Pre-2020, many couples were more ‘ships in the night’ than Love Boat. But oh, how the tide has turned...

Remember those days? Long hours, commutes, social engagements, exercise – add in kids activities and school drop off and pick up, and you’d be lucky to eat a meal together a couple of times a week.

But of course, Covid has changed everything. And like so many others, 18 months on, I find myself working from home with my partner more often than not. And I’m not alone. (Truly never, ever alone).

If quality time is your love language, then perhaps WFH together is a blessing. Although, is it actually quality? Or is it just time? And if you’re someone who needs space and solitude to recharge, then WFH together may present more challenges than you bargained for. 

Elisabeth Shaw is the CEO of Relationships Australia NSW, and has also been a clinical and counselling psychologist for close to 30 years. “One thing that is illuminated when you're working with your partner”, she says, “is that you are exposed to things that you are not generally exposed to. You might think their work habits are less than ideal, or you think they're a bit slack or you hear them talk on the phone and you think they're rude. And so for some people that don't like the look of what they're seeing, they may not be impressed with their work ethic. They may see their partner wandering around having a coffee and sitting out in the sun. Meanwhile, they're a very conscientious person that is at their desk at eight and they work till six. And so there's clashes around perceived work effort and work ethic.”

Routines can also be a sore spot, Elisabeth says. “It could well be that one person is pretty zoned out in the morning, but then puts in a lot of work, and another person works more evenly, so they can have fights about that.”

Elisabeth Shaw, CEO of Relationships Australia NSW

Then there’s the issue of space. If you don’t have the luxury of a designated home office, the boundaries between work and home can become easily blurred, letting your workday bleed into your home life. 

 Husband and wife duo Jake and Alina Springthorpe run their loungewear business Plant Dyed together on the Gold Coast. Prior to lockdown, the two worked from separate spaces – Jake in a nearby office shared with a few friends, and Alina from a shared space in Burleigh Heads. “Alina is now working from home with an office space set up in our second room”, Jake says. “As Queensland restrictions have been a little more sporadic, I continue to work from the office, then move to our dining area during lockdowns. We don’t have too much extra space at the moment as we are setting up for a baby due in the next few weeks, but we make it work!” However, Jake says having a designated workspace is important for productivity. “During our first lockdown we quickly found working the from the bed or the couch really slowed productivity for us. So we have our own workspaces, and it separates ‘work time’ from ‘relaxation time’.”

Jake and Alina Springthorpe of Plant Dyed

Elisabeth is all for this approach, recommending couples “protect the relationship by building in the boundaries where you can. If in fact you can go to separate spaces and you can have some privacy or some protection from that, then to try and build that in, if you can. I think it's also good to have explicit conversations about where you need genuine private downtime, because I think couples think, ‘well let's work and we'll meet at lunchtime and then we'll go for a walk and then we will leave for dinner’. It may really be that when you have a break, you need to go for a walk by yourself to clear your head, to recover, and thinking that everything in between has to be couple time might be stressful.”

The issue of space isn’t just about work – it can also bring up underlying issues about equality, and the domestic load, Elisabeth says. “Certainly there's the negotiation of limited space - who gets the study - and that can illuminate other issues of equity. If someone says, ‘Well, I've got to have the home office or I've got to have the dining table because my job's more important than yours’; again, that's a conversation you may not normally have, but you could literally be tripping over each other.

You could be challenging previous things that you accepted. You might have a partner who says, ‘my job is so big. There's no way that I can do school drop off or do the dishes before I leave.’ And when you actually watch how they work, you see they've got plenty of time to hang a load of washing, do a bit of a vacuum, and you might suddenly think ‘actually I've been believing that I have to do all this stuff because you're too busy, and I no longer think that that's true’. So the equity and fairness issue comes up.”

