Resentment

2/2/2 Date Night Framework for Partners to Build a Healthier Relationship with Saami and Nathan Jaeger

Ansh BahriLeave a comment

2/2/2 Date Night Framework for Partners to Build a Healthier Relationship with Saami and Nathan Jaeger – Love Vitamins for Relationships

Our conversation with Saami and Nathan Jaeger was filled with fun Activities, Practices and Rituals that Partners can take away and practice in your relationships to add fuel to your love Tanks. First they share about a Gratitude Practice that they use for MANAGING RESENTMENT. Then, we get into one of their rituals of 2 COFFEE AND A TREAT and I love it not just because it has 2 coffees in it but also a treat. At the end, we get into their practice of 2 x 2 x 2 DATE NIGHTS. The Framework of 2/2/2 Date Night, which they found on a Reddit feed sometime ago, adapted to their liking, is that Every 2️⃣  weeks we go on a date Every 2️⃣  months, we go on a weekend away Every 2️⃣  years (or twice a year), we'll go on a bigger adventure or a bigger holiday This is definitely another exercise that we are excited to try out in our relationship. Our cadence might change to different numbers but the idea remains the same. What do you think would be an ideal frequency for your date nights – 1/1/1 or 2/3/2 or something else? Let us know in the comments below Listen to the full episode to hear what they share about how this changed their relationship and got them out of their worst fight early on. If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well. If you would like to share your story, fill out this quick form. The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast. LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗 LoVita Blog for Frameworks Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook, All above links in a single page Connect with Sammi and Nathan Jaegar Website: https://dateforever.com.au/ Instagram: dateforever Podcast: Date Forever — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/support

Sammi & Nathan Jaeger are the Co-Host of The Date Forever Podcast. And they are on a mission to empower couples to create thriving relationships. Because with better relationships we can create a better world. Sammi & Nath fell in love as housemates and have now been married for over a decade and love sharing relationship insights from couples and experts on their show.

This is the second part of our conversation. If you haven’t listened to the first episode, you can check the episode on Let the air out of the balloon to prevent resentment. Our conversation with them was filled with fun Activities, Practices and Rituals that Partners, can take away and practice in your relationships to add fuel to your love Tanks. First they share about a Gratitude Practice that they use for MANAGING RESENTMENT. Then, we get into one of their rituals of 2 COFFEE AND A TREAT and I love it not just because it has 2 coffees in it but also a treat. At the end, we get into their practice of 2 x 2 x 2 DATE NIGHTS.

What comes first – Success or Happiness?

A big part of being happy in a relationship is managing resentment. Saami and Nathan share about how they implemented their Gratitude Practice. Before going into bed, they ask each other what are they grateful for today? Sammi shares “Sometimes gratitude flows thick and fast, other times it’s so easy to come by. But what that’s meant is that all day I’ve trained my brain to be looking for the things to be appreciative for the things that I’m grateful for. Like this glass of water on my desk, like I’m so grateful for that.”

This ritual of intentionally practicing gratitude does 2 things – It increases the good credit in your emotional bank account or as you refer to – is refueling your love tank for your relationships. The second, this is checking to make sure that all the parts are functioning as expected to do a “check” on the whole system.

2 Coffee and a Treat

One of the ritual that they have is something they practice pretty much every week. Nathan says “We would go for two coffees and a treat. So we would go, and find a new cafe around the place, have a coffee each and then have something, little to share, share a little treat.” With a practice that costs less than 20 AUD, it creates new shared experiences for them. Nathan adds on what they noticed as an effect to this practice, “the conversations that we have when we’re outside of our own home, when we’re actually out somewhere together are so different than when you are in your home together.” At home there are many distractions like the dog, doing household chores, the Television, and much more that can slowly chip away at your attention and the quality time with your partner. Whereas when you go somewhere new, you senses are activated to up different cues from your surroundings. The environment around you is what often prompts conversation, and a new one. This is what they were noticing as well. “The conversations and the deepness, I guess that level of connection that we were having when we were out somewhere else was so much better than when we were in our home, even if we were doing the same activity”, adds Nathan. This ritual which involves Coffee and Treats sounds like such a fun idea, something that we will definitely be trying out ourselves.

Looking each other in the eyes when sharing a drink

Another activity that they shared with us was about a really intentional practice of looking each other in the eyes when sharing a drink. They learnt this apparently from some Airbnb guests, a Korean couple who stayed with them around four years ago. They though this practice was just beautiful and implemented it into their life as well. It just adds that additional layer of a silent – I love you, I appreciate being able to share this moment of eye contact with you. Such a beautiful, free, enhancing way to add to something something that we already do, which is drink. Nathan adds how this is kind of PDA (Public Display of Affection) without any PDA, “No one else will probably even realize what you’re doing. If you’re out at a restaurant or a cafe, it’s just that micro moment of connection.”

