I want to bring you some thoughts from a conversation I recently had with the Huffington Post about nighttime routines and intimate relationships. There is a version of a bedtime routine that is genuinely restorative, but there’s a version that morphs into something else.
And it can be hard to tell when self-care becomes a connection-blocker. It happens when a habit that started as nourishment becomes non-negotiable. It happens when the routine gets a little long and a little more fixed until it’s less something you do and more something you hide out behind.
Your routine is for you, but it’s also shaping the space between you and your partner.
We talk a lot about conflict and betrayal creating distance between partners, but this accumulation of distant moments is one of the subtler ways distance grows in long-term relationships. Rituals that were never meant to keep anyone out slowly start doing exactly that.
I think about the paradox at the heart of every relationship: there’s me, there’s you, and there’s us. Tending to yourself is essential, but when the “me” rituals expand, the “us” gets quietly squeezed out. The tricky part? It’s easy to justify. It’s self-care. It’s healthy.
The goal is to explore the motivation that fuels the rituals.
- What are you hoping for, needing and wanting from the ritual?
- What feeling or experience are you attempting to avoid or protect yourself from? (Think about what you are trying not to feel inside of yourself and what you are perhaps trying to avoid experiencing with your partner.)
Tending to yourself and tending to your relationship are not opposites. But they do require an ongoing, open-hearted conversation about how much space each person needs and how much the “us” needs to be fed.
How do I love you without losing me? It’s one of the most important questions a relationship asks of us. And it doesn’t get asked (and answered) just once.
Office Hours
From the Reimagining Love vault to recent conversations I’ve been having about relationships.
Reimagining Love: "I Need Connection & My Partner Needs Space. Now What?"
Dr. Alexandra examines a central tension in all relationships: the need for space versus togetherness. She encourages us to ditch the labels and pathology and instead acknowledge that both space and connection are fundamental needs in an intimate relationship. To help you navigate this, Dr. Alexandra shines a light on the meaning we assign to our orientations around space and shares strategies to help you and your partner create agreements that maximize connection and minimize resentment.
This Common Nighttime Ritual Could Be Quietly Killing Your Sex Life [HuffPost]
In this HuffPost piece, Dr. Alexandra explores how elaborate nighttime beauty routines — mouth tape, skin care steps, heatless curlers — can quietly crowd out intimacy, and makes the case that when rituals become too rigid, they stop being self-care and start being walls between partners.
A Few Things, Lately (add here as you come across books, movies, podcasts, shows)
- The Beast in Me Unsettling, gripping, and completely worth it. I’m quickly becoming the head of the Matthew Rhys Fan Club!
- NYT The Daily episode, A.I. is Outsmarting Its Creators Like you, I am trying to find a sweet spot regarding A.I. that lives somewhere between being calm (but uninformed) and being terrified (but aware). I found this episode to be digestible and helpful.
- Love On the Spectrum (Season 4) This show has amassed a huge fan base and a ton of Emmys. Todd and I are watching in small doses because as parents of a neurodivergent young adult, this show touches us in so many beautiful, tender places.
Xo,
Dr. Alexandra
