Speaker 1 00:00:03 Carers. We are a unique group of humans who spend a large portion of our lives caring for someone we love. The role of caregiver is often misunderstood in the community. The enormous additional workload, along with the emotional and mental trials can be very taxing on a romantic relationship. So today we're talking all things care, life in relationships, and sharing a few of the strategies that we've used to support our own relationship in this very special journey. Hey, we're Kim and Rod, and we're here to show couples how to get the best out of their relationship so they can start living their dream life together.
Speaker 2 00:00:38 We're a west Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should we think about the future as a field of possibilities, and we'll let joy be our compass.
Speaker 1 00:00:47 We've taken the simple idea of working as a team and applied it to our marriage, and it's been a game changer, allowing us to work out what truly lights us up in life and to go after it together.
Speaker 2 00:00:56 From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house ripping business, we've achieved some big dreams, and most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had.
Speaker 1 00:01:04 Pick conversations from inspiring couples, thoughts from relationship experts and tales from our own lives as we help you to gain the wisdom and skills you'll need to turn your relationship into a real team. These are
Speaker 2 00:01:14 Relationship conversations for real people buy real people. So sit back, get comfort from whatever tickles you, pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
Speaker 1 00:01:30 Today's episode is a pretty personal one to us, although, to be fair, the podcast is on relationships. So all the episodes are pretty
Speaker 2 00:01:40 Personal to us.
Speaker 1 00:01:42 <laugh> this one though. Yeah, it does touch in a different way. Um, and that's because we will be talking about life as carers and how being a carer impacts your relationship.
Speaker 2 00:01:56 This is a podcast episode for Carers by Carers. Uh, that's because Kim and I are carers to our, uh, little girl who needs additional support. And, uh, this is really to, I guess, validate some of the, the stuff we know a lot of other carers go through. Um, talking through our experience as carers and, and how the, how we sit and live in the world and putting a relationship lens on it. Of course.
Speaker 1 00:02:26 Yeah. And hopefully, uh, giving a few ideas at the back end as well, of things that we've done that have helped our relationship, given that we are in a, in a caring space, and that's, that's, that's the way our life is long term. Uh, so we'll, we'll get, get to those as well. But let's kick off first for, uh, people who might not know what a carer is. So a carer is an individual or potentially more than one person who are supporting, caring, assisting someone who may have a disability, someone who may be elderly and quite frail, someone struggling with illness, uh, or some other physical or mental condition. It may be mental health based. And the role in terms of, of what sort of support they give the carer gives to the carer is very depending on the carry and it, and it varies greatly.
Speaker 1 00:03:21 So it can be things like helping that person to access the community, helping them to get to the shops, helping them to access, uh, social spaces, helping them to access social groups. So socialization, participating in social activities, making friends, catching up with people. It can be helping them to grow their skills to get to university classes, to get to school classes. Uh, people might need support partners to be able to manage a classroom environment, helping them to access all of the other parts of the world or all of the parts of the world that, uh, that people who don't need the care, just access without having to think about it. It might be help with some of the stuff that people probably more traditionally think about, like hygiene care. So some of the things that caries might not be able to manage on their own, brushing their teeth, bathing, getting dressed in the morning, feeding themselves. So there's a, as you can see, there's a wide range of, uh, needs that caries have and different ways in which carers support caries
Speaker 2 00:04:21 And, and a and a key factor to that is whether they be part-time or full-time carers, is they don't get paid for it.
Speaker 1 00:04:28 Yes. Carers do not get, yes. So that's, that's different when we say carer. Great. Great point, Roger. We're talking about the people who don't get paid for it. Yep. Yep. Okay. All right. So, so that's basically what a, a carer is. Um, I guess the goal of, of a carer is to support their car in increasing their quality of life and also increasing their level of independence in the world, because we all deserve and have a right to the highest possible quality of life and the most independence that is available to us. So,
Speaker 2 00:05:02 Yeah. Yeah. And I think you might find that you either, if you're not a carrier yourself, you might know someone who is a carer or this might, might, might impact you later on in life. There's approximately 2.7 million carers in Australia, you know, parttime of full-time.
