Andrew and I have had a long day at work and we’re plopped in front of our TV. It’s blasting some sort of daily horror story from the news, but neither of us is paying attention. We’re glued to something much more important to us, and it’s not our relationship; it’s our phone.
We want connection, but we aren’t prioritizing getting it from each other because we are getting it everywhere else.
Suddenly, though, I decide I want connection with Andrew. I look up and scoff. “If we are going to sit together, can you at least put your phone away?”
“What? You’ve been on your phone the entire time. I only picked mine up because you had yours.”
I am frustrated because I know he is right. I haven’t been managing my phone use well. When I get tired, I just want to scroll. Yet, I know scrolling does nothing for me. Our phone use is a major issue in our relationship. It often feels like another partner in the room whom we have to compete with. And while we both recognize the problem, it’s taking effort to eradicate it.
“You’re right,” I say. “What should we do instead?”
We decide to watch a show together. We put the phones in another room and lay side by side on the couch. We are tired, so we don’t need to be talking or partaking in something active. Being together with our shared attention on something is enough.
I feel Andrew’s hand wrap around my waist and I grab it and give it a squeeze. We lay there together watching until we both fall asleep.
While being in a relationship means signing up for a lifetime of stressors with each other, it also means committing to being each other’s safe cocoon. Doing this requires you to make decisions regarding how you navigate yourself and the outside world that are beneficial to the unit as a whole.
Stan Tatkin, the founder of Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy, coined the term the couple bubble to help couples better understand what their boundaries of protection should look like. According to Tatkin, “the couple bubble describes the mutually constructed membrane, cocoon, or womb that holds a couple together and protects each partner from outside elements.”1
Many of the couples I work with pierce the shell of their cocoon with poor boundaries by something Stan Tatkin calls “thirds.” Thirds are anything outside of your relationship that might threaten your connection by draining your energy, resources, and trust. This might be hobbies, in-laws, the workplace, substances, or friends, to name a few.
Each time they pierce the shell, it becomes weaker, removing the security of the relationship little by little. Couples might pierce the cocoon by taking the advice and opinions of outsiders over those of their partner, by spending money that wasn’t agreed on, by overusing substances, and by choosing to dedicate more time to work than to each other.
Every duo has some thirds. A third between my best friend and I might be my cell phone use when we are out at dinner. A third between my husband and I could be my job.
There are so many threats to our cocoon in modern society that sometimes it’s hard to figure out what is causing the actual issue. Week after week, I meet with couples who believe they are failing—they can’t keep up with the laundry, they don’t have time to plan birthday parties, they haven’t had energy for sex—and week after week they try doing things that should help.
When thirds are being mismanaged, relationships struggle. Managing thirds (and thereby managing stress) means first being able to identify them and the harm they can cause.
It’s late 2021 and Leann and Cora are telling me how frustrated they are with the number of tasks they have to complete in their daily life—how it all seems unending and how they aren’t sure what to do about it.
When couples express to me that they are jointly overwhelmed and not sure exactly what to do to make their daily lives more manageable, I do an activity with them that is inspired by Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play system. I rip five sheets of paper out of my notebook and label them one by one:
I put the sheets side by side on the table between us. “Look at each of these categories together. I want you to write down everything that needs to be done in your family.” They both pick up a pen and take a moment to look over the categories. Then, together, they work to fill the sheets of paper.
As Leann and Cora work together on the task, I watch them fill the unpredictable category:
And the work life category:
And childcare:
And housework:
And then they got to magic.
“What does this one mean?” Leann asks.
“It’s the category for the tasks you complete to make sure the special stuff happens in your life,” I respond.
Leann and Cora look blankly at each other and then at me. “You know,” I say, “picking up each other’s favorite bagels on Sunday morning or planting a new bush each year or changing the wreath on the door for the new season . . . the things that make life feel special, fresh, and magic.”
Leann immediately starts to cry. “What’s going on Leann?” I ask.
“I don’t think we have anything magic in our lives right now and it makes me really sad. Liam deserves magic.”
“So do you,” I say. “You deserve magic too.”
Leann and Cora share with me that they don’t have any rituals and they haven’t had time to do the things they used to do—surprising each other with treats, hanging lights in the winter, setting up a beachy spread on the mantle above the fireplace in the summer. “It used to be something I loved to do,” says Leann, “but I feel like neither of us protects that part of our lives.”