2/2/2 Date Nights

This Framework, which they found on a Reddit feed sometime ago and adapted to their liking, is that

  • Every 2 weeks we go on a date
  • Every 2 months, we go on a weekend away
  • Every 2 years (or twice a year), we’ll go on a bigger adventure or a bigger holiday

This Framework, they share, “really just helped us kind of set that benchmark or that baseline for our romantic relationship, and really just helped us to actually find the time to prioritize it.” Previously they had a very ad-hoc approach to what they were doing. Date nights were unstructured and not very intentional as the weekend would roll around and they wouldn’t have a clue as to what to do.

They talk about how this need to have some structure around Date Nights was one of the challenges they had to face early in their relationship. The fact that only 1 of them was planning and organizing most of their relationship and social activities got overwhelming at some point leading to a really big fight, probably their worst.

Now they divide the month into two half and plan their date nights for their halves. Sammi explains some of the many benefits, they found when doing it this way – “we get the opportunity to both give and receive. We both get the opportunity to create a moment or an experience, something that I really wanna do and Nate’s just now invited to come along with me or something that I know that he will really love. We both get those opportunities now. And it’s a framework that it’s allowed us to have some predictability, rhythm, heartbeat, pattern around its priority. You’re a very important part of my life and I treat it that way. I treat you that way.”

A lot of people could benefit from just a little bit of structure to set them free to plan things, like they said, to give and receive that love and it’s all about creating opportunities for connection. A framework like this takes something we do anyways, plan things for each other and just puts a little bit of structure around it.

This is definitely another exercise that we are excited to try out in our relationship. Our cadence might change to different numbers but the idea remains the same. What do you think would be an ideal frequency for your date nights – 1/1/1 or 2/3/2 or something else? Let us know in the comments below

Fuel Collective

Saami and Nathan share their story about how they started working on the 8 different tanks. Listen to the episode or check the resources below to learn more about the types of tanks and the full story.

The 8 different tanks are

  • Self
  • Romantic Relationship
  • Relationships & Network
  • Humming Household
  • Career & Business
  • Wealth & Lifestyle
  • The World
  • The Future

Connect with Sammi and Nathan Jaeger

Let the air out of the balloon to prevent resentment in relationships with Sammi and Nathan Jaeger

Ansh BahriLeave a comment

Let the air out of the balloon to prevent resentment in relationships with Sammi and Nathan Jaeger – Love Vitamins for Relationships

We chat with Sammi & Nathan Jaeger, Co-Hosts of The Date Forever Podcast about how to increase the positive or the goodwill in your relationship to help you counteract the negative or the deficit that we tend to collect in our relationships. Saami and Nathan were around 23 and 24 when they got married in December 2012. And they've been together now for about 15 years, just celebrated their 10th Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations! At LoVita, we're always curious as to why people get married. Everyone has their own reasons, and we really wanted to know why they decided to make that step after 5 years of being together in their relationship. Sammi mentioned that's something she had struggled with herself in the beginning and shares their wonderful story of how she ended up eventually taking the name Jaeger. Bonus – an exercise to keep fueling their love tank. They had so many things to share. One of the first things they talked about, which I loved, is how they phrased it "let air out of the balloon". It's a weekly check-in conversation to help prevent resentment in their relationship. On what they do to build a healthier relationship, Sammi starts with saying they put goodwill into our relationship all day, every day. Listen to the episode for more. If you enjoyed listening to this episode (or the podcast), please share your diagnosis with 1 close relationship or anyone else who would enjoy listening to this as well. If you would like to share your story, fill out this quick form. The best gift you can give us is positive feedback and your observations. Follow us wherever you are listening and do us a favor by adding a Review on Apple Podcast. LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally towards building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗 LoVita Blog for Frameworks Sign up for our monthly Newsletter for exclusive content We're also on Social media – Instagram, Facebook, All above links in a single page Connect with Sammi and Nathan Jaeger Website: https://dateforever.com.au/ Instagram: dateforever Podcast: Date Forever — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovitalovevitamins/support

Sammi & Nathan Jaeger are the Co-Host of The Date Forever Podcast. And they are on a mission to empower couples to create thriving relationships. Because with better relationships we can create a better world. Sammi & Nath fell in love as housemates and have now been married for over a decade and love sharing relationship insights from couples and experts on their show.

Why they got married

Saami and Nathan were around 23 and 24 when they got married in December 2012. And the’ve been together now for about 15 years, just celebrated their 10th Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations! At LoVita, we’re always curious as to why people get married. Everyone has their own reasons, and I really wanted to know why they decided to make that step after 5 years of being together in their relationship. Sammi mentioned that’s something she had struggled with herself in the beginning and shares their wonderful story of how she ended up eventually taking the name Jaeger.

I really love that you’ve asked this because I did not wanna get married. I didn’t really believe in the institution of marriage. I didn’t really understand why anyone would wanna involve the government in their relationship. , I didn’t really, put a lot of value on having the piece of paper. And at the time, like I was like 20 when I had those, Opinions, thoughts, beliefs, values, and there are a few things that really changed my mind. Like my, for reference, my parents were together for quite a long time, like 20 years, but they never got married. So I have a different last name than my brother, despite us having the same biological parents. My parents, my, my mom was quite fiercely independent. She. Had me at 21. She worked in a very heavily male dominated field and a lot of my resistance to marriage was like from a feminist point of view of like, I do not want a man to feel in in any way that he owns me. I want to have an adult relationship where we both agree. Mm-hmm. , and I’m not exactly. . There wasn’t one thing, there wasn’t one thing for me that changed the idea, but a part, a big part of it was that it was important to Nathan. And I was really challenging his view of the world by saying, no, I, that’s not something I want to do.