Speaker 1 00:05:16 That's, that is just a crazy start. Like we really have to, like what percentage of the population? It's
Speaker 2 00:05:20 About 11%.
Speaker 1 00:05:22 I mean, 11% of the population are carers. That is a huge percentage of us.
Speaker 2 00:05:28 Yeah. And according to carers Australia, uh, over half of them feel that their role isn't naturally recognized in the community. Uh, and you know, Kim and I will often see this, and as we'll talk about in a minute, is that it can really lead to a sense of, uh, isolation and loneliness. And not only that is, um, other studies have shown that 71% of carers, uh, are seen to have poor physical or mental health. So the impact on carers is, is quite large. And their, their journey, their story I is a tough one
Speaker 1 00:06:03 That that's such a high percentage of carers feel like their role isn't recognized. Can can you elaborate on what that means? Does that mean that people don't understand that it's an additional role? That it's not just a given role as say, a relative or a, or a parent?
Speaker 2 00:06:21 I, I think it's just misunderstood. Yeah. What, what a carer actually is. Yeah. And you know, people just focus on their own world and their own lives and, and, and, you know, Kim and I do do the same thing, you know, but it's, it's understanding that, you know, when someone says I'm a carer to, uh, you know, a child with additional needs like we are, it's like, well, all kids need care. I'm a carer to our grandparent. Oh, well, as we get older, all all, um, all parents will need care. Or, you know, my my partner or my husband's, um, got early onset dementia and so, you know, my life's changed a bit. Oh, well, you know, we all get old. So I think that's, it's that sort of rhetoric. It's that sort of, um, that's how a lot of people will feel that, you know, they're not recognized for the impact it has on their life when you really are living a life for someone else.
Speaker 1 00:07:10 Uh, I think that's such a great point. And I know we're gonna get into that a little bit more, but absolutely the carer role is its own role, and it 100% deserves recognition. And I think in terms of that mental health piece, you then spoke about the, the, some of the mental struggles that carers have that's gonna be related to that sense that people don't acknowledge and validate the role of caring itself. So, uh, on that, let's talk a little bit about who we are as carers. Uh, basically as we've spoken about before, and, and anyone who listens to us would be aware, we have an incredible daughter who is non-speaking autistic. She's an extremely bright little girl. Uh, she's determined, she's hilarious. And her perspective on the world is teaching us far more than we could ever, ever teach her 100% <laugh>. Uh, but we do provide significant additional support beyond what a, so she's neuro divergent beyond what a neuro atypical child of, of six years of age, uh, would, would necessarily need. So, so it is, there's a significant caring role in our lives to make sure that she has the highest quality of life and that she has all of the possible opportunities to continue to grow and work towards full independence. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:08:26 She has a lot of difficulties accessing the world, the way, uh, a typical child her age would, and there's a, a strong likelihood that she'll continue to need assistance and support full-time, um, as she progresses, uh, through the different stages of her life.
Speaker 1 00:08:47 Yes, absolutely. Uh, and so, and so that's something that we'll always be part of is, is supporting that and being that, being that carer role, even if you're not necessarily day-to-day, physically doing the actual, uh, for example, support partner might be someone else. We still organize that. We still have to put that, that job of, of making sure that she has that assistance in place. So, so that's what our, our lives look like. And, you know, we changed our lives significantly upon our daughter's diagnosis to take up that role and to, to be able to take that role up.
Speaker 2 00:09:28 Today we're really, Kim and I, we're, we're being quite vulnerable. We, we do this, we do try to do this in all of our, um, podcast episodes, is give a piece of ourselves to provide a gateway and opening, um, some accessibility to o to other people to feel they can open up, um, like they're not alone. And you know, as I said, this is a, this is a podcast episode for carers by carers, but even by talking about being a carer, there, there becomes a bit of a shame cycle in there, which all carers will know about is where as soon as we take the, the focus and the light off the person, we care for that we are being selfish. That, you know, how can we talk about how tough our life is when the life of the person we're caring for obviously has it so much tougher than us?