Ultimately, it comes down to communication. “Being able to own up about what you need for self care is part of having a good relationship”, Elisabeth says. “So it may be that you agree, ‘look, from the time we clock on at 8:30, let's just run our own race as if we've gone to work, and see you at six for a drink.’ Some couples will work better doing that. And then they've actually got more to talk about at the end of the day. But other couples may find it fine. In fact, they may improve by going for a walk together and debriefing as they go. I think the point is talk about what you need.”

That’s certainly been the case for Jake and Alina. For them, “setting aside time to get out each day is key. We kick off our morning with a walk down to our local coffee shop The Salt Mill at Currumbin. It’s a good way to set your mind for the day with some clarity and fresh air. We then start work at 8.30, trying not to be 'late'. We found that once you take the travel time out of your day, you suddenly have an extra hour or so of free time. This is when we started our routine of going out for a walk and a coffee each day.”

So it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, according to Elisabeth, WFH together has been a real boon in some relationships. “Some surveys are saying that we're flushing out some really good qualities in couples. Those who were reasonably satisfied with their relationship and work well as a team were able to draw on all sorts of strengths and do very well, and in fact, surprise themselves and feel a sense of appreciation at the quality of their relationship. And maybe others who were struggling a bit and who didn't have those skills got into some significant difficulty. So it is quite mixed. Certainly in terms of our own waiting lists, they've gone through the roof. But of course we see the people that are struggling. There's an awful lot of people who are struggling and that's for a range of reasons, including things like unemployment and other crises, that put a lot of stress on the relationship. But it's also to do with couples floundering without the skills that they need to navigate such a complex set of circumstances.”

The other big point of contention Elisabeth sees is “different expectations about this being couple time. Some people have thought, ‘well, we're home together, we could have afternoon sex or we could have more walks together, or we could be having deep and meaningful conversations’. Whereas the other person might be thinking, ‘look, I've got to work. This is a workday. And in fact, I'm around you so much that I'm not very interested in being any closer to you. In fact, I'd like to get away from you.’ And so there's those expectations about how this fits with intimacy, and should we be capitalising on this more or less?”

So how to actually get on with things together? Elisabeth says it’s a matter of knowing what’s worth speaking up about, and what to let go. “The fundamental thing that is always worth coming back to is obviously speaking up about your concerns as they arise. Now there's two provisos I'd say to that. One is that speaking up goes well if you've got good self-awareness. If you speak up because you're just trying to have control, like ‘it's really bugging me that you're such a messy worker’, is that really something you've got a right to impose? Or is it just a preference? And I think we've got to be much more accountable about what we've got a right comment on.” As someone who struggles to concentrate in a messy environment, I’m taking notes. But, says Elisabeth, “generally it's better to speak up in a timely way rather than let things fester. That said, I think one of the skills that we need right now is knowing what to let pass. You shouldn't leave things that are going to be a source of resentment, but anything where you know, ‘I'm being a grump or I'm just having a bad day’, then you really need to get a grip and go for a walk and not put it on your partner, because it could have longer-term consequences.” Point taken.

Being clear about your needs is crucial when navigating this situation, Elisabeth says. “Individuals within relationships need to say, ‘What do I need as well as what do we need?’ Because it may well be that what you need is not what your partner needs.” That’s something Jake and Alina discovered. Jake says he still likes going into the office “to break up the day. Though Alina loves working from home, so she has set up her space permanently and will continue to work there. I guess we have a home office now!”

And according to Elisabeth, the best thing we can do for our relationships at the moment may have nothing to do with our partners. “As individuals and as couples, we need a whole range of people around us to feel good. So it should never be just your partner who is your primary resource. They're going to fail you. It's just not possible. So I think it's very important when you're home together, remembering that no, maybe your best friend is better to turn to, or you really should ring your mother every day or make sure you stay outside and chat to the neighbour. Making sure you've got options that again are singular and coupled, about staying in touch with people outside the home, so that you don't become too stuck on each other."

For Jake and Alina, it’s about big picture thinking. “This lockdown has really taught us a lot”, they say. “We have a new appreciation of the little things that matter most.”

Like walls, and doors. In the meantime, we’ll have to use our inside voices.