How to be a Great Mum AND Wife in #lockdown2021

Wow! It's day 3 of lockdown. I hope you found my previous post helpful. It's worth a read as I'm going to take the ideas there on a stage to really get your vibe high. But that's another post.

Today I wanted to talk about how being a Mum in lockdown can take a toll on our relationship with our partner.

Most of what we read about helps us to connect with our children, but our adult relationships are important too. None more so than the ones we live with!

I've been finding that although I'm managing to homeschool and have fun with my daughter I've not really got much of me left for an evening with my husband. I'm over stimulated, very tired and low in mood and patience by the time my daughter's bedtime has taken place.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say I just want to be on my own once our evening starts. I enjoy yoga, reading, learning to play bridge, (yes that is a card game for older ladies), and I love my job. So it's going to take some thoughts and planning on how I'm going to fit that all in over the next 6 weeks. I haven't figured that all out yet but I know I need to as my husband and I haven't managed to spend any quality time time together this week and worse than that, I've started to get cranky with him!

I practise a gratitude attitude, I look for the good in everyone and I appreciate all my husband does for our family. However tonight I found myself saying, "it's OK for you. Your world hasn't changed that much." Although it's true, that demonstrates to me and to him that I'm feeling a little resentment and that is not good for a romantic relationship.

A while ago I read Tiffany Dufu's book, Drop the ball. It's fabulous. It's all about learning to expect less from yourself and more from your husband. Kate Northrup's book, do less is also great. These books both confirmed to me and reminded me that we don't need to do it all to have it all. We need to get good at focusing on what's important and let some things drop off the list. We also need our partners to step up when we need them to. If we are in lockdown then that is a great time for partners to work out how to step up as a team for home schooling and caring for our children.

We should not have unrealistic expectations of what we can achieve in a day. Especially when there is going to be 6 weeks of lockdown homeschooling and childcaring days. In Drop the ball, Tiffany gains her self awareness and has huge realisations around her relationship with her husband and the the roles each of them plays. It's a brilliant read.

I'm telling you all this because your partner will benefit if you are not feeling completely wrecked or resentful and grumpy with him in the evenings. If you can have an honest and open but a loving chat about how you are feeling I believe you will find ways he can help out enough so that he gets more of your time and energy in the evening. It'll be great for your relationship. It'll also be great for him as people love to help others. There's even a proven health benefit. Partners love to help the woman they love. It really does make them feel good. So do him a favour and give him a chance to help you out.

The secret is to make sure he knows how appreciative you are of all the things he does already. You also need to have an idea of what he can best help out with. Something he can completely own that you won't micro manage him over or judge his efforts on. He'll need to be able to do what you give him his own way. Consistency helps too. We're in this lockdown for 6 weeks so why not establish a routine so that he just knows what's needed of him.

Some woman know exactly what they need or want help with but others don't. Like Tiffany Dufu, I wasn't self aware until I had a coach. I knew I wasn't happy with my current situation but I didn't really know what to change or how to change it. It turned out I had mindset blocks.

Through having a coach I managed to shift my mindset as the questions my coach asked me brought about a couple of really big realisations which massively helped me to alter my day to day life. It was like magic. It was such a revelation that I still managed to do everything that was on my list but because I was no longer using up a lot of time and mental energy in being stuck and unsatisfied I could get more than I'd hoped done and still have energy left over.

So now my day to day reality has altered again I will be sitting down to reassess based on how this week has been. Then I'll be reaching out to my husband to ask for the support I need. This will most likely be some time for yoga and agreeing a couple of 'date nights' so I can use the other evenings for what I usually do in the school day.

I hope this post has been of interest to you. Maybe you'll read one or both of the books I've mentioned. Hopefully you'll reach out to your partner for a chat.

If you're interested in how coaching can help you get through lockdown or get unstuck in general, check out my free 5 step guide here.

There's also my previous thrive in lockdown post here, which talks about some coaching practices you can adopt.

I wish you all the best.

Take care,

Rebecca