(originally post 6/3/10)

Pull up a seat kiddies cause im's a bout to preach a bit--and help ya'lls relationships.

I give you: "the 30 minute rule."

I'm not gonna lie folks, and I'm not gonna front--I believe I actually saw something to this effect on a Sex and the City Episode. No, i will not see the movies. Ever.

When you get home from whatever you do during the day, may it be school or work or some combination of those things or no combination of those things, but when you come home, you are utterly and unchangeably unable to focus on any new problems. Home is where we retreat, it's our safe space.

Interestingly, part of what makes home our safe space is that our significant others (may) live there with us. This is almost always wonderful. The pesky thing about living with other humans, however, is that they have needs. And because of these "needs," when they see the person they care about most walk through the door, they want to share all the day's hopes and dreams and frustrations and anger and questions and stories with that loved one. Unfortunately, when you come home, you are utterly and unchangeably unable to focus on any new problems (or hopes or dreams or frustrations or angers or questions) other than your own. You need to retreat first. Power down. Relax.

This often creates conflict, as the partner that has been home vies to connect with their partner at the end of the day while the partner just coming home vies to get some space to decompress from their own day.

All it takes is 30 minutes.


From the time the 2nd person comes through the door, in our house, that person has the right to gently deflect any requests for contact (verbal or physical) in favor of 30 minutes to themselves. Essentially, we have agreed that 30 minutes to yourself when you get home is a right, not a privilege. You don't HAVE to take it, but you can. Generally, when the space is given, the person with tons of stuff to talk about realizes that they were just really excited to see me/gf come home and that the stuff that seemed so important a second ago really can be talked about later. And that's that.

Boundaries are just concrete communications. They are a way of telling your partner about your needs while simultaneously saying that those needs have nothing to do with wanting to be away from your partner or hurt their feelings.

It seems silly, having rules in relationships. But the Butt-snuggle, at some point, seemed silly too . . . but(t) its genius.

Closing tangents: I for the longest time consistently misspelled* the word genius.

*True story, i just misspelled "misspelled" in that last sentence twice before getting it correct)

Tangent 2: Today the RA's working in my lab told me they didn't know who He-Man was.

*stares disbelievingly into the camera*