Having a “me time” is one of the keys to a healthy and much stronger relationship. Couples need some time alone or with their friends to fuel their energy and replenish their battery so that they have more to give when they are back with their partner and family. Today, we talk about asking permission to spend time off and the other side of the spectrum doing whatever you want to without considering your partner. We also go all-in on the steps of doing it properly.
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Below is a transcript of the video and audio above. The paragraphs and sections are alternated between bold / not bold for ease of reading along with the video or audio.
Self-Love And Self-Care: Taking “Me Time” From Couple Time
We are here to talk about asking permission and the other side of the spectrum doing whatever you want to without considering your partner.
There are two ends is what she’s trying to say. There’s one end, which is you need to ask permission. You are not sure if your partner is going to accept or if it’s going to fit in what you want to do. The other end is you don’t care. You’re going to do it whatever matters and you have not necessarily taken your partner into consideration. We want to teach you how to do it properly together so that it’s being done in a better communication kind of way.
Why this is an issue and why we brought this up is because we have this in our relationship where he would ask me permission. It was almost like, “Do you mind if I,” instead of, “I feel like I need some guy time,” or for myself, “I feel like I need some Christy time. When would it be good for me to go and get a massage? When would it be good for me to go golf with my friend?” Something like that. One side of the spectrum is you’re acting almost like a kid in school, “Can I go to the bathroom? Mommy or daddy, can I do this?” You don’t have to ask permission from your partner, but it comes from a place of, “I’m needing a guy time, I’m needing a girl’s weekend, I’m needing just time off to go get a massage or I’m needing time for myself to go get lost for a few hours.” Being able to come to your partner not with, “Do you mind the wishy-washy place,” but saying, “I feel like I need some extra time for myself this weekend.”
That was an understanding in our relationship that we both agreed that we needed some time for each other in order to replenish our battery, in order to come back to all of the responsibilities of the family, taking care of the kids and being present with each other. We know that for each other, it’s important to take our me-time. When she comes to me and says, “I need to take some time for myself,” I’m glad that she takes time for herself and vice versa. The same thing for her, she is so happy when I take time for myself. She knows that when I come back, I’m fresh, I’m happy and I’m in the best of moods because I took some time to go and do what I love to do.
He’s more present. He’s more patient. It’s the same thing for me. We call that Christy time and Frederic time, whatever that looks like. Sometimes along the way we’ve had to negotiate it because there was a point where we had two babies. They’re pretty close together. They’re sixteen months apart and we always decided that Saturday mornings would be my time to go get a massage. It’s where I don’t have to be a businesswoman. I don’t have to be a wife. I don’t have to be a mother, a daughter or a friend. I just get to be Christy without roles, without responsibilities, doing whatever I want to do. He would do the same thing on Sundays.
A massage at best is two hours. I would get two-hour massages. They’re wonderful. I recommend it. Yet he would go golfing and sometimes with travel time and golf time, it would be five, sometimes six hours. There was a part of me that felt like, “This isn’t fair. You’re gone half the day on Sunday and I’d get two hours on Saturday.” Instead of holding it in, I did a little bit. I started feeling resentment. I came to him and said, “I’m starting to feel a little bit of resentment like it’s not fair. I get this amount of time on Saturdays, you get almost half of the day. What could we work out? What are our options?” For him to cut golf short wouldn’t feel good. That’s him and his ability to go and have that total time. We talked about, “Instead of doing an 18-hole, I can do a 9-hole,” but that didn’t feel good to him. I said, “What if I do this? After my massage, I don’t have to rush home and come right back into it. If I want to go shopping, if I want to go to lunch or if I want to do something else. It’s not like I get the massage time and have to come back home. I can take my time and be leisurely coming back home and doing what I want.” That felt good for both of us and worked for both of us.
As we went along the way, when we were in Montreal, the kids had karate. I would go to my massage and meet them so I could watch the kid’s karate. After that, he would go to lunch maybe with his mom and the kids. I would go meet a friend, go shopping or do whatever I wanted to do to still feel like I had my time. Other times, I felt like I’m good. I don’t need to take the rest of the time. Having that option for myself, to have that no pressure on myself, no responsibilities, just complete freedom to choose. What do I feel like doing? Do I feel like going and getting a coffee and journaling somewhere? Do I feel like seeing a friend? What do I feel like doing without any scheduling, without any restrictions of any kind? That was important.