For Leann and Cora, recognizing that there was no time to make life sparkle made them realize how dull life had become. And this was not the life they had set out to create. Yet even with all of their efforts they felt they couldn’t get their heads above water.
No matter how much Cora wanted to hang a wreath, the continuing education units had to be submitted for her medical license first.
No matter how much Leann wanted to take a trip to Dunkin’ Donuts to grab Cora’s favorite coffee on a Saturday morning, she needed to get her fingerprints notarized first.
No matter how much they both wanted to surprise Liam with a scavenger hunt in the backyard after school, they had to plop him in front of the TV because both of their jobs required after-hours work.
“Our workplaces,” I say, “have become the dullest, sharpest knives for many couples. Dull, because they’ve filled, without limit, our lives with endless mundane tasks. Sharp, because it really hurts to recognize what it’s taking away—the things that really matter.”
Somehow, we went from couples ending their workday and coming home to eat dinner together to having twenty-four-hour workdays with tiny breaks. Let’s take a look at Leann’s workday. Leann is a teacher:
Let’s look at Cora’s schedule. Cora is a pediatrician:
Leann and Cora are on a twenty-four-hour work cycle, although they are not being paid for it. And, within that work cycle, they have gaslit themselves into believing that the fact they can’t quite figure out how to get all of their tasks done and still make things special is an individual or relational failing.
In addition, the tasks that make their careers sparkle are being edged out by tasks that make them darkle (this is a real word by the way; it means to become clouded or gloomy). The teacher who loves to help children build dioramas is now filling out twenty documents a day to report to some data analyst on the school board. The doctor who wants to sit with their patient and understand what is going on, is stuck signing into portals, responding to bad faith insurance denials, and fielding phone calls all day.
Many couples are trying to emulate an old paradigm—come home, eat dinner together, and read a book or watch the news—but they can’t because the Slack pings never stop.
The next time I meet with Leann and Cora, they are much more motivated. “It was really an aha moment for us to realize that we are both so miserable because there just isn’t time for magic in our lives. Something about uncovering that helped us stop pointing fingers at each other. It’s not Leann’s fault that we don’t have that. Our lives just aren’t allowing time for it. What do we do, Liz?” Cora shares.
“I am not sure of the answer,” I tell Leann and Cora. “As a couple, you’re going to need to find a creative solution to this because it isn’t going to work for you or your family.”
Leann says, “Well, I love my job, and I know my boss won’t let me change much about it.”
And Cora responds with, “Your job will never love you like Liam and I do, though.”
“Let’s take a pause. I don’t think we should jump into solutions too quickly. They won’t stick if we do that,” I say.
Asking Cora and Leann to take a pause is a popular relationship intervention. When people are stressed and have a dilemma to solve, they tend to quickly jump into solutions. However, the solutions tend not to stick. They don’t stick because at least one person agreed to it half-heartedly.
Instead, I encourage couples to take a pause and talk about the issue they are facing; to have some deep conversations around it and really get to know each other on the topic. You can come to solutions after that, but deciding on solutions without comprehending each person’s point of view isn’t going to work.
“Why don’t you ask each other some more questions,” I share. “See if you can better understand what is important to each of you.”
As Leann and Cora talk, it is clear that the type of life they value is not the type of life they are living. They know something needs to change and recognize there are no easy answers.
“This isn’t going to be an overnight fix,” I tell them. “This is going to be an intentional, slow process that helps you move toward what you want.”
In our fast-paced society, we often want to believe that we should be able to find the answer that will quickly fix things. As a realist, I have found that change takes time. You might not be able to quit your job overnight, but you can begin to take small intentional steps toward the lifestyle changes you need in order for your relationship to thrive.
When these lifestyle changes—and sacrifices—become intentional, you are rebelling against the unhealthy sacrifices being marketed to you. “Society” wants you to think you need to make more money so you can buy more stuff. Your intentional sacrifice might be to make less money to have more time for yourself or your loved ones. Intentional sacrifice means thinking about what matters to you and recognizing that to gain it you will need to deal with some loss.
By this point, Andrew and I had been working together for over a year to figure out how to improve our work-life situation since that day I failed Bria and Andrew was let down by work and we felt we had failed everyone. And I knew there were no easy paths, no clear choices. What we found was that there were just intentional sacrifices. These were the things that we had to give up in order to save our family.
