Making Quality Time In Relationship

If you have a job, and your partner has a job, and you have other responsibilities on top of that, like perhaps keeping your children off the streets.....and. you have enough self respect to not compromise your entire existence in self sabotage and giving all of yourself away to others, then this podcast is for you. We're being called in to connect, and quality time is how we do it - with ourselves, and intimately alongside our partner!

Relationship Experts, Psychotherapists, and Holistic Counsellors from Australia, based on the South Coast of NSW.

https://www.naturemind.com.au/
https://chadtaylorpsychotherapy.com.au/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:20

This is Conversations for Conscious Relationships. I've got Chad Taylor, psychotherapist and holistic counsellor. And myself, Dean Dampany, likewise holistic counselor, psychotherapist, both of us doing work with individuals and couples. And this podcast is about trying to make our relationships as expansive, as evolved as we possibly can, to know that our satisfaction comes from within, but it's also a shared experience as an extension and a sharing of us. We're talking today specifically about time, that old chestnut, and how we manage our time in our relationships and most specifically how to find time, how to find quality time together in our relationships. What do you reckon quality time refers to, Chad? What do you think of when we talk about quality time in relationships?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah, it's a it's a question that I guess would be personal to each person, like to each couple or to each individual. Um you know, there's there's some people might see quality time as uh working in the garden together or um you know I guess for me I'm seeing a lot of clients in relationships where all their quality time is task driven. It's it's very task-driven, you know, it's it's around, you know, um cleaning the car or planning an extension or uh we're in the garden together or um you know, and and I think to me my opinion of quality time for my life is definitely not that. You know, I can tell you what you know what my quality time is, it's it's carving out that time for my partner and I that is just about us. And that might coincide with a walk on the beach or um going out for for lunch or for dinner or um getting a massage together. Um which you know I suppose people could argue they are tasks, right? You know, getting a massage, but to me it's a different task to doing a tour around the house, you know, and and something that's really been coming coming in a lot, you know, is when I'm with clients, I'll I'll draw a line down the middle of my whiteboard, you know, and I'll write 168 on each side. And that's that's the hours we've got in the week. Like that's literally all we've got. Like we can't, that's that's a not negotiable, right? Like there's most things in life to a degree are negotiable, like whether we can, you know, drop back an hour of work or we can have a longer lunch break and then or we can have no lunch break and finish early, or but that, you know, it's probably one of the only things in life that you know we actually can't create any more time, right? And if we start minusing things off there, you know, which hopefully we sleep seven hours a day, or if not more, but even if we say seven, there's 50 hours gone. We're down to 118, and then most people work a full-time job plus commuting, plus whatever else. So we minus another 50 off. And then we've got you know ev everything else that we fill into our lives, you know, go to the gym three times a week, or go to Pilates every day, or go for a run, or go for three surfs a week for two hours each. Like if we really start minusing these things off food shopping, cleaning houses, uh, kid sport, it's amazing when there's actually not an hour left, literally not an hour left where they've got for each other that doesn't involve dropping a kid off to sport or getting the groceries or washing the car. And and most people seem to be okay with that, you know. Even when when I bring it to their like they they kind of come to counseling, obviously, because something isn't fulfilling, their life not might might not be falling apart. But you know, and I'm I'm I'm maybe off a bit of a tangent here at the moment on what is quality time, but um what I'm seeing a lot of, especially from many is if I could just make my partner as happy as what I see her when she's replying to a message from her friendship group, my relationship would be a lot happier. Yeah, and that to me, you know, we've talked a lot about childhood and and how it shapes who we are, and that to me is almost like that little boy, or even if it's uh even if it's on the other side, you know, that like they want they're just wanting that love from their caregiver or from their partner, or and their partner's giving it to everybody else, the kids, their friends, and happening on both sides. But I think more so than ever now, with both genders, you know, which you know it was definitely um not okay when you know men were getting their knees met at the pub every afternoon and then just coming home for their dinner and and bed and whatever else they needed. But I think with social media and and the way the world is, it's happening on both sides now. And it's I'm really seeing that you know, most people get their fulfillment, you