Quiet Confessions, Episode 36: Q&A - Beyond the "Roommate Phase"

In this special Q&A edition of Quiet Confessions, Chelsea is joined by their husband, Ben, to tackle a question sent in from Megann of Pondering Paretnhood Podcast. It's a situation many long-term partners face but few discuss openly: How do you prioritize your marriage during the "roommate phase"? 

Having been together for 19 years and navigated everything from early-career stress to significant medical and psychiatric trauma, Chelsea and Ben pull back the curtain on the cycles of their relationship.

 Key Takeaways

• The "Roommate Phase" is a Cycle: Long-term relationships naturally ebb and flow; recognizing that these periods are temporary helps remove the fear and inadequacy that often accompany a lack of physical intimacy.
• Choosing to Grow Together: Connection doesn't just happen; it requires an intentional choice to remain invested in each other, especially when energy levels are low due to trauma or illness.
• "Pebbling" and Non-Physical Intimacy: When physical energy is depleted, intimacy can be maintained through small gestures—like suggesting a book to read together or performing acts of service during health flares.
• The Value of Professional Support: Even couples who are "good at communicating" can benefit from therapy to strengthen their skills and develop a deeper toolkit for navigating challenges.
• Prioritizing the United Front: Having shared priorities—like putting the family first—creates a secure foundation that allows a relationship to survive stressful stretches.
• Grounding in "What’s Not Wrong": Using DBT skills to focus on current comforts (like a warm house during a freeze) helps combat the negative headspaces that can strain a marriage.

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:00)
Hey, welcome to a special edition of Quiet Confessions where I am joined by my husband, Ben. Hello. We're doing another Q &A. I said I was going to hold off on them, but I liked this question for the timing of this episode. So ⁓ for anyone who's new here, Quiet Confessions, our little mini episode where we get to check in on

kind of me and where I'm at and all that jazz. And I'm excited to have Ben with me. We want Ben to do some more episodes. Yeah. Yeah. But since Valentine's Day will be tomorrow as of the release of this, or no, sorry, Valentine's Day will be Saturday. So today is Thursday. Today, Ben and I are seeing Brandi Carlile as you are hearing this. Tomorrow is my birthday.

And then Saturday is Valentine's Day. And the question that we have comes from Megan from ⁓ Pondering Parenthood podcast, who we've had on the show. And her question is, you had an episode a while back about how you and your partner are more in the roommate phase right now. How do you and he work to meet the needs of your relationship or what kinds of things do you actively do?

to help prioritize your marriage during the more difficult stretches. And I wanted Ben with me because I feel like this is a question for both of us. It And it's ironic because we kind of just had a conversation like this a couple of days ago.

So one of my very, good friends and co-hosts slash panelists on the other podcast that I host, Odd Moms on Call, suggested that we get this game called We're Not Really Strangers.

we got the family edition and we got the couples edition. And question, very similar to yours, Megan, although not quite as in depth came up and we talked about it a lot. And we actually talked about how we thought that was one of our biggest strengths as a couple. Yeah. We tend to handle the rough times well.

Well, I don't even want to say like the rough times, like the roommate phase. So I talked about the roommate phase where you're like, you kind of just feel like you're living with your partner or beside your partner. I mean, I don't want to preface like it wasn't always easy. The early roommate phases, they suck because you question everything. You question everything. You don't know if this is normal yet. You don't know.

what to do to get through it or to reignite the spark. So not to say that this is simple by any means, but I think we've been through probably three or four. I'm sure there's been more of them. We've been together for 19 years. Yeah, that's crazy. We've been together for 19 years. We have two kids with a very big age gap. So we've kind of like restarted.

several times and we've both been through enough trauma to fill a couple books. But so I get like without drawing this out like get let's get into the root of the question like personally for us when we first started dating we were very very young. Yes we were 18.

Um, and everything was very electrically charged and very intense. And so when, like, as we got older, and I don't, I don't think it started happening until after we got engaged, which is ironic because it's like, Oh, Hey, you signed on and now

And now we're going to reel everything back. were engaged for three years. But yeah, I mean.

There are cycles in a relationship and any long-term relationship takes work to maintain. They don't just happen. But they feel like they just happened in the beginning because everything's so new and passionate. Well, and with us, we moved pretty quickly. ⁓ We did. We were- and we moved in. Yeah, we met. essentially were living together before, I think.

