“But We DO Spend Time Together”

Editors Note: It’s Monday 1:20am and my editor Tobi didn’t have time to edit this post – so apologies for any typos or confusing sentences. Feel free to send me a message with corrections! I will appreciate it.  🙂

Saturday, May 28^th 10:44pm

Today Tobi and I went to go watch the new X-Men movie (good movie BTW), after the movie we went for a walk around the city before heading home. It’s been two hours since we got home and we are both sitting next to each other at the kitchen table. He is working on something for his business and I am writing this weeks post.

If someone were to walk in right now they might think “what an unsocial couple” and I would not blame them because that is how I was feeling for a few weeks.

When Tobi decided he would fully commit to starting his own business in December 2015, I was so ready to support and help him in anyway I could. The idea to start a blog (much less PamTV) wasn’t even a topic in my mind. But then at the end of February this year, the idea of pamelagiacometti.com (formerly known as Chica Pam) fell on top of my head like the apple fell on top of Isaac Newton’s head – and I knew I just had to do it.  Tobi was so excited for me and he was also ready to support. *Superhero theme song comes to mind*

The idea of building our own things sounded so exciting and fabulous that we became completely absorbed by our visions and didn’t even think about our relationship.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like our marriage boat began sinking or anything. It just kind of started to see some dark storm clouds on the horizon.

The storm clouds I am talking about are due to the consumption of our own projects that has taken over our brains for the last couple of months.

While doing your own thing makes every day really exciting, it also makes you really, really tired. Tobi has been building his website and writing his first contract for the last 1.5 months. It may not sound like a lot, but when you are dealing with things such as legal matters for the first time… it is really overwhelming because you don’t know anything. For me, it’s been trying to find my own path in aligning what I believe is valuable with the content I am putting out there.
It’s a challenge finding our way because no one is telling us what to do or if what we are doing is right or wrong. Even though Tobi and I are both doing different things, we are both feeling the pressure. And this pressure makes us very distracted.

Weekends stopped existing for us since we both don’t have an office to go to. There have been weeks where the days just rolled on and I realised that Tobi and I haven’t left the house together for several days. It’s not like we consciously think about not going anywhere together but it somehow just happens.

It doesn’t help that most of my friends in relationships seem to always be spending time with their partners. When you see the way other people are managing their relationships it’s easy to wonder if what we are doing is wrong.

Tobi and I had a few talks about this topic and Tobi would always say: “Right now is a really busy time for us and we DO spend time together.” I would then respond by saying: “Whaaaat? How do we spend time together? You don’t ever take me out for dinner or to the movies!”

He would then bring up how we just went for dinner at his parent’s house last Sunday. *Facepalm*

While I really do love going for dinner to my in-laws I don’t consider that a date.

Last week we had a big argument about this spending time issue. We were both so frustrated. I couldn’t understand how Tobi couldn’t understand that I just wanted to be asked out on a date and not to my in-laws house and Tobi couldn’t understand how I couldn’t see we do spend time together.

After the don’t-talk-to-me silence that follows any argument, Tobi came to me and said: “How do you not see that we DO spend time together everyday? I spend so many hours of my day talking to you that no wonder why it takes me so long to finish things.” I replied by saying: “How is talking spending time together? That’s normal!” He then said: “How is it not? We read articles together and watch talks… we are always connecting about everything and for me that’s spending time together.”

That is when I realized that he was right.

Times have changed for us. Going to the movies or for dinner have been replaced by long breakfasts or late nights talking about our ideas and visions for the future and life together.

To realize that spending quality time together doesn’t always mean going on “dates” was so important for me, as it gave me an understanding of the bigger picture. Relationships don’t live on a flat line where everything is the same. No day, month or even year is the same because we are constantly evolving. And just because the dynamics of our relationship have changed doesn’t mean the love or foundation is breaking. Those of you reading who have children can probably understand this better than me, as I’m sure kids definitely change things around.

It’s definitely important to have a balance and do things as a couple that are not always work or maybe even kiddie related. But sometimes it’s really hard to find that balance and that’s okay. Because I think it’s great if we can just remember that in the grand scheme of things, these “distracted” years will feel like days when we celebrate decades and decades of having built a life together. 🙂

So those are my thoughts for this week and if you guys have any tips on how to get through the feelings of not spending enough time together… please leave them down below! I love hearing from you!

Thank you so much for reading everybody! I really appreciate your time. 🙂

If you are interested in hearing my thoughts live… you can watch the video below or subscribe to PamTV for moments not shared in writing. 🙂