The most important thing you need to do with your husband/wife/partner is agree on how you are going to make ‘working from home’ work. Do this today.

Relationships are hard, amazing yes, but often challenging. We make lots of assumptions, don’t communicate that well and mistakenly think that we see the world the same way as our partner. We also create a hierarchy where we think one person's job is more important than the others. And now your day of normally having lunch with colleagues, buying a flat white at your usual place, commuting with your audio book has changed!

Use this tool so you can agree on some ground rules, take joint responsibility for how you want working from home to be. The key is to do this now, when things are new, you can lay the foundations. It gives you something to come back to when/if things get challenging.

Design an Agreement

Discuss these FOUR QUESTIONS, and write down your agreements as a list on piece of paper, and stick it on the fridge. Please really listen to what the other person is saying. Do this when you are both in a good place, not on the back of a disagreement for example:

1. What atmosphere do we want to create together?  How would we know we had that?

2. What will help us flourish at the moment? (I know ‘flourish’, probably not a perspective you have thought too much about!)

3. What can we count on from each other?

4. What happens when things get difficult, how do we want to be with each other?

   (For example, my husband and I love our jobs because we both get to travel, and get time away to ourselves. We love each other and this space is really good for us! Overseas travel isn’t happening right now, so we’ve been talking about how do we create time for ourselves.)

We did this today, it was revealing, and we are not new to working from home, but these circumstances are very new for everyone. It has helped clear a lot of assumptions about who would do what and how we are both feeling about the current crisis.

Do this today. This is very grown up!

If you need to talk, to help you find some clarity and work through challenging times please Book in Here. You are absolutely worth it, please invest in your self and your mental wellbeing. If not now, then when?