Dealing with stress in your relationship
You and your partner may face many kinds of big life changes over the years. New jobs, new houses, big moves, new children, grief and loss, major accomplishments. Whatever it might be, these big life changes can affect your relationship, and it’s important for you and your spouse to stay close and keep your marriage strong when change happens.
How big life changes can affect your relationship
Change can stress you each out individually. If you or your family is going through something, whether good or bad, it can be stressful and overwhelming at times. And the stress you each feel can impact your relationship.
How you handle stress might be different for you compared to your partner.
Think of your stress responses like fight, flight, or freeze. (This isn’t describing trauma or crisis here, but instead using this common idea to help you understand your stress responses on a smaller scale.)
Fight mode:
When big changes come up and we get stressed, some of us get into fight mode. We take action. You might experience this as panic, or as trying to plan or control everything. You don’t slow down.
Flight mode:
Some of us experience flight mode. We want to run away from the stress. We retreat. This might look like you avoiding necessary changes, pulling away and distracting yourself.
Freeze mode:
Some of us freeze when we face change. We shut down, we don’t know what to do. This might look like you isolating, cutting off communication.
It’s natural that you might experience any of these stress responses when you go through big life changes. You naturally respond the best way you know how to protect yourself from stress.
But the problem is that these stress responses often distance us or disconnect us from our partner. You might experience more conflict. If you and your partner respond differently to stress, you might lack understanding of each other.
If you both struggle to communicate with each other and support each other in times of stress, you can become disconnected from each other.
So when big changes happen, if you aren’t staying close and connected and working through the changes together, it’s easy for your relationship to be placed lower on the priority list.
If you hold all of your stress in, you end up not talking with your spouse. You don’t go to them for support or comfort. As you pull away, maybe they have a harder time reaching you.
Or if you tend to externally process, you may need to process a lot of stress with your partner. But if that feels overwhelming to them and they aren’t also processing their stress, they might withdraw and pull away from you.
How to keep your relationship strong when you face big changes:
First, take a deep breath and recognize that you’re in a stressful season.
Accept that you and your spouse are feeling stressed and that it is at least in some part a result of big changes you’re going through together.
Remember to extend grace.
Your spouse might be snappy of frustrated one day in the midst of these stressful changes. Give them some grace. Don’t let it start a fight between the two of you. Recognize their stress for what it is, and be there for them. And on a day that you might feel worried about some of the changes your family is going through, they can give you grace. They can recognize your stress and frustration not as part of you, but as part of the changes you are experiencing together.
Prioritize your relationship.
You both might be really busy and figuring out what you each need to do to manage the changes you’re making. But in all of the chaos, recognize what you each need from each other. Whether it’s a small note to remind your spouse how much you love them, or escaping during your work day for a lunch date, focus on each other. It might be as simple as just having a conversation to check in with how each of you are feeling, and to share your worries and your stresses.
Celebrate.
When this season is over, whether it’s been positive changes or negative changes, celebrate. Maybe you’re celebrating a return from the hospital, a new job, a new move, or starting a business. Or this stressful season might have brought grief, sadness, and loss and a celebration may look more like just finding relief together. Go on a date night. Take a weekend away, or have a staycation. If it’s been a sad or stressful season, celebrate that you got through it together. If it’s been a season of joyful change, celebrate the good things that came. Just be sure that you and your spouse make time to celebrate together.
Whatever stressful or big life changes you and your partner are going through, I’m sending my best wishes your way. Big changes can impact a marriage. They can bring you closer together or tear you apart. So always work to stay close and be a team, to grow closer together through every season.
