 Hello there everybody watching in the world wide web. I hope you guys are okay I hope your day is going well things are getting a little bit more stressful over here that we're on day five of quarantine I want to make sure you guys are okay in your marriages and give you a few tips that have worked well for our family And I'll just launch right into them Number one one of the things that my husband and I fought about for years and when we continue to have struggles at times that creep up is Usually around this recurring issue and that is we are opposites when it comes to planning and structure So I have severe adult ADHD. I'm much more spontaneous. I resist structure. I resist planning and And so for me, I feel suffocated when someone tries to pin me down and say, hey, let's plan our day or let's plan What grocery neat we need or what are we gonna make this week's menu plan? I start to feel kind of panicky inside and I get really stressed out whereas my husband Shlomo feels panicky when I Resist all of his attempts to create some sort of structure And he's there with a pen and paper wanting to make some sort of list and it's like we butt heads So one of the things that helped with was this was number one Oh, be aware of the dynamic because it's an opposite dynamic It's like push and pulling and just kind of realizing that's what's going on for you in the background Awareness is usually half the battle. So just like it's helped knowing that we have this dynamic So when he does want to come and sit down with me I can just take a deep breath and be like, okay, it's you know The meeting is it gonna go on forever? We're gonna get this done And he's really doing it to help me not to make things more difficult for me But you know our brains are so wired to protect us and so we do this fight or flight or freezer submit kind of thing Because chances are when we were kids we had to do something, you know, that was felt unsafe So we had to protect ourselves. So we went into this mode. So just I have to take a deep breath and remind myself Okay, I'm not a child. I'm an adult. I can do this And that awareness helps going along with that It also helps when I ask my husband to give me a time limit on these conversations So I'll say, you know, like I really need to know this conversation isn't gonna go on for hours and hours He'll be like, I just need five minutes of your time and having a boundary on the time That he's gonna need to talk to me about creating the structure is very very helpful to me So that's kind of tips number one and two Number three Fear of missing out. We are on social media all day now. There's all these live streams There's all these educational activities our kids could do the first day of quarantine I was like Mary Poppins, you know, we're gonna have a schedule. We're gonna have structure I was like an event planner Planning all the live streams and hookups they could watch and I turned into a mess the end of the day I was exhausted and I was grouchy and it was not helpful. I decided I'm not doing that anymore The kids will do a minimal amount of their homework that is sent by their school the rest of the day They're riding bikes. They're playing. They're fighting. They're building. They're painting I don't care as long as they're alive and safe and happy and they're getting along. I don't care what they actually do They're doing plenty of crafts. They're being creative and it will get done But they have their whole lives ahead of them to learn and have structure in a school format This quarantine is not going to go on forever So you don't need to suddenly turn into you miss supermom and miss homeschooling mom Because those require certain skills and experience that I just don't have right now So as long as everybody's fed clean and happy I don't care what they're doing and I'm gonna give up on that fear of missing out or the social pressure Watching other people with what they're doing I'm giving up on that because it's not me and I gotta let it go and I'm just letting it go and I really Encourage you to know what your strengths are what your weaknesses are and just let it go let let whatever is not your strength go teachers are super powers and That was number three and number four so The thing about this quarantine is that it really reveals the state of your marriage if your marriage was basically good You're probably gonna be fine, you know with this quarantine You'll have some good moments. You'll have some uncomfortable moments But you'll relatively be fine if your marriage wasn't in a good place already This whole quarantine is going to amplify that and make it worse So you want to use this time now to really learn how to get yourselves good in a good space and sometimes that takes a professional and That's okay because professionals are working online now. They're doing zoom calls couples. I just read a thread from our colleagues couples are going into their car and having Therapy sessions with their marriage counselor in their car using a hotspot using mobile data to Learn how to communicate and have crucial conversations together in the car And if that's what you can do that is a huge opportunity Couples are shutting the door in the bedroom couples are doing these sessions after hours when the kids are in bed Use this opportunity to be determined that this coronavirus is not going to get the better of you It's not going to get the better of your relationship You're going to use this to come out stronger and you can definitely private message me use my website the marriage restoration project Com talk to us about scheduling some online counseling work for the two of you So you can really get through this and come out on the other side Better and stronger because I refuse to let this coronavirus take yet another thing from us Which is our marriage people are joking about how there's going to be new babies or new divorces after the virus And I prefer to hear about all the new babies that you end up having So those are the four tips for me today Rufus Lackin and just hang in there. I'm here to help and please You have any questions you'd like to see answered don't hesitate to contact me and I'll answer them anonymously. Take care