I mean, we were spending every single night together before we ever said the words out loud that we were a couple. Yeah. So anyway, so when that first cycle hit where things like we weren't being physically intimate very much to much to the disappointment of Ben, it was more me that had cooled down, not him. Yeah, I was still what? You were 20. Yeah, 21, I think.

hot blooded male. Let's not play into stereotypes. Okay. I'm just going to say that's your personality, which has calmed down over the years. Well, and mine has shifted as well. But anyway, we keep going down rabbit holes. A head trauma for you. Yeah. So that first time was really confusing. And I think what sucked the most about it

is that it lasted quite a while. It even lasted up until like our marriage. And we... I think the marriage is what ended that roommate phase. The marriage ended the roommate phase. We had a really awesome reception and a really great party and a really great honeymoon. But up until that point, it was confusing because it was like, I want to be with this person. I love this person so, so, so much.

but I don't feel like I don't want to be intimate with this person. I don't have the energy for that. I, so that was really confusing and there was like full transparency. There were moments where I was like, should I call off the wedding? Like, should this not happen? Which we did not discuss until years later, which is its own thing, but.

⁓ so that's why, like, I think that it's not going to be the same for everybody, but our first one, our first cycle of the roommate phase. it was confusing and it was scary. And there was a time when we didn't think it was going to work. It was going to work.

But I think, and we didn't even talk about it at the time. We just- don't think we had the tools to talk about it. We were both very young. We were young. We were very stressed in jobs that, I mean, I liked my job, but it was incredibly high stress. was 10 hour days with like no breaks and crying, screaming babies all the time. I did not like You did not like your job. So we were not in the best head space. we didn't talk about it for years later, but we just-

I mean, for me, so I'll speak for me personally, I just decided I was like, I'm not gonna throw away the last six years of this relationship that I'm very invested in, because right now I feel a little funky about it. ⁓ And we didn't talk about it and we got married and things were really good after we got married. And that is not to say if you're in a relationship and you're having doubts that you should just get married.

But I think it speaks to how invested you are in a person and in... And again, we were together for three years and then engaged for three years. We were together for six years before we got married. Yeah. A lot of relationships move faster than that. So in some ways we move fast, in some ways we move pretty slow. Yeah. But I mean, for me, the wedding was just a piece of paper. it didn't... getting married was just a piece of paper. I was already committed to for me it was just a party.

Yeah, yeah. But so since then, because we are rambling, we have gone through that phase several times and for several different reasons. each time it has become scary anymore. Yeah, I think it's become easier to manage because you recognize the cycle. You recognize that this is not a permanent alteration to

to your relationship as long as you're willing to work at it. I think what a lot of the trap that a lot of couples fall into is when they get into this roommate phase, they stop doing the work of the relationship. They just assume that we're growing apart. Like, I think you have to choose to grow together. I don't think it just happens. Well, and not to get like, my whole thing is not to get preachy. Like I want to speak on just our experience and

So again, for me personally, when I would get to the roommate phase, I've said this to you so many times, like the way that I love you has nothing to do with our physical intimacy. Like that's an added bonus. That's great. But like, even when we are in spaces where we just kind of exist in the same space, I still feel so much love for you because we exist in the same space. Like being near you feels safe and

warm and right. And so for me, even when we're in the roommate phase, I don't doubt our relationship. You struggled with that a little bit more. Well, I still struggle with it more because I'm very much a physical touch, love language kind of person. If you believe in such things the lack of intimacy, the lack of just

hand-holding, hugs, kisses, kinds of thing, those kinds of things, really, used to really take a toll on me. And it still, you know, isn't pleasant, but I've learned to recognize that it's a temporary phase and that, like you say, your feelings for me haven't changed. So a lot of, in the past, a lot of the struggle was feelings of inadequacy, like I'm not attractive anymore, I'm not desirable anymore because...

you're in this phase where you just want to just live in the same building. ⁓

You've become a little more secure. Yes, I've become more secure and I have become more open to accepting different styles of love other than just the physical. So I take a lot of pride in being able to take care of you when you're doing, when you're having your flare days and like making you meals and getting your ice packs and helping you to feel better. like

being able to take care of the kids and the dogs while you rest. It can get stressful, obviously, but it's one of those things where I know that because I'm doing things that are above and beyond what I would typically do and above and beyond what I'm typically comfortable with, that I am showing you that I care through my actions rather than through physical touch.

in those situations. So for anyone else who struggles with like, chronic illness or mental health issues, because that takes a big toll on my mental health, because feeling inadequate and feeling like I'm not enough. There are things that I do. And it's this they seem really silly right now. But like, making a suggestion for a book to read, like that's I can do that.

from my bedroom, like, hey, I really think you would like this book. And then we're reading the book together. And then we have something to talk about. so I called it pebbling because I heard that ⁓ a term about penguins where they give each other pebbles and Ben could not take that term seriously. no, we're not even going to know. like, so I don't know how else to term it. But like when we're in those

areas where we just don't have anything to give each other, we're still giving each other these tiny little things and that are actually really big things and finding ways to connect in different ways other than physical intimacy. And I think that's where the work comes in, putting in the effort to find other ways to reach out to give gifts to connect and to... well demonstrate

To demonstrate care. to demonstrate other forms of intimacy. It took a long time for me to understand that physical intimacy wasn't the only way to go. Well, and let's be 100 % transparent. We were in couples therapy for like a year and a half. Yeah. And it had nothing to do with us being afraid that we were going to get divorced. It had nothing to do with us being afraid that our relationship was ending. We just wanted to strengthen our skills.

