doing what they should be doing, this again can breed that resentment. It can breed arguments. And if you're the kind of person who doesn't want your partner to know where you are, doesn't want them to be too close or to have the information about what's going on, it it it causes problems. It causes friction. And so when we try to cultivate an environment of trust, we want to give the information that we we would like to receive from our partner to them. So if you would like to receive that information from your partner, you probably want to give that information to your partner. And when you're together apart, you want to be able to trust your partner. And so if there are trust issues in your relationship, those are things you want to address fast and you want to really dig deep. And again, self reflection is important here. You want to understand them. Well, to the last tip that I have there, here is really to know your partner. When you know your partner, you have the opportunity to surprise them. You have the opportunity to do small things that will make a big impact for connection. And again, when you're in it together, a relationship that ability to connect is so, so, so important. So a little thing like sending a a silly meme with your partner's favorite character on it that will take you two point two seconds to put a smile on their face is a way to connect without necessarily being in the same room as somebody. And so it's little small things that you do when you really know your partner that can make a huge impact when you're in this together apart relationship.
Carlee
Yes. Love this. Love this. So we want to know if you're listening to this and you are in a together, apart, long distance relationship, what have you done? Right. Let's get that conversation started so we can create those me too moments. Right. What tips do you have? How what have you what are you going through now if you're feeling overworked and exhausted? I've got some good news. The Stress Less Company works with high achieving executives, business owners and managers just like you to find that sense of peace and freedom they desire. And as a result of our work together, they really learn not only how to deepen their spiritual connection, whatever that means to them, but they also learn those tactical tools so that they can experience more free time, more efficiency and even more prosperity. Sounds pretty great, right? Well, you can apply for a complementary stress assessment today to start the conversation about working together. Visit Stressless CO dot COM, apply for more information and to apply. This concludes this episode of The Stress Less Show. And I want to give Kristine one last big shout out. Thank you so, so much for coming on and sharing your expertise today.
Kristina
Thank you.
Carlee
Absolutely. So if you enjoyed this week's episode, let us know by giving us a big thumbs up and hitting that follow or subscribe button. Thanks for listening. Share if it resonated. And we will see you next week bye.