Speaker 2 00:10:21 And what happens then is that we feel bad for even talking about it. We close off and actually does us more, uh, detriment. It does, it can really impact us in a, in a negative way. And then that can impact the care we give to our, our little one, for example. Uh, so, you know, we are just letting you know that we are, we, we, we do feel this as well. We do feel a bit of shame even talking about this, but Kim and I believe it's so important to validate the experience of the other carers out there.
Speaker 1 00:10:51 Absolutely. I think this is a great point, Roger, thank you for bringing this up. We understand that our child experiences the world in a far harsher way than we do, and we are not out here saying that our lives are harder or anything like that. But the point is, we are individuals in our own right. We are humans in our own right, and we do have an experience that is related to being the caregiver that is valid. It is valid. And there's been a bit of talk out there in the community in more recent times that we shouldn't speak on behalf of our child. And, and that parents should, should understand that that's their job to care for their children. And that really invalidates our role as, as caregivers because we are our own individuals. We love our daughter more than anybody on earth. The carers love, love their caries more than anybody else will ever love them. They, the love we see in this community is just beyond, but that doesn't mean that we are not having our own experience. And it, and that's what today, I think what you're saying, Roger, is so important today we really wanna validate and focus on the experience of the caregiver. That is not to say that we are, this is not a, have a crack at how hard life is as a caregiver. This is to validate, acknowledge, and offer support to a community who really needs support and really deserves to have the support
Speaker 2 00:12:17 By supporting the, the carers. It will help them support the people they care for better. And the, the, the, the truth is generally that's the number one focus of that carer. Absolutely. In the first place.
Speaker 1 00:12:29 A hundred percent. All right. So let's look at some of the things that we know our carer community, uh, deal with. Firstly, increased stress, uh, from, from the physical and mental load of actually carrying, uh, reduced time. Obviously a huge portion of time. And I think one of the stats I saw was that for full-time caregivers, they're spending on average 35 hours plus in the caring role. So that's not in the typical role. That's in the role above and beyond what the typical role would be. Um, obviously our caring cohort experience, a lot of exhaustion, physical, mental, emotional, a lot of financial pressure. I think people don't know about this piece. 55% of carers, primary carers are not actually even in the workforce because there's just simply no way to manage working and caring for someone. Caring for someone can often be a full-time job.
Speaker 1 00:13:26 People need help around the clock 24 hours a day, and you can't be at work and helping that person. So that's a, that's a large percentage to not be in the workforce. And of the, of the, uh, the percentage who are in the workforce, the majority of them report a need to reduce their hours beyond what they would wish to reduce their hours to, because they have to, because they're in that caregiver role. Another thing that carers often experience is a sense of isolation, because not everybody is experiencing their type of life. In fact, they're often the only people they know experiencing their type of life. And that can be very alienating and advocacy for fatigue. And I think this is one that people just don't even understand if they're not in the, in the space. When you are a carer, you have to advocate for the carer often because they can't advocate for themselves. In our case, our daughter's non-speaking. That's why we speak on her behalf because there's no way for her to communicate her needs. And let me tell you that advocacy role is a huge part of our caregiving. We are constantly pushing back on people telling us what she can't do, what she's not possible of, what they can't provide, because we are always seeking more and more for her. That is our job as her parents and her caregivers. And so understanding that advocacy fatigue is a very real thing. That can be an exhausting thing.
Speaker 2 00:14:47 Yeah. I think another one is loss of agency. I know that is something that we struggled with at, at the, at the front end, at the start of our daughter's diagnosis, is that all of a sudden your life becomes all encompassed by the person you are caring for. And while they have, I guess all far more boundaries and restrictions on their life, because you are their primary caregiver, what you can do with your life and how your life will look going forward, how you always thought it would look, how you, how you what your plans and your dreams will often have to be redefined, restructured with the focal point being on the person you care about. And you can really start to feel that loss of agency. And with all those, uh, salient features you were just talking about, sweetie, I, I feel one of the things is it's the fact that it's not just one of them.