What’s important here and what we want to say is that it’s important to communicate together and not come from a place of resentment and a place of fear or a place where there’s frustration going on. You don’t feel like you’re having some time for yourself. We all know we’ve got busy lives. You’ve got work. You’ve got family. There are kids. There’s always something that needs to be done. It is important for us what we’ve learned in our relationship. It’s important to start to continue taking care of ourselves. Feed that energy bubble inside of us. What’s important is to communicate together. Say what’s going on inside instead of keeping it in and being resentful and feeling like, “My husband is always out. I’m the one that’s always taking care of the kids. I’m the one that’s staying at home. It’s been three months that I haven’t done anything for myself.” That’s not okay. You can talk about it and sit down with your husband and say, “Why don’t we talk about I need to have some time for myself? I’d like to talk to see how we can make that happen, even on a regular basis.” For us, Saturday for her, Sunday for me worked good. It works awesome.
We had to adjust things along the way because now the kids are playing soccer. Saturdays weren’t convenient. I would get my massage on Friday night and maybe take some time later in the afternoon on a Saturday. It’s finding out and even considering this stuff that’s going on. The point I wanted to make is that it’s not an if, it’s a when. It’s not like, “If I get to go play golf.” It’s not an if. He wants to go. It’s important for him to fuel himself and to have guy time to do whatever he wants to do. It’s like, “When is a good time for me to play golf this weekend? If Sunday’s not going to work, when’s a good time this week? What have you got going on this week? When would be a good time for me to go play golf?” Instead of, “Could I, maybe, if.” It’s not an if, it’s a when.
When you’re coming to your partner with, “This is what I feel I need or prefer,” then it’s not like you’re asking for permission. I wanted to touch on the other aspect of that. We became aware because we’re not used to being around individuals like this. I know this exists out there and you might be married, in a couple or someone like that, but we went to San Diego to work with a couple that I was working for a short period of time in my business. We were going to be in town for my book tour. I had a lot of TV stations that I was going to. Frederic was coming with me and we were touring. We had a limo that was driving us around from TV station to TV station and doing different media appearances and things like that. At nighttime, we were staying at this couple’s house. The first day we got in, the next day was when my tour started, the guy said, “I’m out, I’m going to go play hockey.” We were like, “What?”
It was actually the first hour. We got in and he said, “Hi.” We shook hands and hugged and then he was like, “I’m leaving for my hockey game.” We looked at each other. We were like, “What’s going on?” For us, it was like, “Aren’t you entertaining us since we’re at your house?”
“Are we going to dinner tonight?” I thought that was the plan. “Yeah, but I need to go to hockey.” We had dinner with the wife and we had a lovely dinner but it was very different. It was like instead of saying to us, not into asking permission because nobody has to ask us our permission, but it’s like, “I really needed this hockey time. I hope you understand how you feel about that.” We would have been like, “Okay, but we were looking forward to spending time with you,” but it wasn’t like that. It was like, “I’m doing this without considering anybody else in the mix.” That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about that behavior where you don’t consider your wife, your husband, your partner. You’re just like, “I’m doing this.” If he was to say, “I’m golfing on Wednesday.” It would be a very different conversation than, “I want to golf this week. I have an opportunity to golf on Wednesday. Is that a good time with everything we have going on with the kids?” You look at the schedule. “Yeah, it looks great,” or “No, Maxim has a presentation on Wednesday. Do you want to be there?” “I do. Maybe I’ll play on Thursday instead.”
It’s like a negotiation. It’s not like a business thing. We figure out, “Where’s the compromise? Where does it fit in? Where does it work?” You’re considering your partner. Number one, you’re considering yourself, which you always have to do. We are all individual people in the relationship. I was even telling Frederic as we were driving the kids to school, there are all these love songs that are like, “I can’t live without you, who am I without you?” It’s so fused together like, “I’m nothing without you.” No, I’m me with a channel of my divine self. I have divinity flowing through me. I have energy that flows of creation, of ideas and my desires. I have my own preferences and my own things that I want to achieve, do, be, have and he has too. What the Council of Light talks about is that my true life partner is my life, is my breathing, is my divine self, is my life force. He has his life partner, which is his breath and his life. We get to exchange and co-create together.
In this relationship, we first have to be fed on our own. We have to be energized on our own and have that containment on our own. If we’re depleted because we’re always giving and we don’t take that time for ourselves. He’s been doing so much work with the kids on their projects and training the puppy and soccer. He’s doing so much. I’m encouraging him, “Go play golf. Do something for yourself. Take that time,” because I know that he needs that. I can see. It’s a nice reminder for me when I get like that too. If he sees I’m overworking, doing too much or giving too much, he’s like, “Do you have a massage scheduled? Do you have something that you’re doing for yourself?” To be that reminder of taking time for yourself. We have to be able to fill ourselves up first because you have nothing to give if you’re depleted. It’s important to constantly feel that connection that you have with the abundance, with the success, with love.