Nathan adds that one of the biggest real benefits that they saw was of creating that family together and creating a milestone moment creating their family together which gives a feeling of “this is us,” co-creating something new together, rather than having a level of separation while they weren’t married. Saami adds on to that

but it was interesting for me cuz I kind of went through that evolution of like, no, I don’t wanna do that. Hold on. I’ve met somebody and it’s really important to them and it’s how they see the progression of a relationship. And then it was like, okay, I’ll get married, but I’m not changing my name. Like, no, that’s. , I’m keeping it. And then in the time that we got engaged, I really wanted us to be united front. I had connected with this idea, like Nathan saying about being one nurse and creating our family. Mm-hmm. . Because I believe that, a couple can be a family without the dogs, without the kids. Nathan and I are family. Yeah. but there was, this sounds so corny, but I saw on Pinterest. Someone had set up a photo gallery in their home and right in the center of it was their last name, and it was surrounded by all of these beautiful family photos. And I just thought, gosh, I want that. I want Nathan and I to run out onto the field with the same GK ons. And he had a cooler last name than me,

They also mentioned that they had even considered a separate last name. Although, things turned out differently at the end, their relationship is a true testament of holding the space to be able to go through all of those layers of change. Initially they had very different ideas of what it meant to get married, but by the time it actually came around to the special day, their ideas had changed. And the fact that both of them approached those conversations with this sense of togetherness, is such a valuable concept that many relationships kind of find themselves struggling with.

Challenges

Nathan talks about how they didn’t really consciously work on solving disagreements early on in their relationship. They had some pretty bad fights but their willingness to work things out keeps them in this relationship where they can date forever.

probably the first 12 months or two years of our relationship, I feel like that we were very much scoping each other out and working out each other’s boundaries and, and a lot of those sorts of things. And so we did have a lot of arguments or disagreements or like real deep conversations kind of in that, in that early stage of our relationship. And then I think once. We kind of got over those initial hurdles of, of yeah. Feeling each other out and, and working out how we can actually work together and co-create together.

Sammi adds on how they got to a point where they figured out that this pattern wasn’t really suitable for a long-term relationships and spending their life together.

Nathan and I were like already in love when we got together because we’d been living together for a year as housemates. So I think a lot of the teething issues that people go through, we had sort of done that as friends, so we like our, our real honeymoon. The, oh my gosh, this is all really brand new kind of stage was probably kind of short. Really? Yeah. And then we entered like a power struggle sort of phase for what, what I now know is like this sort of power struggle phase. And then we went into a don’t rock the boat phase. Like, he’s so great. He’s so amazing. I don’t wanna lose him, therefore I’m not gonna. call him out on that thing that I didn’t like and I’m just gonna ignore that need that, oh, it doesn’t really matter. And then somewhere from there we fig, we started to figure out that that was not a long-term sustainable way to be doing our life together.

Weekly Check-in Conversation

We wanted to learn some exercises or practices that they use to keep fueling their love tank. They had so many things to share on this. One of the first things they talk, which I loved how they phrased it “let air out of the balloon”. It’s a weekly check-in conversation to help prevent resentment in their relationship. On what they do to build a healthier relationship, Sammi starts with saying they put goodwill into our relationship all day, every day

And that’s not to say that we don’t ever make withdrawals from that, but we’re having a really good conversation a couple of weeks ago about what are some of the things that we do to prevent resentment in our relationship. We have a weekly check-in conversation every week where we ask, is there something that you want me to apologize for? , is there something that I’ve done that maybe in the heat of the moment it wasn’t right to talk about or it was so it felt insignificant at the time, but then when you reflected on it, it did actually hurt and there was something, something that might build resentment there. So we’ve got this weekly opportunity to like let air out of the balloon.

Nathan adds on how their practice is makes it much easier to break free of patterns that are not healthy, while not building resentment from their partner’s side as well.

So rather than like, yeah, the same thing potentially occurring like week after week after week. yeah, it is turning into a much bigger kind of repeat behavior type of thing. this, this. Question that we do weekly does really give the opportunity to, yeah, air any of that dirty laundry or air, anything that you might have been hanging onto for a little while, and chatted out before it actually becomes a big thing. And I think that helps from both sides as well, because like if I’ve done something to upset Sammy, and it’s something that. Integrated or that I’ve been doing for quite some time, like it’s probably a habit that I’ve actually trained myself to be doing, which then becomes a lot more difficult for me to then try and undo when Sammy does finally bring it up. And also on her side, it’s been building this resentment over time because it’s been this long-term repeat behavior. Whereas if, if you’re able to see the behavior once or twice or whatever, and then have the conversation. . It’s not something that’s embedded into my behaviors or habits or anything like that

Connect with Sammi and Nathan Jaeger