Speaker 2 00:15:40 It, it's, it's a compounding, it's a compounding effect of everything. As in every single little interaction that you seem to have with the world has the lens of how will the person I'm caring for, how will this impact them? How are they going to access this from little things like getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, uh, getting dressed, public transport in the car, different schools, like every single interaction, knowing that they can't do a lot of this themselves. It's like, well, I have to be there for them. And not only that is I'm carrying a lot of that stress on there. So, you know, everything you look at seems to be through a disability or a carer lens. And then similar to that loss of agency I spoke of, there just doesn't seem to be an end in sight either.
Speaker 1 00:16:32 I I just think that's so powerful and it's so true. It is a redefining of, uh, what your future will look like and what your possibilities are. And that is simply a reality. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. I think there is, there is a loss of freedoms because you are at your core responsible to the person you're caring for above and beyond everything else. And so you do understand that life is beholden to this, that your, your role as a caregiver in a, in a really fundamental sense, your life now pivots around that.
Speaker 2 00:17:20 That's right. And you can see how that of course, then will start to impact the relationship you have with your significant other.
Speaker 1 00:17:28 A hundred percent, a hundred percent. That and all of the other things that I mentioned before, you know, obviously being time poor, obviously being exhausted, fatigued being, you know, spending all of your energy, uh, advocating for the, for the carry. It's, these are things, you know, having financial pressure, these are all things that are going to impact the relationship. So let's, let's dive into that because I think, you know, that's really what we're, what, what lens we are putting on this today. We are carers, but we are carers in a relationship caring together. So let's have a look at some of the issues that show up in the relationship. And the first one, I would say that that can become a really, uh, a really d a a really debilitating part of a relationship if it does show up. Because it can, it can cause erosion very quickly in the relationship.
Speaker 1 00:18:24 And that is a sense of being an adversary. And we've spoken about this before because we are all about being on a team. Every e everything we gear our, our content and what we are teaching here is all about supporting people to become a team in their marriage or their partnership. And obviously the opposite to that is that sense of being adversarial with your partner. When we are adversarial, we aren't looking to support that person. We feel this sense of depleted and limited resources, and we can often be stuck in a sense of feeling like we're in just in survival mode. And so we are fighting for that survival. We're fighting to get as much as we can, and the person we're fighting against is our greatest ally, but we see them as an adversary for those limited resources, for that reduced capacity that we have. It,
Speaker 2 00:19:17 It's so hard to be in the moment and be present and take those breaths to give yourself space to realize the person in front of you every day, generally supporting you, take care of, of your caree is actually on the same team as you. Because when you're in the moment, when you are, your stress cup is super full. When you, you'll always feel like I've just got nothing left to give. And as I, we, I spoke about, when you have that loss of agency, you are just constantly clawing back for those little 1% of yourself. Little 1% wins, little 1% moments where you can have a bit of yourself back where you, you can be seen. And when we can't slow ourselves down and stop when we keep on thinking fast, when we're constantly in a fight, flight or freeze framework in, in, in a mode, you, you just see what's being taken from you. And it can be very hard to slow down and actually say, this person is on my team. We are on the same team. So it's hard enough for couples who just have the, the typical life, let alone people who have that additional stress of being a carer.
Speaker 1 00:20:34 Absolutely. And I think that brings what, what, what can come up from that brings us to the next point, which is, uh, a lot of frustration. And I think we see a lot of frustration in relationships where one or both are carers because the demands are so high and capacity is so diminished, there can often be an uneven division of roles. For example, the, you need to make money still, you need to feed the household still, and you need to care for a person on top of all of that. And some that caring role often falls more to one person. And because that role is so all encompassing, there can be some resentment around carrying the, it's not just the role, it's the sense of responsibility. I think that really is at the heart of that I'm responsible for this role, I'm responsible for driving this forward.
