Busy but in Love? Six Tips to Strengthen Your Relationship | Charlotte Cummings

In this episode, Charlotte Cummings shares six essential tips for maintaining a strong relationship while managing a busy life. She emphasises understanding your partner's Love Languages and effectively showing love in ways that resonate with them, rather than defaulting to what feels natural to you.

A key focus is implementing systems and rhythms in relationships, just as we do in business. This includes regular check-ins, scheduling date nights, and establishing clear responsibilities for household tasks to prevent resentment.

Charlotte stresses the importance of understanding emotional needs and identifying each partner's 'unbearable feelings' - emotions they particularly struggle with. She explains how these feelings often drive conflict and suggests practical strategies for managing disagreements, such as having difficult conversations while physically close to reduce tension.

The discussion highlights how couples often wait too long before seeking help, with Charlotte noting that less than 5% of couples are truly happy. She advocates for proactive relationship maintenance through counselling and setting clear relationship goals, similar to how we approach other areas of life.

A particularly practical tip is learning to fight fairly by removing inflammatory phrases and establishing ground rules for disagreements. Charlotte emphasises that conflict is normal, but couples need tools to manage it effectively without causing lasting damage to their relationship.

Charlotte also touches on how modern pressures, including the cost of living crisis, are affecting relationships, while noting that younger generations often show greater emotional awareness than their predecessors.