Quality, Not Quantity

“Baby, we spend a lot of time together.” 

Isolated, this phrase is innocent. But this was my boyfriend’s response to my plea that I missed being around him. So, you can imagine that hearing those words made my stomach drop. 

I sat in stunned silence for a few months, trying to make sense of his reply. 

How was it possible that I felt like we weren’t spending enough time together, while he thought just the opposite?

My primary love language is quality time, so it’s safe to say after denying my request, I felt a deep sense of hurt. But a key ingredient to effective quality time is that the other person is enjoying themselves as much as you are, so there was little use in trying to coerce him into seeing my side. 

Typically, when I feel hurt my response is to retreat in order to prevent myself from being exposed to more pain and discomfort. 99.9% of the time, this method backfires. This instance was in the 0.1% that didn’t.

After spending a day relishing in hurt, I decided to go with his side. So that he didn’t feel bothered during the week at work, I would remove the expectation that we’d do things together during the week and instead focus on seeing friends and doing other activities. He readily agreed and suggested that in order to make up for the time not spent together during the week, we should set aside one evening a week for a “date night” (cliched but necessary when contending with two busy schedules).

What we didn’t realize at the time was that we’d solved one of our biggest ongoing problems. 

From the start, the issue wasn’t that we weren’t spending enough hours together, but rather that the time spent “together” was actually filled with working at the computer, FaceTiming friends and family, and other distractions. The quantity may have been high, but the quality wasn’t up to par.  

That changed with the “date night” plan. 

Instead of spending every evening together without really being present, we turned to spending one night a week really focusing on each other. 

The shift was a win for both of us. My boyfriend was freed from the pressure to hang out when he desperately wanted to focus on his work, while I went from feeling unseen and needy to feeling fulfilled and really excited for the time we did get to spend together. 

At its core, the success of the shift from quantity to quality showed us the importance of being intentional with our focus. Spending half-assed time attending to your work or partner might seem productive in the moment, but the required maintenance from divided attention piles up and ends up working against you. Being present in the moment is the remedy. 

I can’t wait for all the beautiful quality time I get to spend with my person from here on out.