know, like they make sure they get their surfing three times a week with their friends, or they make sure that they get to Pilates four times a week, or they make sure that they meet the girls for a coffee, or he might make sure that he gets to play a game of golf on the weekend with the boys. That there's all these things are not negotiables. Yet when I say to them, is there any way you could get a night to yourselves once a fortnight or once a week where your kids went to a family member, or you got a babysitter in for a couple of hours, you know, it could that be a priority? And it doesn't seem to be a able to be done, and there's always an excuse, you know, on whether it's my parents feed the kids too much junk food, or I don't like that my parents tell them stay up too late, or oh my I know my sister will just get on her iPad and not not pay attention to them. Like there's always this control issue of why they can't do it, right? And um you know, I'll openly say me and my partner have a date night each week, you know, and my daughter stays with my mum. I'm lucky I've got a great got a great family, and you know, so we know that one night a week for us it's Tuesdays every week, even though we live together. You know, today's Tuesday, we're recording this podcast on a Tuesday this afternoon. We'll meet up after work, we'll go for a walk, we're gonna go out for dinner, we'll come home, we'll do whatever, we'll read a book, or we'll connect, we get to have a bit of a sleep in tomorrow. And this isn't available to everybody, but to me, these are not negotiables that make my relationship better than most relationships that I see. And and I believe that, and I think my partner would say the same. You know, that to me sums up quality time, that time that's spent with between me and her, you know, that and the same with our kids, you know, and and I will finish on this, even as a therapist, right? I if I'm not mindful and I'm not present and I'm not aware and I'm not conscious, I can see eight clients in a day. Like, and I've shared this before on this podcast, I can see uh teenagers the same age as my daughter, who clearly just need me to connect with them. And I know that their parents aren't connecting with them a lot of the time, like they need them to be. In other words, with me, they've got an hour of my time where I won't touch my phone, I don't have a task, I don't, I don't, it's just about them and what they want to talk about. If I'm not mindful, I can go home and walk through the door and like, got any homework? Unpack your bag, you packed your lunch for tomorrow, make sure you clean your bathroom, you picked up your clothes. Oh, your washing's still on the line from the weekend when you hung it out, could you grab it because we need to use it? That's not quality time, right? And I understand that we've got to get shit done, but I'm really trying to be mindful that the these people closest to me, how do I how do I navigate quality time with them, which isn't task-driven. So yeah, there's my um there's my little rant about, you know, because it's passionate to me, you know, and and I know the way, you know, and I'm just about to ask you, I know the way that you live your life is is very much the same. There's a lot of quality time, you know. Like we even talked about going out for for dinner this week with our partners, and then we, you know, for one reason or another, we decided against it because it was going to take, we already had busy weeks, or we already had stuff going on that was gonna take away from that time that we cherish with our partners one-on-one. Where most couples that I see, you know, like there's never a camping trip, it's just them and their partner. There's a camping trip that's them and four other couples, right? And then the boys sit over here and the girls sit over here a lot of the time, or um and I've lived like that and I don't think it was fulfilling for me. But everybody's version of quality time is different, and I guess people hearing, you know, hearing this podcast as well, you've got to work out what your your quality of time is with your partner and having those conversations, you know, that what's quality time for you? How many hours a week? How can we navigate this? So I guess, you know, throwing it over to you, what's your you know, what what do you see is your idea or concept of quality time?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Just acknowledging everything you said, man, I I resonate completely. And just want to restate out loud for anyone listening and back to you as well, that obviously you've set a really firm intention to create quality time in in your relationship and with your kids as well, and with your clients as well. Uh all of those symbols of quality are presence, as I hear it, connection, presence. It's being in the present moment alongside these people, alongside the people that we uh choose to share in connection, to share quality time. Uh yeah, I'll I'll take a different tangent just for the sake of uh just giving people another way of um feeling into it. So a significantly less um practical way of perceiving it all, but um yeah, in some ways practical, but other ways perhaps a bit more esoteric, uh, which won't surprise anyone out there. Quality time uh in my relationship starts with finding that sense of peace within myself. If I don't have that by default, I'm I'm not enjoying quality time with