Speaker 1 00:21:33 And I know that something responsibility is something that's weighed on me in the past, in, in my role as a carer, where I've felt when it's my responsibility and I feel like I'm driving the whole thing, which doesn't happen often, sometimes it can fall into that pattern because I am very proactive and I, I like to do a lot of stuff off my own back. And without stopping to check in with you, I can then get this sense where I'm doing all of this and it's on my, it's on my conscience if the change gets made, it's on my conscience. If we find the support that we need. And that can make me quite frustrated. What I find is when I check in with you, you're right there, but I've, I'm, I'm a runner. Like I run off in different directions. That's part of my personality. And when I've talked to you about it and said, I need support, I feel like I'm alone and that it's my responsibility and that if this doesn't work, I've failed. It's, when we've talked about it and you said, I'm right here with you. What can I do to support you in this? It's just really helped to let go of the, the sense of responsibility being all on my shoulders.
Speaker 2 00:22:43 Yeah, it's, it's, you know, we talked about briefly like the financial, the additional financial cost of RA raising or caring for someone is quite significant. The fact that if you are a full-time carer, you're not getting paid. So one of you in the partnership has likely gone off to work, you know, to make sure that you can pay for everything. And of course, what we see then is that people don't, I guess, appreciate the work that each other's putting in. And as we've spoken about before is, you know, equality's not always a 50 50 division of labor and chores and, um, care. It, it's about being there to support each other, switching up the roles intermittently if you need to, being on the same page and then lending a hand and being empathetic and saying your pleases and thank yous that all those little things that, that can add up because the, the stats tell us that it's 70 to 80% of carers are actually women, which means that the blokes are often the ones at work.
Speaker 2 00:23:40 If, if, if that is, if that is true in your household. Kim and I have a different situation where when our little one was first diagnosed, they, uh, we were living in Japan and Kim came home with our little one because they didn't have the supports over there. And sh she needed to be in a English as a first language country. Um, and also for us being closer to, to home, I, I worked for nine months away from Kim to make sure, make sure we had enough money to buy a house in Australia and to actually spend a bit of time just focusing on our little one. Cause we had no idea what life would, would look like. And that meant Kim had pretty much a hundred percent of the responsibility of not only taking care of our little one day to day, but setting her up in a daycare set, setting up her therapy supports and, and so much more while for me, I was flying back cheap flights so we could save up as much money possible, not doing enough at work.
Speaker 2 00:24:44 I was lucky I had a supportive boss because I could never do enough in my, um, job as a general manager when I, when I came home, I had to look help and support Kim full-time. So there was a lot of times where we got really frustrated with each other. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Kim would get on the phone and say, come home, come home. And I'm like, I'm, I need to make money. So we've got somewhere to live, you know, we've got all these additional costs of caring for our little one. Who's gonna need all this additional support? Uh, we have to sell our house in Japan. We, we have to reimagine our lives. And we did. And so that's why Kim and I actually got to a stage where we ran our own business together. You know, we went, we can see how the division of responsibility labor can lead to frustration and lean to the other person not being seen. But we also, by talking to each other, by knowing that we're on the same side, we realized that there is a way through it
Speaker 1 00:25:42 Agreed. Was a <laugh>. That was a, that was a, that was a tough time in our lives. It, there definitely was a lot of frustration in the division of roles and, and a lot of misunderstanding. We were both doing the absolute best we could. And I will say that despite that frustration that was present, we were committed to the path we had agreed on, we were committed to. And that's why we were on that path. And that's why we stayed true to that path.
Speaker 2 00:26:13 We, we had to because there was just, so some of the emotional challenges you go through is like, what's my daughter's life gonna look like for the next 90 years? What happens when I'm gone? You know, who, who's gonna look after them? What is life gonna look? How's their life gonna be? They're not gonna fit into society. You know,
Speaker 1 00:26:33 You're a hundred percent right. It's, and that's another one of the things that shows up in couples who are one or both are, are caregivers. And that is, that is the emotional challenge of being a caregiver because it's not just about what you're doing today as a caregiver, it's often a fear of the future or, and a huge amount of energy expended planning right now to get the best supports in place. It's definitely the, uh, the emotional toll that it takes can be huge and can certainly show up in the relationship. And one of the things that, that we do see when we have this, this huge emotional toll and uh, this state of survival we've spoken about that that can show up as well is limited communication. And what happens is, in, in the, in our relationship, we've seen this before as well, if we're really in a state of survival and that is that you just become focused on the caregiving role.
