When You’re On The Road, How Do You Support Your Partner Back At Home?

You’re busy traveling and doing all the things you need to do, how do you support your partner back at home? With Elizabeth Wood from http://www.BedEvents.com and Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com.

Cathy: When you’re on the road, how do you support your partner who stuck back at home keeping the home fires burning? This is Elizabeth Wood from http://beyondthebedroomevents.com/ and I’m Cathy Vartuli from https://theintimacydojo.com/ and it can be hard like you’re out, you’re busy, you’re trying to deal with time changes and all the business meetings that might have been changed or you know things that you don’t have control over,  you don’t know how long the restaurant will be and your partner’s like “I’m home and I’m having to do all these stuff and I don’t feel loved.”

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think that’s a real…real hard one especially when there’s such a significant time difference if that….that you know let’s just pretend it’s a four-hour time difference. So that partner who’s on the road, if that partner is four hours behind like when you wake up if you know that your morning routine is the same as when you’re at home you shower shave….shave you know and you eat breakfast. Can you carve out that time first thing in the morning before your schedule gets so busy? And in whatever way you can communicate is perhaps the partner at home is in the business meeting but send those texts, send the photographs, leave a Skype message you know do….do anything to make sure that you have regular contact with your partner.

Cathy: I think it’s important too to realize that just because your partner is at home and may not be quite as stressed as you they may be taking down a lot of tasks that you normally covered. So like you had to deal with all the snow this weekend you like and….and you handled it but it’s nice to remember like if you if you have a lot of things like it’s really easy to say “honey, can you pick up the dry cleaning? I went out to drop this off, this needs to go to the post office” and his like “oh my god. I was already busy and you’re going to put all this other stuff on me.” So try to figure out how you can get that handled before you leave or get it taken care of by someone else or wait till you get back so that that person doesn’t feel additional burden on top of the “I miss my partner and I’m not having this wonderful time like they are.”

Elizabeth: And especially for those people who have kids you know maybe you set up the extra play dates like you’d be super organized in order to help out your partner at home. So let’s just say the female you know there’s a woman who’s traveling and her male partner is at home with the three kids. You know those moms you know the routine, you know who you want, you know to drive and pick up your kids to and from school you’ll be the one who needs to organized, you set up those extra playdates perhaps for fun put something in the mail the day before you leave like a coupon that that allows the…the family to go and eat at their favorite restaurant.

Cathy: Right.

Elizabeth:  Just try to do some extra special things so that all of that burden that you normally take iron isn’t so overwhelming for your partner.

Cathy: Yeah. I love hiding little notes too. I do this I have couple long-distance relationships for…I’ll put like a sticky note and I’ve had other friends do this for me. It just felt so loving like in their….their book or like in the sock drawer or just in their freezer where they’ll find it differently. They might not find it while I’m actually gone they might find it later but just….just thinking of you, sending you a hug like a little heart in my name or whatever that in just little ways for them to feel like you’re not like gone….gone and you’ve actually write up a bunch of them and stick them in and Reid Mihalko does before he travels for a long time like he is at three week trip or something he takes his partner out for a date before and they schedule something for right after. That really helps them you know like reconnect and have some good time together.

Elizabeth: That’s fantastic. We didn’t do that on this trip and so I’m going to put in our joint calendar or we pick another time after jet lag is you know was is no longer an issue and I’m going to put that date in and

Cathy: Yeah.

Elizabeth: that’s a great tip.

Cathy: I think too knowing your partner’s love languages I love the five love languages by Gary Chapman like if you know your partner loves gifts, go in amazon and have something scheduled to arrive when you’re gone like just with a gift card like a note like it could be some flowers I got these orange flowers from at the  urban drawers from amazon and are you can just like have someone say “hey, just think you know just thinking of you or have door dash” or if you have a delivery service that like “I’ve already arranged for Wednesday night that foods going to arrive and it’s all scheduled and you have to worry about it and just imagine me serving it to you or whatever” like setting up and that you don’t have to do like a zillion of those things but doing a few of those each time could really make the difference between you are sharing a story about somebody’s like all kind of pouty before during and after and someone who’s like “hey, honey I’m you know let’s share about our experiences and….and be happy you know we’re feeling loved and supported by each other.”

You can also leave notes in your partner’s suitcase too. I loved doing that like so he

Elizabeth: [Inaudible 00:04:53]

Cathy: when your partner’s traveling and they’re like “oh” and they were thinking of me.

Elizabeth: like stuck in the bald of socks or something you know

Cathy: Yeah.

Elizabeth: yeah or that in….in my husband’s case in the swim trunks like “what is this hard thing in there?” And it’s a card and I ain’t forgot to do that and I normally do. We were so busy so

Cathy: Yeah.

Elizabeth:  I agree with that it’s very fun to find and they’re fun to write and like “huh, how many cards have you found?” and [Inaudible 00:05:20]

Cathy: Yeah.

Elizabeth: “one” and “I left four.”

Cathy: Yeah.

Elizabeth: So and it sounds great

Cathy: Well usually I found some like people have hidden I found them like a year later and it still felt sweet like it was like “oh” like it doesn’t have to be they have to find everyone but it does keeping that connection when we’re far apart and when one partners having this fabulous or exotic trip and another person’s at home doing routine stuff I think it’s a really powerful way to keep to keep the spark flowing when we’re far away.

Elizabeth: Yeah and that’s great and then long distance makes the heart grow fonder no….no distance makes the heart grow fonder. So really make sure that you set yourselves up for that like you know extra special “Oh, I miss him or her

Cathy: Yeah.

Elizabeth: and I can’t wait to see them again.”

Cathy: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Rather than resentment or anger or unhappy.

Cathy: “They left me alone with all the dirty laundry and they left the room a mess because they were packing” and that does happen sometimes we’re all human but little things we can do can make a huge difference.

Elizabeth: I agree.

Cathy: We’d love to know any tips or tricks you have or any questions you have around this. Please leave your comments below and we’ll get back to you.

Elizabeth: Perfect!