That night, we realized something had to give. Someone needed to lean out. At this point in our careers, Andrew was feeling less fulfilled with his work, and I was feeling more fulfilled in mine. As a therapist working through the pandemic, there was nothing more sacred than the work I was doing sitting alongside my clients as they processed stress, fear, and loss. While stressful and tiring, it was meaningful and necessary work.
My husband, on the other hand, was working for corporate America in the midst of a worldwide trauma that only corporate America would respond to by making people feel even worse—layoffs, fear tactics, longer office hours with less pay, and a lack of time to really connect with colleagues. Andrew’s workplace had become like The Hunger Games. There were no allies. Everyone was out for themselves.
After many conversations, Andrew and I decided together that he would leave his job. This wasn’t settled lightly. It was a hard decision to make because there was so much to unravel:
Andrew and I have had many conversations about the decision. Some of them have resulted in reflecting on the issues that have arisen—I won’t paint the picture of my husband leaving his job to support my career as being completely rosy. There are very real implications—the same as if I had left mine. Work is meaningful and changing it can hurt. Gendered self and social perceptions still exist. In fact, a study out of the University of Bath found that when men are not the breadwinner, their mental health suffers.2 And any woman can identify with the reality that it can be hard to balance our passions outside of the home with what we believe we are responsible for within the home.
We sacrificed a lot—financial cushion, certainty, some goals, and even pieces of our identity. But it was an intentional choice. We were very lucky that we were in a place to make the sacrifices we did. Many people can’t take a risk like this, but you don’t have to leave a job to find a solution. That’s why it’s important to go through the steps and exercises I’ve laid out in this book to find your own way forward.
When I work with couples on what work means to their identity, how it plays a role in their attraction to each other, and what losing it will do to their finances, it’s important to make space for both/and. It might have been the best decision for Andrew to leave his job to care of George while I worked AND it’s created challenges for us financially, emotionally, and relationally.
As you navigate how stress plays a role in your own family life and begin to make decisions about what needs to change in order for it to improve, it’s important to note that not every change is going to feel completely good. Some will require sacrifice. Some will create sadness, grief, and uncertainty. And, if the net value is greater than the loss, then it still might be the best thing to do.
Relationships are protected from harm by boundaries. These boundaries are not just for partners to have with each other, but for couples to have with their thirds. It can be hard to set boundaries. Sometimes it means letting other people down, but it might mean lifting your family up. When stress is hurting our relationships, we need boundaries around the things that are causing that stress.
A few months after our conversation about work boundaries, Cora is sitting on my couch next to Leann. She is fiddling with her hoop earrings, looking at the floor, and kicking her foot up and down as she starts telling me about a current shame spiral she is experiencing. Tears stream down her face as she shares that she had too much to drink the night before and her hangover ruined everyone’s morning.
Cora has an issue with drinking. It’s been downplayed because their lives are so busy and she is so “functional.”
Leann takes a deep breath. I can tell she is frustrated with Cora’s drinking but also doesn’t want to shame her.
“Cora,” I say, “there is a lot to unpack with the drinking, but I think we need to start with having new boundaries around alcohol in your life.”
“I am not cutting out alcohol,” Cora retorts. “I know, I know, you and Leann can sit there and judge me all you want, but this is the only way I connect with people. It’s all I have to unwind.”
I take a deep breath and show her that I understand. But Cora doesn’t feel understood.
“There is no way you can understand, Liz. I need to have this time with my friends. But of course, you probably never do anything to negatively impact your relationship,” she says with more than a hint of sarcasm.
I understand more than you could know, I think.
While I am not struggling with drinking, I have certainly impacted my marriage by not setting good boundaries. My husband purchased us tickets to see his favorite band the previous night, and I had completely forgotten and scheduled a client during the time of the concert. Once I realized my error, I let down my husband rather than letting down my client. I helped my client work through loneliness while my husband went to the show alone.
Cora’s voice disrupts my own shame spiral. “I am just so tired of being judged,” she says.
Cora and I are having a parallel experience. I hear her—she is afraid to change her relationship with alcohol in the same way I am afraid to change my relationship with boundaries in general. But why is it scarier to change those relationships than it is to protect our most important connections? And while I empathize with Cora, I also know I need to lift Leann up and advocate for her and the impact Cora and her drinking are having on their life.
