As we get ready for the school year to begin, I think ahead to one phase that always hits our home that I’m not looking forward to. It seems inevitable every year and yet even though I try everything to avoid it, I have been unsuccessful so far. The roommate phase.
It probably hits our home harder in the fall more than others because I am returning to work after the summer off. But I’m guessing it hits every house at some point throughout a year, whether it’s a busy season of work, holidays, after- school commitments for kids or something else.
So what do I consider the roommate phase? It’s when I only see my husband to sleep. It’s when our conversations are short, to the point, and revolve around the logistics of carting our kids around or what we need from the grocery store. It’s when after the kids are in bed, we both hop on our own computers to get work done that we couldn’t complete during our actual “work” hours. Fun? Relaxing? Intimacy? That’s funny.
So even though I know this is likely to happen again, what am I doing to stop it? For us, the only thing in the past that has helped is when we have hit a lull in busyness and can finally have a night to talk, relax, laugh, and connect. So I need to make more of point to build that into our schedules (yep, I’m talking about putting that on our shared Google calendars – RELAX night, DATE night, NO WORK night). I had a friend do at home date nights with her husband last year because they had a little one who went to bed early and I loved the idea.
I know it’s not going to be easy, it will have to be intentional on both our parts, but it’s worth it to stay in the roommate phase for as little as possible this coming school year. Good luck to you and your spouse this year as well! And I’d love to hear anything you do to overcome this phase!