Speaker 1 00:27:31 That's all that you can feel, that you can talk about. It's all you feel that you can focus on because humans, and I just explained this really briefly, humans are wired to fix problems at our core. That is what makes us human and differentiates us from all the other animals on earth. That's why we're at the top of the food chain because we want and have evolved and learnt how to fix problems. Now, when you become a caregiver, there is a challenge you have that you cannot fix. And that is extremely difficult for humans because we are wired to try and do that and we spend a huge amount of energy and effort trying to do that. And that can really pull us into that, what I'm saying, that that survival state, that means that we just evolve around that one idea of how can I, how can I make this bet situation better?
Speaker 2 00:28:28 Yeah, you, you put the blinkers on, yes, head down, bum up and you, you just focused on the operations of just survival just day to day, getting through the end to the end of the day. And it doesn't take too long before you wake up in a week, two weeks, months, years, and you haven't actually had a deep conversation with a person who's sleeping next to you every night because it, every conversation revolves around either your child or the person you are caring for or the day-to-day operations, which take up so much of your time and energy.
Speaker 1 00:29:04 And I think the other part of that is when you are a caregiver, often you are, uh, physically caring for someone, uh, and that physical caring can cause sensory overload because you are so attached to that person physically and emotionally and mentally. And you have to be so intimate with that person to care for them. And that can cause sensory overload. And you can get to the end of the day and feel like not only are you stuck in that survival mindset, you you are done sensory wise. You don't wanna touch someone else, you don't want to care and nurture, you've got nothing left, just you've got nothing left. And so that can really cause a loss of intimacy because you've used all of your, all of the sensory touch and nurture, all of that stuff has already been used us and
Speaker 2 00:29:50 You've just got nothing left for your
Speaker 1 00:29:51 Partner. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 00:29:53 So, so looking at all of that, we can see how the, in this re in the relationship, these, these things can just impact us, you know, really compound on us. And one more actually is, is the isolation from your support networks and friends. Uh, your life is very different to theirs and it, it is quite hard to find a shared reality with them. And often because you have a lot of restrictions on your life, what naturally happens is your friends, just as you keep on saying, no, I can't do this, no, I can't do that, and they don't understand that you can't go out at night, they don't understand that you can't go to a, a certain playground, they don't understand all these things that because of your, the your either energy level or the restrictions on the lives of the person you are caring for that you have to say no to a lot of things. And so after a while they just stop asking you, they just stop asking you to come and hang out with them and do and be involved in their lives.
Speaker 1 00:30:47 I mean, to give people an example, we haven't been out at night together as a couple for three and a half years, so we're in our fourth year. So people think in Covid that they couldn't go out for in Western Australia, it was, I dunno, a few weeks, but in the other places it really suffered with covid, they, they couldn't go out for years, one or two years. Well, we're coming up four years because nighttime just isn't possible. It's not possible. Our daughter needs our care at nighttime. And you can think, well there must be a way around it. There is no way around it. There is just simply no way. She needs our support and our caregiving at night. And that's the foreseeable future for us. But that is a huge change. And when your friends wanna catch up at night and the groups get together and people see each other and people go on dates and we can't do that.
Speaker 1 00:31:41 So we've had to work very deliberately and actively with our friends to find times that we can catch up with them. And it has taken time for people to understand how serious this is for us that we do not have the flexibility. We, we wished we had it, we wished we could go out at night whenever we wanted to or just once, but we simply don't have that flexibility. So, and our, our friends are amazing, you know, a lot of them have put in a huge amount of effort and support with us and, and have grown with us in this journey of learning of what life looks like as, as caregivers. But that can be very isolating for people, especially at the beginning when you are helping your circle to understand how significantly life has changed and they don't really get it yet. So it, it is a, it is a big challenge for caregivers and sometimes you might not be in a circle that ever get it and that can be very difficult.
