How Couples Actually Build Connection

A real look at partnership, capacity, and showing up for each other.

Five years after the pandemic, the world feels like it’s back to its same frantic rhythm—if not even faster. Kids, carpools, jobs, calendars, school reminders, dentist appointments, “Mom, I need boots,” “Can you sign this?” and the constant buzzing of our phones… we’re all moving at full speed again.

But it’s strange, because in the quiet moments, I still think back to those early COVID days when everything stopped. When connection was accidental because it had to be. When the four walls of our house held every version of us—bored, stressed, scared, grateful, trying, failing, laughing, adjusting, surviving.

We made it through that.
But now? The harder thing is figuring out how to keep choosing each other when the world won’t stop long enough to let us.

I saw a TikTok recently—made by a man, obviously—explaining that to avoid divorce, couples “just need to have more fun together and constantly be touching.”
And I swear, I almost threw my phone.

Yes, thank you, sir. What groundbreaking research.
I too would like to “have more fun,” but I’m also the one who knows every single dentist appointment in this house, buys the birthday gifts, remembers who needs winter boots, keeps the school calendar straight, checks the backpacks, and mentally runs logistics like an air traffic controller at O’Hare.

So no, I’m not short on fun.
I’m short on capacity.
And “constant touching”?
I love my husband, but sometimes the only thing touching me is the weight of responsibility and most likely my 5 year old.

The truth is, connection in long-term relationships doesn’t come from big romantic gestures or matching hobbies or some magical alignment of interests. If that were the case, my Border Collie–level energy and competitive streak would have me dragging my husband through obstacle courses he never asked to participate in. Meanwhile, anything he really enjoys, I’m just trying to politely survive.

We’re opposite in all the quiet, inconvenient ways that make “finding a thing we both enjoy” feel like trying to negotiate a peace treaty.

Loving this?
Get more GRL pep talks, real-life leadership lessons, and tools for raising confident girls — straight to your inbox.
Join the GRL Newsletter → Email Signup

But here’s where the narrative shifts:
Connection doesn’t come from the perfect shared activity.
It comes from shared space.
Shared attention.
Shared softness.
Shared moments where you look up from the white noise of life and notice each other again.

For us, that has looked less like “date nights” and more like the tiny rituals that fill in the cracks of the day. Because we don’t have the system of support to rescue us to take our kids for a night.

It’s ten minutes on the couch in the morning, half-awake, before anyone else is up.
It’s walking down the road in the dark together even if the walk is 45 seconds.
It’s lying on the bed scrolling TikTok but sharing the same screen, reacting to the same ridiculous videos instead of consuming them in silence.
It’s touching base before the chaos hits—not with anything profound, but with something human like, “How’s today looking for you?” or “What do you need?” Not like a job interview, but good questions that get conversations started.

It’s tiny, and sometimes it doesn’t feel like much.
But it adds up.
It becomes connective tissue.

And then there’s movement.
Not my brand of movement—the competitive, sweaty, let’s-race-a-stranger energy. And not his brand either. But the middle ground where neither of us has to suffer: walking the dogs, riding bikes, cooking something new together, getting on the boat on a calm morning.

We’ve stopped forcing the idea that connection means liking all the same things.
It’s not sameness that holds a couple together—it’s choosing to show up with the version of yourself you have that day.

And honestly? The biggest shift has been giving each other permission to be ourselves without the silent pressure to match.
I don’t have to love what he loves.
He doesn’t have to meet me at my pace.
But we do have to keep reaching across the space between us, even if it’s only a few inches.

Some days the reaching looks like a long conversation.
Some days it looks like folding laundry together.
Some days it looks like laughing at a meme while brushing our teeth.
Some days it looks like sitting side by side in a car, not talking, but knowing the silence is safe.

And once in a while, we’ll look at each other and say, “I miss you,” even though we live in the same house and slept in the same bed. And that alone becomes the catalyst for reconnecting.

The world is louder now than it was five years ago.
Our responsibilities are bigger.
Our kids are older.
Our energy is different.
But connection isn’t a relic of the past—it’s something we build in real time, in the middle of the noise, with whatever capacity we have.

It’s not about constant touching or forced fun.
It’s about the choice—over and over—to notice each other, to soften toward each other, to keep weaving these tiny threads that say:

“I’m here. I still choose you. Even on the days when I have nothing left but ten minutes and a half-charged phone.”