“I hear you. The thing is, you’re risking losing your partner by not looking at the impact of alcohol and making some changes,” I say. “Each time you drink you are saying yes to alcohol and no to your family. It sucks to have to choose, but in this instance, you’re going to have to decide which hardship you want to face—the pain and difficulty of changing your relationship with alcohol or losing your relationship with Leann.”
“Yeah, I agree with that,” Leann chimes in, “I think you need to stop spending time with your friends at bars. It’s not good for you.”
Not so fast, I think. Leann enjoys a beer every night. Leann, though, is able to drink one or two and then stop. She doesn’t end up hungover. She doesn’t send off embarrassing emails to her boss in the middle of the night. Because of her genetics, she isn’t predisposed to alcohol abuse the way Cora is.
I smile at Cora and turn to Leann. “You need better boundaries with alcohol too.” I continue, “Relationships and their challenges take joint effort. If your partner has a drinking problem, it’s time to stop drinking around them and stop bringing tons of alcohol into the house. You’re just exacerbating the issue.”
Cora and Leann are uncomfortable with what I’ve said. Leann shares that it would be embarrassing for her to no longer drink at social outings. “Everyone is going to think I am an alcoholic if all of the sudden I order Sprite instead of wine.”
And Cora says, “Well now I have no idea who I am going to hang out with. And I feel like shit that Leann is having to change her habits for me.”
I let them talk out their discomfort and then I respond.
“The thing about boundaries is that they aren’t always easy. Sometimes they really suck. And with the most important boundaries there is often some form of sacrifice. Just because you set a boundary doesn’t mean it’s going to feel good.”
When I coach couples to set boundaries in order to save their most sacred relationships, we talk a lot about what-ifs. I think it’s important to explore fears because they’re often real. “Leann,” I say, “let’s play this out . . . you go to a work dinner and your colleagues laugh at you for drinking a Sprite . . . so what happens then?”
“If people laugh at me for drinking a Sprite, I would honestly think they are idiots.”
“Okay, so what if they go home and gossip that you must be an alcoholic, then what?”
“If anyone thinks that they must not know me well, so I wouldn’t care,” she responds.
I play out the what-ifs with both Leann and Cora until they realize that they can handle making the changes they need.
It’s not always as easy as that though. The reality might be truly painful. If you’re learning to set boundaries with your in-laws, you might get ousted from the family unit. If you set boundaries with your boss, you might lose your job.
Sometimes, there will be a painful outcome when you begin changing the way you navigate life. Instead of avoiding the change, couples need to consider what plans need to be set into place so they can prepare for difficult outcomes.
For example, if you’re worried that setting an important boundary at work could cause you to be fired, you might set up some job interviews first . . . just in case. Or, if you have a parent whom you spend a lot of time helping and you’re worried it will impact them if you take some of your time back, maybe you come up with a plan for how they can get support outside of you.
Having healthy boundaries in a relationship isn’t just about what you do with your thirds, it’s also what you do with each other. No matter how much you love someone or how close you feel, you need limitations. Boundaries make things clear and reduce stress.
A few months after agreeing to stay away from alcohol, Cora emails me:
Hey Liz,
Sorry to bother you. Leann brought a bottle of wine home for Thanksgiving. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but also don’t want to seem controlling. Any ideas on what to do?
After reading her email, I sent Cora a brief message asking if she would be willing to hop on a quick telehealth call. She agrees.
During the session, we talk about what is holding her back from setting a boundary with Leann. They had agreed to have no alcohol in the house and it wouldn’t be shocking for Cora to ask Leann to remove it.
“I want to be able to be okay with alcohol in the house,” Cora shares.
She tucks her hair behind her ears and looks up toward the ceiling and then back at me. “I just feel like I should be able to handle it. My drinking issue shouldn’t be her issue.”
“You’re in a relationship with each other—a family to each other. You committed to reducing the impact of alcohol on your relationship and your health together. It is okay to expect Leann to follow through on that commitment.”
Cora is falling into a common trap that makes it difficult to hold limits. She wants to be passive—the type of communication that requires us to be uncomfortable so others don’t have to be.
But a supportive relationship requires us to set limits. We cannot absorb the discomfort just to keep the peace. We need to learn to be assertive.
Being assertive means taking accountability for yourself while also giving others the opportunity to take responsibility for themselves.
