Vanessa: No, we need to start a video again.
Xander: All right.
Vanessa: Most of us lead incredibly busy lives these
days. So between family, relationships, friends, work, school, religion, taking care of ourselves.
Xander: Recording YouTube videos.
Vanessa: Yeah. It takes
a lot of time. It can feel like there is hardly any time left for romance.
Xander: And if you have kids,
you probably know this to be especially true.
Vanessa: Now, we know firsthand from
our own relationship, what it feels like when romance starts to slip onto the back burner,
it feels like you're just not as connected as you used to be, or you want to be. So,
if you feel like you just need to hit the pause button or the refresh button in your relationship.
Xander: The vacation button.
Vanessa: Yeah,
to bring some romance back, bring some passion and energy and excitement back into your relationship,
then this video is for you because we are going to be talking all about how to bring
the romance back into your relationship, even if you feel like you're just too busy.
Xander: And if you're
brand new to our channel, then we want to say, hello, we are Vanessa and Xander Marin.
Vanessa here's a sex therapist, I'm a regular dude. We've been together for 13 years.
Vanessa: And our account is here to give you the tools,
tips and techniques that you need to create a truly extraordinary relationship inside of
the bedroom and out. So, if you're interested in that, please just go ahead and hit that subscribe
button. We would love your support, it really helps us in continuing to make these videos.
Xander: Oh yeah.
All right, but before we got into this video, we really want to know from you,
what is a small thing that you like to do that brings romance or connection into your
everyday life, into your relationship? Just let us know in the comments right down below,
what's a small thing that you like to do that feels good for you and your partner?
Vanessa: All right,
so here's the deal. We are titling this video, The Busy Person's Guide To Romance,
but we want to give you a little tough love first. We kind of want to call BS on this idea
of being too busy for romance. So, we are all going through different seasons in the life,
our priorities shift, we have different stuff on our plate, that's okay. Like we said earlier,
we've definitely had phases of our relationship where we've deprioritized romance and intimacy.
But, we think that it's just too easy for us to get caught in this trap of feeling like we're
too busy and almost using that as an excuse. So we think it's really important for all of
us to be honest with ourselves about, all right, I've got this, whatever it is on my plate at this
point in my life, but what is it that's really important to me. And we all have to make this
active and concerted effort to prioritize our relationships, intimacy and romance.
Xander: Yeah. So the problem with using the excuse,
I'm too busy, is that what you're telling your partner, or what they're likely going to hear,
is that the other things that I'm choosing to do today, or this week, or this month, are more
important to me than spending quality time is with you. So instead of saying, "I'm too busy,"
try acknowledging that you are really busy because that's a reality for you and also express
that you would like to spend some quality time with them. That way you can say both of those
things, rather than saying, "I am too busy to do this with you." "I'm really busy, that's feeling
stressful. I'm also missing spending time with you. That's also something I would like to do."
Here's the deal. We have this tendency where we just feel totally powerless against our schedules,
our calendars, that feeling of constant busyness. But the reality is that,
on a daily basis, you are making dozens and dozens of decisions about what you're
doing with your time, what you're prioritizing first, second, what project you're working on.
Vanessa: And we promise you, you're
not spending every single second of your day being productive. We all waste a fair amount of time.
Xander: So, yeah.
So the reality is you are not too busy for daily connection with your partner.
In one of those many dozens of decisions that you're making, you could make a decision to
have a small bit of connection with your partner, just 5 or 10 minutes.
Vanessa: Okay. But let's talk about some easy ways to
incorporate romance into your relationship because I think a lot of us hear the word romance and we
think it has to be stuff that's really big and elaborate. I have to whisk my partner away on this
incredible surprise vacation and sure, that's fun. That's one of my favorite romantic things that
Xander does, but that's just not something that we can do every day. So we have to find these little
ways of bringing romance into our days, even if we're busy, stressed, tired, whatever it is. So,
the first recommendation that we have, is to ask your partner, "What things feel romantic to you?
How could I help you feel seen and appreciated and loved on a daily basis?" Because we're
going to give you some other tips here, but everybody has different ideas of what feels
romantic to them. So we want you to start with your partner. I'm sure they have a couple of ideas
of things that they would really love from you and it can just be a fun conversation to have too.
Xander: Yeah and asking what types
of things they love, that doesn't make it less romantic. The reality is, we all like to receive
love in a certain way. And just because we can tell our partner, "Hey, I really like it
when you do this," it doesn't make it any less meaningful, which brings us to our next point.
We all prefer to experience love in a different way and we all have different love languages.
