Make 2019 Your Best Relationship Year Yet
Last week I gave you an idea for talking about sex for the very first time with your partner.
This week, I want to give you an idea for your second conversation: talking to your partner about approaching your sex life as a team.
Before you even start talking about problems you’re having in your sex life, or changes you want to make, or even requests that you have, it’s important to talk about the idea of you and your partner being teammates.
Why?
Because one of the best parts of being in a relationship is feeling like you’re on a team. Like you don’t have to go at life alone. Like you have each other’s back.
Every couple is going to go through challenges in their sex life at some point or another.
When it feels like you and your partner are working together against that challenge, instead of you and your partner fighting with each other, you’re so much more likely to actually solve those challenges! (And come away stronger as a result.)
As teammates, you get to use the skill sets of both partners, so it feels like you’re even stronger together than you are individually.
Let me give you a really straightforward example.
Xander and I both like to have a nice environment in our bedroom for sex.
It’s easy for something as simple as that to cause fighting. Xander could get mad at me for my tendency to leave clothes on the floor. I could pick fights with him about having a ton of clutter on his bedside table (including his oh-so-sexy mouth guard).
But instead, we work together as a team to make sure our bedroom feels soothing and sensual. When we first moved, we picked minimal furniture and dark colors. Now, Xander makes the bed every day, and I keep the bedroom tidy. He sends our two pugs out of the room when we want to have alone time, and I dim the lights and turn on music.
These are super simple things, but they make us feel like a team. Like we’re both invested in our intimacy and in each other.
To help you have this important conversation with your partner, I have a surprise for you. I have the perfect opportunity for you to start talking about teamwork…
The 31 Days, 31 Ways Relationship Challenge!
In a recent coaching session, one of my clients introduced me to Rachel and Dave Hollis, a husband and wife duo. They talk about how to intentionally create the life you’ve always wanted. (They also have a pretty interesting podcast about relationships called Rise Together.) They do a special challenge called Last 90 Days, where the idea is to end the last 90 days of the year as motivated and goal-driven as most of us try to start the first month of a new year.
I thought it was a great idea, and it reminded me of a productivity course I took, (90 Day Year, in case you’re interested. Apparently the number 90 is popular these days!) which talked about trying to set yourself up for success ahead of time.
So with that inspiration in mind, I thought it would be a lot of fun to create a free relationship challenge.
The 31 Days, 31 Ways Relationship challenge is designed to help you nurture your relationship even during the chaos of the holidays, and set your relationship up for your best year yet in 2019.
Here’s how it works: throughout the month of December, you’ll get 31 daily challenges to complete with your partner, all about different ways to show your love to each other. Since I know December is crazy, the challenges are designed to be small and manageable.
The 31 Days, 31 Ways challenge will help you prioritize each other, reconnect, fall even more in love, and feel inspired to keep working on your relationship together as a team.
The 31 Days, 31 Ways challenge is a great way to initiate a conversation about teamwork with your partner. Since I want to make this as easy as possible for you, I put together a little script that you can copy:
“Hey babe, I wanted to talk to you about something. Is now a good time? I really enjoyed that conversation we had last week about our favorite sexual memories together. It got me thinking about how lucky we are to have each other, and how unique our bond is. I want us to continue creating special memories like that together. I follow this sex therapist online, and she’s doing a free challenge for couples for the month of December. It’s about working together as a team and doing small daily activities together. The idea is to prioritize our relationship and build up to setting intentions for what we want out of our relationship in 2019. Would you be open to doing it with me?”
The 31 Days, 31 Ways challenge is absolutely free, as my thank you for being a part of my community. All you have to do is sign up for my email list here.
I want you to end 2018 with a bang, and make 2019 the best year for your relationship yet!