Speaker 1 00:32:38 So with that in mind, we are going to give you some just three things, three strategies that have helped us over the last few years as caregivers. And I just wanna preface this by saying we are not saying you will have capacity for these, you might not even have capacity to hear these. If you get to this point in the podcast and you say, you know what? I've heard all I can manage right now because my capacity is is at a point where I don't, I can't think about strategies. I just need to be heard and seen. Absolutely turn off, come back to this later. We completely understand, we know how depleted you might be as a caregiver. So the idea of what we're about to talk about is to, to lay the strategies out there if and for if and when you are ready to potentially try them.
Speaker 1 00:33:28 We know you don't have additional time. So telling you to find time to go and get a makeover is just not going to be the answer. But what we will say is that for each of these strategies, they do take extra effort. They do take a rejigging of things, but the payoff has been so great, it's been so great, it's so far exceeds the sacrifice we've made in the interim. And I know again, you might not have capacity for that sacrifice right now, but when you do think about it because the payoff is so great.
Speaker 2 00:34:00 So, so what Kim and I like to talk about, uh, before we get to these three strategies is how life got harder and yet we got happier because life has got harder. But where perhaps the happiest I think that we've ever been as absolutely as individuals and as a couple, because we're in this together. You know, we'd started doing it a few years prior to our little ones diagnosis, but since then we actually had a choice to make when we, you know, had to sell our house and come home from our dream life in the snow in Japan is we, we had to reimagine our dreams. We had to look deliberately at what we could get out of life and you know, taking inspiration from our little girl is just, you know, push through and see that there is always a better tomorrow. And a lot of this was about acceptance and and resilience, which is something that through all this through doesn't matter how many tips and hints we get give you the acceptance and resilience are so core to the life of a carer and getting through and make, starting to make little changes.
Speaker 2 00:35:05 You know, I, I had it once said to me that acceptance is like surfing the waves of life. You know, the waves that hit you every day that come crashing down, that suffocate you, that drown, you are inevitable and they're gonna keep coming. But if you are a surfer, if you surf the waves of life, you know that they're gonna keep being there. You know, you can't control them, you just learn how to ride them and you try and get the best ride possible and you might find that you actually start enjoying the ride on the way.
Speaker 1 00:35:36 I love that. Firstly cuz vicariously, I'd love to be like, I live through someone else's surfing journey because <laugh>, I'd love to be a surfer, but I'm far too scared of shark. But also I think that that piece about acceptance and I think acceptance unfortunately, uh, is misunderstood. And people think when you say, I just need to find acceptance, they think that means resignation. So I'm resigning myself to accepting the, the, what we've got is what we've got. And that's not it at all. Acceptance is about finding a place of allowing whatever comes up for you at whatever moment to just be there. And when you've got the capacity beyond what is showing up for you in that moment, you can start to think about how you want to deliberately move forward in life. So it's not about deliberately trying to squish emotions and be in a place of perfect serenity, it's not any of that.
Speaker 1 00:36:31 It's about allowing emotions and feelings to come and go and then seeing your reality for what it really is, what is available to you and taking that reality and planning your path forward based on who you are and who you wanna be within that reality. So with that in mind, the the three hints we just wanna give today, which are things like I said, these are strategies we've used and as I acknowledged, I realized they might not be available to everyone right now, but they'll, they'll be there on the podcast, it'll be there forever online so you can find them when you're ready. The first thing is scheduling time to talk. You can't just keep going through the motions, you have to break the cycle. And I know this one is gonna, is gonna rub people up the wrong way when they're feeling like they haven't got capacity.
Speaker 1 00:37:17 Again, wait till you do have just that little bit of capacity and you say, well, you know what, this week is the week I'm gonna start it. I'm gonna start scheduling time to talk. And you can start as small as five minutes a week, you say to your partner, five minutes per week, each deliberate conversation. That's a 10 minute conversation. And what we'll do is we'll throw three prompter questions up for you guys online so you can see what some ideas are. You could ask one, two, or three depending how quickly you talk in that five minutes to the other person and just get them to start connecting with you. We're wanting to build the connection back in the relationship beyond just that survival caregiver mode.