And the most ironic thing is that what we thought was our strongest asset as a couple, and I still think it is, we still had a lot of work to do on it. And people would always tell us, you guys are so good at communicating. And we're like, yep, we are really good at communicating. And then when we did couples therapy, like, we could be a lot better at communicating. So what you're hearing us talk about right now, that is a product of us.

working really hard in therapy. ⁓ And also going through this cycle several times. So like, Megan, I hope that this wasn't, this isn't like too many rabbit holes, but this is just our personal experience. This is not.

This is not going to be everybody's experience. But for us, and especially like, you know, tying it back to parenting, this is the first right now, we are recording on a Saturday morning. And this is the first child free morning we've had in I can't tell you how long I don't remember. So we don't get these little moments other than when the kids go to bed.

And usually we're very, very tired at that point. But again, not sponsored. I'm not sponsored by anyone, but suggestion, get that game. We're not really strangers because that created, it was like 20 minutes. We played, it's just a card game where you ask each other questions and that sounds really stupid. But these questions, we had really, really good conversations that came out of these questions. So shout out to Britt.

from Odd Moms On Call and shout out to We're Not Really Strangers. And our kids love the game too, the kid version. They love that too. Well, our kid. three year old doesn't care at all, but our nine year old really likes it. But yeah, you know that I'm not gonna give you advice and I'm not gonna tell you that every situation is gonna be like ours. And we are far from power couple. We have been...

dealt a lot of challenges, and we still are dealt a lot of challenges. And I think that going through those challenges, and always remaining kind of a united front doesn't mean we don't argue, we absolutely argue. But remaining a united front and knowing that our priorities are the same.

I mean, if someone asks us our priorities right now, it's our family. Our family comes first, our kids come first, the end. Like there is no if, ands or buts about it. ⁓ So knowing that, knowing we're on the same page and knowing that we've been through some really scary shit.

when it's quiet and when it's not, when things aren't, it doesn't have to be fiery and passionate. It's like, okay, you know I love you, right? Yeah, I love you too. Okay, cool. I'm gonna go play video games and I'm gonna go read a book. That's one thing. That's not where I was going. But I think that once you've been through, once you've navigated through a roommate phase, and if you and your partner, for whatever reason, have had to navigate through any kind of trauma,

If you can make it through those obstacles, you will be stronger on the other side. You'll be more comfortable with each other. As long as you're communicating. You may be. Ben is very different than I am. Ben is a teacher at heart, even though he doesn't feel like he is. And he is very much wants to like give advice. Whereas I am like, this is a sacred space. This is our experience. If you want to fix it, this is what you do.

I think that's his hope is to give you hope. Yes. That there's light at the end of the darkness. Well, and everything's a cycle and nothing is permanent. Joy isn't permanent. Despair isn't permanent. None of it's permanent. So you ride the waves and you communicate. And that's how we navigated those times. We pebble. ⁓

and yeah, we just show love through, guess, like acts of service and, and connection. Yeah. Another big thing for me, and it's something that I, that I tell my kids all the time is focus on what you do have and less on what you don't. So that can be really challenging.

Yes. Especially if you're in a bad head space. Yes, it can be very challenging, but it is a conscious choice and a coping mechanism that I use to stay positive when things are really hard. Well, and that goes with my DBT skill that I've talked to you guys about, like what's not wrong. Yes. It doesn't have to be toxic positivity. It doesn't have to be shoved down the things like, you don't have to be like, okay, well, this really sucks, but I shouldn't think about that.

It's more like, okay, in this moment, let's ground what's not wrong right now. Like we have a wood stove going, even though it's wind chill, negative 30 outside. Like that's not wrong. We're warm. We were warm right So we are quickly approaching that 30 minute mark. So I'm going to wrap this back around. But Megan, I'm so glad that you asked that question because I was really excited to be able to record with Ben.

I want Ben to do more episodes. Listeners, if you have questions for me or for Ben, ⁓ shoot us a message on Instagram or Facebook. I don't check Facebook as often. ⁓ Or you can email us at Chelsea at QuietConnectionPodcast.com. And yeah, my advice.

is always refill your water bottle and do something nice for yourself. I don't know. Do you have any parting words? Well, if it's a weekend and you can do it, take a nap. Take a nap. We will be taking a nap before we get our children back. yeah. So we are going to be seeing Brandi Carlile Tomorrow is my birthday. Happy birthday me. And then I hope everyone has.

A lovely Valentine's Day. No matter what your situation is, just show yourself a little bit of love. We'll see you next week. See you.