I coach Cora in how to be assertive with Leann. We work on maintaining a gentle tone of voice, expressing messages that have an underpinning of love, and speaking for herself. “I think I could just gently say to her, ‘Leann, I love how great things have been between us without alcohol. I’d like us to stick to our agreement of no alcohol in the house, even on Thanksgiving.’”
“That’s great, Cora. That’s setting limits with love.”
Setting limits with love looks like:
Setting limits with love isn’t just useful when discussing how alcohol is managed in your home or how much time is dedicated to work. It can also apply to situations where you have to set a limit regarding your interactions with each other.
When Andrew and I start to utilize our go-tos—criticism and defensiveness—in an argument, we set limits. Since the early days of our relationship, strong boundaries have helped us reduce significant distress. Instead of continuing the conversation or criticizing Andrew when he becomes defensive, I say, “Andrew, I need you to hear me out. I am going to take a break and we can try to talk again in a little bit.”
And when I get critical? Andrew responds with something like, “Liz, I want to hear you out and I can’t hear you when you’re putting me down. I’ll listen when you can share it with me in another way.”
Doing this creates a safe environment between the two of us—one in which we are less likely to become physiologically dysregulated.
The concept of boundaries often makes sense to people. But putting them into practice is another story. That’s because when we move from thinking about a boundary to actually setting it, we are required to feel. And often the initial feeling is discomfort, something that most people attempt to avoid at all costs.
It’s one thing to know that you have to tell your boss that leaving the office at 8:00 pm is no longer appropriate, but it’s another thing to actually do it and to experience the emotions that come with it.
I attended an event with the Female Founders Fund called Agents of Change. At this event, Rashida Jones, the president of MSNBC, was being interviewed about her experience as a woman in business. “You’re a leader and people say it’s lonely at the top,” the interviewer said. “Do you have tips on how to deal with that loneliness?”
Most of the presenters had offered tips like, “Make sure you pick a great board so that you know you’ve got people on your side,” or “Surround yourself with other powerful women.” But when Jones was asked this question, she paused. She took a moment to look around the room and then smiled at the audience. “You know, my biggest advice is that you still maintain a life outside of this. That you don’t only identify as a leader. I have some leadership peers who I go to, yes, but more importantly I have things I do beyond this role. I have boundaries with this role.”
She went on to share that setting boundaries is hard because you worry you might let people down, but that often when she steps away and does the other things she needs to do in life, she feels much better. “I will never complete the entire list. I put it away at a certain point and then I go spend time with my kids. I had to stop yesterday because I promised my daughter I’d be at her game. And guess where I was at 5:15 pm? Her game.”
Jones was exemplifying what it means to recognize when something is difficult and to do it anyway because ultimately it will be good for you (and your family) in the long run.
People tend to avoid setting limits, even if those limits are good for them and their family, for two reasons:
After Leann and Cora realized how much magic was missing in their lives and how much alcohol was impacting their happiness, they felt committed to setting more limits and making difficult choices that would help them change their lifestyle. As they started to reduce the outside stressors in their lives, they began arguing less and therefore coming to therapy less.
During one of our monthly appointments, I ask them how things are going.
Cora shares, “It’s pretty great. I’ve been really working to complete what I can complete during the workday and if the other stuff doesn’t get done, then I add it to a list to bring up to my supervisor later. If they want to assign me more work than is humanly possible to complete, then that’s on them.”
I smile at Cora and turn to Leann.
“I guess it’s going well. Cora has worked really hard on changing things. I, on the other hand, have really struggled to make some changes I know I need to make.”
“Like what?” I ask, encouraging her to share more.
Leann is a helper at heart. She cares deeply about the students and their families. She is motivated by “doing the right thing.” It makes sense she is having a hard time setting limits.
“I really want to have undisrupted time with my family at night, but if one of the kids is struggling at school, then I always make time for them or their parents in the evening to chat about what’s going on. And it’s not a one-off . . . it’s like every night.”
Oof. I relate. As do most people in helping professions. It is hard to tell someone you aren’t available when they are struggling. But there is no benefit if saying yes is putting the helper into deeper and deeper burnout.
“Leann, what’s blocking you from protecting that time?”
She looks uncomfortable, frustrated even. “I don’t know what I am even supposed to say. Plus I see all these TikTok videos and Twitter videos criticizing the shit out of teachers for not caring. Last night, a parent was complaining about a teacher who wouldn’t return their calls at night. So I just feel like such a bad person if I say no.”