anybody, with you right now, with my partner, with my kids, with my clients, full stop. If I'm not feeling uh if I'm not feeling at at peace within myself, contented, uh I've got nothing. And I'm and I'm not prepared to actually share something I don't have. If I've got nothing, what is there to be able to share in? You know, that's when it becomes you know just an an empty fallacy, an empty just container of pretending that we're doing or sharing in something that we're actually not getting any juice out of, any goodness out of. And I'd suggest that you know a lot of couples are, you know, relatively speaking, unconsciously existing in that um identification of their time together as being somewhat quality. Yet if we're to be really honest with ourselves, um, we often find ourselves at the end of tagging that period of time together, doing the weeding or washing the car together or maintaining the domestic chore list together, um, feeling probably even less satisfied than what we did leading into it. So, man, I want to basically feel good within myself and my practices um coming into the day as a 24-hour window set me in the right direction. So I just want to find that stillness, find that contentness, find that gratitude, find that intention to be able to uh be open and sharing and present, amongst other things, loving, compassionate. Um, what's that like? Yeah, it's it's for me, yeah, a number of things. Uh this morning it was uh with a van with a couple of boards in the back and my partner beside me, and we drove down to um watch the sun come up and for me to potentially go for a surf and for both of us one way or another to to be in that beautiful natural landscape uh with a at least a sense of togetherness. But again, on a personal level, this was me communing with nature and within myself uh as an intentional setting for the day and just alongside my partner. And that in itself is a beautiful aside that we set our day intentionally with the practice of coming into everything that we can be, um, be it with meditation, be it with yoga, be it with jumping in the ocean, be it with a walk through the bush. Um, and again, just saying out loud, like we live in this natural environment that's just so overflowing with beauty and abundance. It's next level, it's incredible. So yeah, feeling into that gratitude um allows for me to be able to say, yeah, life's really good. End of story. I want to be able to wake up, maybe feel a little bit discombobulated after a shitty sleep, or maybe you know, tossing and turning with it, um, a dreamscape that's trying to process stuff that I'm still trying to figure out. Um, maybe I didn't get enough sleep, whatever it may be. I don't always wake up feeling really at one with myself. I don't always wake up feeling really good. Um, but I can always get there, relatively speaking, when I intention that that period of time to come into myself. So quality time for me, mate, is to find that within myself and then to be able to uh make sure that I set aside that time alongside my partner and my loved ones uh to share in that experience. And even if my partner or my kids or whoever it may be, my clients, are not feeling that sense of contentment within, because I'm driven by by purpose to be able to bring everyone alongside me um to the best place we can possibly arrive, like I'm I'm good to go. Like, obviously, I I am still going to um perceive the experience alongside the people in my life as being um of a certain degree of quality, how quality was that. Um yet because I'm already in that modality of going, let's let's just bring everything we can to this, whatever the experience is, I know my intention was bang on and I'm in flow and I'm super appreciative for whatever yeah was was the outcome. And that's um, yeah, that's that's me. End of story in in my relationship to be really, really practical in all my relationships, to be really practical. Man, we we identify who we are in our partnership uh individually and together, and what we what we really do need to feel like we're able to continue um growing. And what we're really saying is how can we feel even more connected? Um, we know that takes a certain amount of time alone together, certain amount of time alone individually. And um, yeah, and all the other ingredients. We're just really clear as to what allows us to be able to feel the best version of ourselves. And last but not least, we're super fucking encouraging of perpetuating, of intentionalizing that growth for one another and to support each other in every every possible way that we can. Um as yeah, as an equal goal, as what it does for me to be able to set that goal for myself. You know, it's one and the same. So yeah, that's that's that. That's um that's quality time in my my life. Can I give you a single word to be able to summarize that connection? Full stop, end of story. I just want that quality time feels like connection. Yeah, for you guys out there wondering what the fuck that might mean to you, just think about it. Sit sit down and ask yourself the question, when was the last time you felt you know really connected? And um, yeah, just send send in the messages to Chad and I. And um, yeah, if you're not sure what what that means, even after sitting down and thinking about it, and we'll we'll open up a dialogue with you. What about you, Chad? Connection? What's your what's your knee-jerk response, spontaneous response to that?