As you fill yourself up first and have that containment of energy for yourself, you give from the overflow. Asking yourself, “What do I need? What do I prefer? Do I need to take a time out? Do I need some girlfriend time? Do I need a weekend away? Do I need a night out? What is it that you need that would plug you back in? Maybe it’s a meditation weekend, joining an online course or something like that that would fill your cup. If you want more tips and more information, if you want to do some coaching with us, you can go to ConnectedCoupling.com to improve your relationship and get one-on-one or two-on-one coaching from Frederic and me.
Let’s give them the tools to wrap it up. It’s important to have this type of awareness and you might have a-has. It’s an implementation and that’s why we give the steps to help you during this particular podcast so that you can know what to do to take away. Number one, you have to check in with yourself. You have to be plugging in with yourself, with your divine self, with your source of all good. Energy is everything. All that is energy. When you feel depleted in your energy, you must hook up to your life force. Whether that for you might be exercising or meditating. It might be going and getting some massage, spa work, golfing or fishing.
Maybe it’s sitting down on your favorite lawn chair in the backyard with your coffee for about five minutes where you inhale, you take deep breaths. That’s what I love to do sometimes in our backyard. It’s taking in all of nature and it refocuses me. It doesn’t take much time. Create a habit of doing that, making sure that you come back to yourself.
Number one is you have to check in with yourself. Number two is you have to communicate with your partner, not in a way where you’re asking permission, “Do you mind if? Could I maybe?” No, “I need to take some time for myself this weekend. How is this weekend looking for Saturday?”
It’s a negotiation. It’s a contribution to each other. It’s not asking your permission. It’s saying and having an understanding that you need some time for yourself.
The third step is when you go and take that time, do not let yourself feel guilty, shameful, afraid or any of those things. While you’re getting that massage, don’t feel like, “I’m the worst mother ever because I’m taking time away from my kids.” No, that’s not allowed. You cannot feed that time with worry and frustration. Take a timeout. Imagine taking your worries and taking the things that you have to worry about. The kids are going to be fine. Your husband’s going to be fine. Your wife’s going to be fine. You’ve got to put that aside and let yourself be present with yourself and get that filled up time. Be present without the guilt and shame. The same goes on the other end. If I am his wife, which I am, and he asked for time to go golf, we agreed upon it, “Yeah, it will be good for you.” He goes and golfs. I’m not going to beat him up, punish him, guilt him, shame him or create any drama for taking time away from the family.
Or call me while I’m on the ninth hole putting for the birdie putt saying, “I don’t know what’s going on with the kids.” All that is to come to an understanding that this is your time. If there is an emergency, there is a communication that needs to happen.
I’m thinking about the time I locked Alex in the car because I put him in the car seat. He was just a baby. He was a month old, not even. While I was putting him in the car seat, I put the keys in the front seat. I locked him in and I closed the door. I went to open up my door and my keys were locked in the front seat and the baby was in the back. I was like, “What do I do?” I didn’t have any phone numbers because this day and age, everything is in my cell phone, which my cell phone and my purse were in the front seat. I had already locked the door to the house. I couldn’t get in the house. I couldn’t get in my car. I didn’t have my cell phone. I didn’t remember a phone number. I had to go across the street to one of my neighbor’s house and call my mother who lives in Arizona. We were in Montreal. It was [8:00] in the morning. It was early because I was out to get a cup of coffee. I was so tired even to make my own coffee at home. I wanted to go to Tim Hortons and get a coffee. That was my outing for the morning and he had gone golfing. I had gone across the street to my neighbor so that I could call my mom, so my mom could give me Frederic’s cell phone number and then she had to call you or something.
You called me from the neighbor’s house to come over. It was a frantic call to come back home.
I was a new mom and my newborn baby was locked in the car. He was fine. He had fallen asleep. He wasn’t traumatized or anything, but I was because I couldn’t get to my baby. That stuff used to happen. Thank God, it doesn’t anymore. That’s something that we had to agree upon is that when he goes to golf, let the guy have a golf time.
Let the guy have a golf time, no frantic calls please. That’s probably the call that I meant.
There’s also a solution because he didn’t have to come back home. I called Ford or something. I called roadside assistance. They came and popped the car open. The baby was sleeping and all was good. I’m not the same person I used to be many years ago. I am much calmer about things and I let you have your time.
There is evolving in every relationship and we’re the proof of it. If you need help, we are ready and willing to help and coach you around that area, that space. Just go and fill out our forms at ConnectedCoupling.com.
Our next show is going to be the “ing” in coupling. Why are we saying coupling? Why don’t we just say a couple? Who is this show really for and why are we doing this is our next show because there are definite reasons why we’re doing this. Why my business has evolved into this being a coach for over seventeen years and an author, a speaker and helping coaches get certified and helping people learn about the seven essential laws. Why have I evolved into this and why is it important for us coming together to do this? Come learn about the “ing” on our next episode. Thank you so much. Go to ConnectedCoupling.com if you want to work with us one-on-one or two-on-one.
See you soon.