Speaker 2 00:37:55 That's right. Um, and the number two, one is find some support.
Speaker 1 00:38:00 Yeah, absolutely. Uh, this can look a million different ways, but again, we know capacity is reduced. So what we are saying is ask yourself today if this is something you wanna look at today, maybe it's next week, maybe it's next month, but what is one step I can take at that point in time when you're ready to start moving toward getting more support? It might be just getting the funding for the supports. That's step one. Remember that everything is one foot in front of the other. Nothing is going to change overnight. You're going to have to go through the motions and the journey, the motions of the journey. But if we wanna, if we want to improve our relationship, getting some support can be really critical. We are now able to go out as a couple and have someone look after our daughter. Now that is amazing. That took us years of planning, months of working with the person, our support worker. These, these are not simple solutions
Speaker 2 00:38:54 And and it's still restrictive as it's absolutely, it's four hours a week at the same time every week. But for us it's so liberating. And it was, you know, six months in the making and months and months of getting our little one used to having another person in a house in a space and now they're besties more
Speaker 1 00:39:11 Than six months. It was years of planning. You have to get the funding first. You have to go through all the steps a hundred percent. And I'm not trying to say this to scare people, but the reality is it is doable. One foot in front of the other and you will get there, but just start with that one set. You
Speaker 2 00:39:23 Might have to go into deficit in terms of your energy to, to pay off this future benefit.
Speaker 1 00:39:29 Abso it's and it's been game changer for us, right? It has, absolutely. And the third is find your tribe. This could be, uh, online, it could be in person, whatever is available to you. Again, this is capacity related, but we all know that social connection is really important for our mental health. And as we spoke about when you're a caregiver, it can be very, very isolating. And we wanna promote these, these activities, these undertakings like finding your tribe that are going to give you back a little bit of space for your relationship. And when we found our tribe, our support group of, of parents who have autistic children, it was an amazing sense of I'm not alone, we're understood. And we would talk a a lot about the different roles, mom, dad roles, caregiving roles. It's this sense that I'm connected to the world. Again, the world isn't separate from me. I am part of this world. You
Speaker 2 00:40:25 You're speaking the same language. Yes. Like we said before, you know, when you're with your, your older school friends who we still are very connected with, when you talk about the challenges you have, they, they don't understand how how could they, while when we found our tribe, they, they do understand. And even though we beat down on social media enough and some of the issues with it, you know, there are a lot of communities online that you can enjoy that if they're not in, in that you can join if they're not in your era. There's a lot of people in the world. There's 2.7 million carers in Australia. There are communities out there where you can find kindred spirits, where you can find your tribe
Speaker 1 00:41:00 A hundred percent. And if it's not for you, just remember trial and error. Try a tribe. If they don't work, try another tribe. Not, we don't always jive with certain groups. So have a go see what works for you. Just taking that step towards feeling more included and feeling more socially connected. We'll provide some capacity in your relationship as well.
Speaker 2 00:41:22 So usually at the end of a episode, Kim and I give our gold nuggets, but I think we won't do that today. I'd just like to say that carer is out there. We see you, we, we understand your journey. No, even though no two journeys are the same, keep on going after it. You know, we know it's hard. Even even looking at those three tips, you're like, well how am I gonna find time to do that? How am I gonna find the strength and Andrew energy to do that? You know, you do have it in you and we've got your back and send in any questions, uh, to
[email protected]. Um, hit us up online if you want to chat because we're here for you.
Speaker 1 00:42:00 Couldn't have said it better and make me emotional. These are our people and we just, we have so much love for the caregiving community because we know what it means to be a carer in our soul. We know what it means and how incredible that community is. So yeah, this has been a, it's been a privilege to, to talk about this today. And, uh, that's it.
Speaker 2 00:42:28 You are amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
Speaker 1 00:42:32 Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more living, the team life, relationship, insights and conversations, head over to kim and rod.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies.
Speaker 2 00:42:42 And if you like today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find us. It'll make them happy and it'll make us really happy.
Speaker 1 00:42:51 Until next time, keep on living the team life.