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Well, I think connection is everything, you know. I think that's part of the reason you know, there's plenty of books out there on this stuff. You know, probably one of the best books I've read is a book called Lost Connection Lost Connections by you know Han Hari. And you know, we've we have lost a lot of that connection in this digital busy Western world that we live in. You know, connection to others and like you said, connection to self, connection to a higher power, whatever that might look like for anybody, whether that's the universe or nature, or if somebody's got a religious belief that they they have an experience of, or you know, I think you know, we don't value those connections that much anymore. We seem to value them as long as they're a task, but we I don't think a lot of people value them as in, hey, look, let's just carve out some time to connect and have a conversation. Hey, look, how's our sex life? How is it for you? You know, most from what I can gather, most people they can't be that vulnerable. It's too hard in case their partner said, Oh, look, I'm not quite happy with it, or it's not enough, or it's not frequent enough, or you know, like it's it's checking in. I think that connection is is, you know, if we're in a monogamous relationship, which I would say majority of people are if they're in a relationship, that sex is the only thing that we share. We have a connection with our partner that we don't have that same connection with anybody else outside of our partner. But yet we don't nourish it a lot of the time and don't um you know, I just find it fascinating when a couple will come in to me and they're in their late 20s and you know, we're in you know, April at the moment, and I'll say, Oh yeah, we haven't had sex since August. And I'm thinking you're in your late 20s. We're in April and you're saying you haven't had sex since August and you're in a monogamous relationship. You know, and I'm just being mindful that that judgment isn't like um it's more compassion than it is judgment. I guess for me, I would I you know it's something that I share with my partner that I don't share with anybody else. And so if I'm not, if I haven't had it with her since August, it means I haven't had that experience of being that close to somebody, of sharing that intimacy of that connection since August, right? That's where I go. I don't go, oh well, you know, like as in a judgment, you know, but there's obviously something going on, right? Because I guess if we all if we if we give somebody a questionnaire that said how many, how what's your ideal uh amount of having sex in a week or in a month? I don't think it would be to go eight months without it in a monogamous relationship. Unless there was medical things going on or health things, I get it. Um and that's something that me and my partner regularly do is we have these conversations, right? And they coincide with date night sometimes of just checking in like you know how's it been for you very sort of uh different way of doing things I guess but to me that is connecting because if I want to have it you know every day which I don't and she wants to have sex twice a week well straight away there's a bit of a divide there on on what we both view connection as or we both view uh our ideal sex life as you know and it doesn't mean that um well let's be realistic it doesn't matter who who who out there uh the person that wants to have it more than the other is probably the person that's gonna feel like their needs aren't being met right because it's generally gonna take part of the person with the lowest sex drive in that dynamic. But at least having those conversations and allowing that other person to be to be heard and and maybe I'm a bit off topic but it's just something that seems to to come a lot to me at the moment in in relationship counselling is this real um people aren't being fulfilled right in their relationship and I think they're looking for fulfillment outside of that and whether it is for connecting with the boys every Friday at golf or whether it is the meeting up a couple of times a week with all the mothers that we that I knew from from school like most people I see are getting their needs met outside of the relationship so they're getting their connection met outside of the relationship not in the relationship I would say the partner becomes more of the partner to pay the mortgage and and do the tasks you know to the point where and I get this this happens right young kids and things happen but you know the part where it's like you know I've got people that I work with where you know like he's getting up to go to the gym at 430 because she needs to beat Pilates by six and then he hangs around and does the kids and then he's tag team and her then as she gets back in the door from Pilates and I understand that we need to get our needs met but when it's a daily occurrence and then I say to him so you know you spent you know ten and a half hours in the gym this