So, it's really important to talk to your partner about what is their love language, how do they
like to experience love and connection? And so learn that language, identify if you guys have
different love languages, you probably do. And that can really help you with figuring
out what are some good, small gestures that are really going to speak to them in their language.
Vanessa: I think we should
do a video about love languages. I don't think we have yet, huh?
Xander: Wow, really? Okay, we should.
Vanessa: All right, keep an eye out, it's coming.
Our next tip is to create rituals. So rituals are ways of making these small
daily activities feel more special. If it feels like this is this little routine that we always
do together, and this is the special thing that now we have an inside joke about it,
or a special name for it. It just takes these mundane things and makes them feel more special.
So for example, you could have this little ritual that whoever gets home from work
first is going to set some wine glasses out for the two of you to have a little
drink together, or maybe they're going to light your favorite candle. It's these just small acts,
but we create a routine and a pattern around it to make them feel more powerful.
Xander: Another tip is to
try prioritizing that quality time really early in the day, as early as you can. So
don't wait until the end of the day when you're both exhausted. So there's been a lot of research
done on how you spend your time when you're working. And here's a small, little hack.
In research, when you give someone a task and you give them varying amounts of time to do it,
the longer the time you give them, people tend to figure out how to stretch out the tasks that
they have, or compress it down to fit the time frame. So the reality is, we feel really busy,
but oftentimes, if we are forced to spend less time doing that task, we can get it
done. And if we have a longer amount of time, we figure out how to stretch it all out. So, if
you prioritize quality time early in the day, then you have that connection and maybe you feel like,
oh God, now I don't have enough time to do all my work or all my tasks, but just give it a shot.
Vanessa: You'll figure it out.
Xander: You will probably figure it out. So,
here's a couple suggestions. Have coffee on the porch together, you can have a quickie during
your morning shower. You can do the crossword puzzle together over breakfast. So these are just
small, easy things. You do them early in the day and then you can feel good,
like, hey, we're connected. Now I'm going to go do all of this really busy work.
Vanessa: Yeah, it's like you're
starting the day on a good note. And when you start on that note, it makes it easier
to stay connected throughout the day, rather than you're at the very end of the night,
you're both exhausted and you're like, "We should do something romantic," right?
Xander: Yeah.
Vanessa: And by the way, all of the
things that Xander mentioned, those could be rituals too. You could have, yeah, it's our
ritual that every morning we spend five minutes together and we do the crossword puzzle. Our
next tip is to send sweet, sassy, romantic text messages or emails back and forth to each other.
I think there's a lot of talk these days about how harmful technology and cell phones are to our
relationships. But the reality is, we can use that technology to our benefit. You can even schedule
an email to send to your partner for later. And that way you kind of just have your bases covered.
Xander: Maybe don't tell them that part of it.
Vanessa: And I think we
really underestimate the power of those really simple gestures, just a little text that says,
"I love you." What? That takes two seconds to write, but it could make your partner's day.
Xander: Also, touch as much
as possible. Whenever you have the chance, give a hug, a kiss, a playful little smack on the butt,
little squeezes. The more physical touch that you incorporate into your daily life,
into your time together, the more connected you're going to feel,
even if your time together is limited, or even if your partner's love language isn't necessarily
physical touch. But yeah, it feels good. That's a very easy way to get connected.
Vanessa: And our last tip is to de-stress
together. So this can actually be a way to kill two birds with one stone. You guys are feeling
really busy and overwhelmed, have the romance be the kind of unwinding and de-stressing together.
And so it's like you're taking that time to connect with each other in those moments. So this
could be something like taking a bath together, maybe you go on a walk around the block together,
a dance party to some of your favorite jams, just literally shake out that stress,
maybe an at-home yoga class, whatever it is like that, that that helps you
guys de-stress. But it can feel romantic to do that kind of stuff together too.
Xander: Oh yeah, definitely. So, that
wraps up our guide on incorporating more romance into your busy schedule. If you like this video,
please give us a thumbs up, hit that like button, hit the red button to subscribe to our YouTube
channel. That helps us out so much. And if you want these videos as soon as we post them,
hit the notification icon so you keep getting them the minute we post them.
Vanessa: And we have a free gift for you. If this
is something that you are really wanting to work on in your relationship and dig into even more,
we have a free guide called, 3 Simple Daily Habits To Keep The Spark Alive In Your Relationship.
Like the title says, it'll give you three really simple, actionable, easy things to do. These are
the three best bang for your buck kind of things that we've discovered. So, we will put a link
to download that for free in the description box down below. Thanks so much for watching.
Xander: See you next time.