“Ah, okay,” I nod my head. “So one blocker is that you don’t know what to say. You need a script or something. And the other blocker is that it’s going to feel really uncomfortable.”
Leann agrees with my assessment and so I help her. She needs to know the basics. First, what does it sound like to set a boundary? When setting a boundary, you have to decide if you want to say a flat-out “no,” “yes” with a caveat, or offer an alternate suggestion to the request. I share some examples with her:
If your response to a request or to something someone has done is a no, then work toward responding in a brief and neutral tone. For example, “Hi John, I won’t be able to stay until 8:00 pm tonight. I will see you tomorrow!”
Perhaps you’ve been given a request that you can accept to a point. Maybe you’d like to have your mother-in-law at the hospital during the birth of your baby, but you’d like to be with your partner most of the time. This situation calls for saying yes and setting a limit. For example, “Absolutely! We would love you to be at the hospital while baby number two is born! It’s really important we get some family time, so we will have visiting hours for the first hour after the birth.”
At times we are asked something that we want to say no to, but we have another idea of how we can fulfill the request or need. Consider being invited to an event with friends. Perhaps the weekend isn’t going to work because you promised your partner you’d go on a date. In this case, you can say, “I can’t go this weekend, but could go next weekend. Is anyone available then?”
These examples help Leann to see that setting a limit can come with flexibility. It doesn’t need to be harsh.
“Okay, this helps,” she says. “So what do I do about my anxiety for being judged?”
For Leann, in order to make important changes, she has to accept what is—she cannot please the parents and administration at her school 100 percent of the time while still being there for her family. The other reality she needs to accept is that she will likely have feelings about that. She shares that she thinks she will feel guilt and embarrassment. Potentially even shame.
Once Leann accepted the reality, she could plan for how to best deal with those uncomfortable feelings. For her, it was letting Cora know how she was feeling whenever she had to let a parent down.
When I ask her later how she started dealing with parents asking for evening phone calls, she shared that her response would sound something like this:
Dear parent,
I would love to connect with you about your child’s grades. I can’t do evening phone calls, but I am free tomorrow during my 11:00 am prep period. Would that work for you?
Leann was setting a limit around her evening hours while also offering an alternative. Of course, this brought along with it the issue of not having enough time to prepare, but Leann put the problem on a list to bring up with her boss. Just like Cora, she realized that if her work can’t get done during the time she’s meant to be at work, then it is a bigger systemic issue to solve—not hers to figure out on her own.
Session Notes:
In this session, we explored thirds. You learned what thirds are and how they can impact the energy we are able to offer the people we love the most. We explored techniques you can use to navigate thirds like name it to tame it, nonviolent communication, boundaries, and limits. By using these techniques you’ll protect your relationship and preserve its energy.
1. Intervention: Naming Your Thirds
List all of the thirds in your life (hint: there might be a lot!). Then, rate them based on how much of an impact they have on your relationship . . . 1 has the lowest impact and a 5 has the highest impact.
2. Intervention: Name It to Tame It
Name it to tame it is a science-backed tool created by Daniel Siegel that helps you notice and label your emotions. It can help calm spiraling thoughts and soothe emotions resulting from stress, emotions like rage, anxiety, and fear.
When you catch yourself spiraling, name the feeling. For example, if you notice yourself becoming stressed and overwhelmed, close your eyes, put your hand on your chest, and name the emotion: “I am feeling really stressed right now.” This act alone helps to reduce stress and soothe difficult feelings.
3. Intervention: Identifying Tasks
Identifying tasks is a great way to get a clear picture of where each of your stressors is coming from . . . and where you’re neglecting yourself and your partner.
Rip out five sheets of paper and write one category on each:
Take time with your partner to fill out everything you have to do in each category. Then, label each activity with who tends to be responsible for it.
4. Intervention: Boundaries
Think of one or two boundaries you want to set with your partner. Perhaps they utilize defensiveness, stay at work too late, don’t pick up their socks, or get critical. Write a note to yourself about what you want to say when it happens and how you want to respond. For example, if your partner spends too much time and energy playing video games, you might say, “I am going to bed at 9:00 pm each night, so if you play for a long time, we will end up missing time together.”
5. Intervention: Limit Setting
When you need to set a limit, decide if you want to say no, yes with a limit, or offer an alternative. For example, if your colleague asks you to help them on a project but you know it is going to take away from important family time, you can respond in a few ways: