read time: 8 min
This summer, something interesting happened that indirectly affected how I was showing up in my relationship.
Over the course of 6 weeks, my family + friends visited me in Scandinavia (we explored Sweden, Denmark, and parts of Norway) for the first time since I moved to Malmö in January 2021.
The 6 weeks were jam-packed with sight-seeing, walking (a lot!), eating + drinking all of the things, card games, train rides + flights, saunas + cold plunges, laughs, a couple late nights out, and more.
It was a busy 6 weeks in the most nourishing of ways, and also in some tiring ways, too. (both get to be true while still be incredibly fulfilling).
The lovely part was that Nate came along for the ride for most of the 6 weeks. He was able to spend quality time with my family and we got to experience new things together.
And during this 6 weeks—something shifted internally.
For the first extended period of time in YEARS, I wasn’t constantly focusing on our relationship.
Quite frankly, I had other things on my mind (enjoying quality time with my loved ones, games, exploring new places + trying new things — and planning, logistics, hosting, etc.).
These “other things on my mind” subtly forced me to pay less attention to myself and my relationship and be more focused on other’s experiences and enjoying the time.
It only occurred to me midway through the visits that I wasn’t experiencing pretty much any of the classic relationship anxiety “symptoms” that can frequently show up when a lot of energy goes towards thinking about the relationship.
Symptoms like:
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Comparison
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Perfectionism
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Shame + guilt
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Fear of the future
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Analyzing attraction + levels of desire
…and more.
Now, this isn’t saying I had a blissful 6 weeks with no relational speed bumps, but I found myself so much less focused on what was happening with me and Nate and so much more focused on my own travel experiences + the people we were with.
Which led me to start asking myself:
“What is the balance of how much I should “care” about my relationship?”
I don’t think I have the correct answer by any means, but I do have some thoughts that may serve as a good reminder for you, and for myself.
Like most things in relationships and life, I don’t believe an “all-or-nothing” approach is usually helpful.
When we dip into all-or-nothing territory, I think it becomes a recipe for more relationship anxiety or a relationship that ends up being stagnant and complacent (which may then lead to relationship anxiety too)!
The two extremes would be:
All of your time, energy, effort, thoughts, feelings, and levels of F’s to give go towards your partner and relationship.
None of your time, energy, effort, thoughts, feelings, and levels of F’s to give go towards your partner and relationship.
When it gets written out in that way, I think we can logically understand that neither extreme feel helpful.
Yet, sometimes, the anxious mind may want to convince us that if we aren’t always focused on our relationship, we “don’t care enough” or “things could go to shit.”
On the other side of the equation, we may be so stuck in our head around how to move forward in our relationship (or relationships in general) that we become frozen, leading us to invest hardly any time or energy into the relationship.
So, in reality, as much as we may want to have a more balanced way of showing up in our relationship, we may teeter to one extreme or the other due to where we’re at in our journey.
Please know neither of these extremes are a reason to feel shame, they’re more of a chance to check in and see how you may be leaning at the moment.
That brings me to my point of the blog post, which is balancing how much to “care” about our relationships.
To me, the sweet spot feels somewhere in the middle of that “all-or-nothing” mentality.
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A blend of surrendering to the way things are without trying to force them to go in a certain direction, and still caring enough to influence your relationship because it means a lot to you.
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A blend of focusing on other people + other experiences in your life for your own benefit, and still caring enough to direct your focus to the people + experiences in your intimate relationship because those are nourishing, too.
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A blend of letting go of the need to keep tabs on every little thing in the relationship (you get to trust that things will work out in the ways they should), and not letting go of your own visions + ideas for how to move forward in the relationship that feel exciting.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is somewhere in the middle that feels helpful, and somewhere in the middle I am going to try to live in more often.
Please know there is no “right” or “wrong” levels of care to bring into a relationship, it’s always going to be about what works for you.
Yet, what I learned this summer was that it’s actually really HEALTHY + HELPFUL to have things outside of my relationship to nourish me.
Not everything needs to be centered around my relationship for it to be incredible.
For me, that can be really hard being that most of what I do for works now centers around thinking about relationships.
My own education to continue learning in this field, my work with clients directly and indirectly, my social media content, etc.
And I love relationships, so it’s really cool that I get to dive deep into a topic I am so passionate about.
However, every now and then, taking space away from thinking about my relationship (or relationships in general) 24/7 is a breath of fresh air.
It’s not a distraction, it’s not me enjoying other things more than my time with just Nate (even though that is perfectly okay), it’s not me de-prioritizing the relationship—it’s me LIVING MY LIFE.
When I had some “breathing room” from thinking about my relationship’s growth, trajectory, and how things are doing—it felt really really really freakin’ good.
It felt like that middle-ground between being focused on my relationship ALL the time, and NONE of the time.
It felt like a chip was taken off my shoulder from needing my relationship to be “good” (a chip that I have put on myself).
It felt like a “get out of jail free” card—except instead of a Monopoly jail, the jail was my own mind which felt like I had to constantly be focused on my relationship to grow.
It’s just not true, my friends.
As this blog comes to a close, I encourage you to check in with yourself.
How are you feeling on the “all-or-nothing” scale lately when it comes to how much “care” + energy you’ve been putting into your relationship?
If you have been all-in—can this blog post be a permission slip for you to take a breather and allow things to unfold without your constant oversight?
If you have been more frozen or tapped-out—can this blog post be some inspiration for you to get back into that middle-ground and invest some more energy + care into something that means a lot to you? (I assume it does, which is why you’re there!).
It’s good to be back writing blogs… I’m sending you all a lot of love!
xx, Sarah