week that's you know whatever it is out of your week out of the 168 how many hours have you actually just spent sitting down and having a cup of tea with your partner and it's pretty much never so you know I'm gonna finish now and let Dean take us out that you know connection looks like different things to other people. Connection could be going for a drive in the car somewhere connection could be that you know deep eye gaze that connection with that person over a cup of tea. That connection could be walking the dogs on the beach I guess it's about carving can you know I know what my connection is to me and it's all those things where my phone's not included the TV isn't included you know the cleaning isn't included that to me is connection you know where there's no task so yeah I might hand it back to you Dean to take us out and um it's been good for me to really you know there'll probably be a conversation with my partner tonight about this about you know connection and and you know those sorts of things because um that's how we grow and that's how for me that's what nourishes me that deep deep conversation to me is probably the biggest connection that I'll ever feel with anybody that deep conversation below oh what do you think of Donald Trump or Elon Musk or fucking Anthony Albanese or you know who are you going to vote for or you know that to me I get that those things are important but to me the the bigger conversation is you know how are you feeling today? How are you sleeping? What are you dreaming about?

SPEAKER_00 26:03

How's your overall you know how you overall finding our connection together that to me is is what fills my cup and I'm lucky I'm with a partner who fills her cup as well yeah I concur completely Chad on on every point that you made um we've both got to go but I'll just summarise a couple of key points that came through um yeah intimacy connection is is very much intricately intrinsically connected uh with the idea of intimacy it's great that we're talking about sex we actually haven't talked about sex at all in almost 60 podcasts so let's do that more it's certainly a a great channel of um connection for all of us um yet I want to make the point really discerningly that it intimacy doesn't have to be sexual it doesn't have to be physical I think what you spoke to Chad and what I'll just reinforce is that intimacy is the notion of uh being open and present with each other and to be open is not only just to be uh unbiased and um to be able to to feel into the presence of each other and to really hold the space with such a container that we we have curiosity as to the to the nature of where our partners are uh experiencing their life, how they're actually um finding things whether it's sex or work or whatever, just to be really open to say, hey, you know, what is happening in your life and are we connecting um in a way that you feel heard and seen and understood for that to be reciprocated as well. So there's a bunch of vulnerability that needs to be part of this authentic expression. And it's actually the vulnerability that's a channel of connection above all, much more so than the espousing all the things that we consider to be acclimation, not acclamations to be things that we're claiming as as positives. We do that with the friends that we're having the shallow conversations with at the golfie over at Schnitty, you know, with our partner we want to say, hey look this has been my authentic experience and um yeah perhaps it's a bit of vulnerability about it. Can you see and meet me here? Can you see me in this place? Do you hear me and you know can you validate me? Can you um allow us to become you know so connected that I can feel so free to express every part of me. End of story. And I think um I think on this on this note I'm gonna say thanks very much for listening everybody out there it's this conversations for conscious relationships and I look forward to seeing you and speaking to you and connecting openly and vulnerably with you Chad next time. See you buddy if you're not feeling everything you feel like you can feel if you're not feeling relatively peaceful, relatively joyful, passionate vital, lit, um happy, content, there's so much work to be done and as psychotherapists, as counselors, mentors, guides, Chad and myself are here to do this work with you. We really believe through just countless hundreds of experiences with our clients that it takes another person's mind to be able to open those doors of another person's consciousness, to be able to find those alignments in collaboration with each other. This is not woo-woo nor would you consider it mainstream science. This is deeply compassionate intuitive heartfelt work and we're creating great change with so many people if you're not feeling everything you can be come and find us for me Dean Dampany that's at naturemind.com.au and for Chad Chad Taylor that's Chad Taylor psychotherapy.com dot au Yeah don't don't wait this is a short life it's time to actually get to work for all of us we're so here for you