{"id":10,"date":"2010-04-14T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jennifercares\/2010\/04\/caregiver-coaching-keeping-love-alive.html"},"modified":"2010-04-14T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T10:00:00","slug":"caregiver-coaching-keeping-love-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jennifercares\/2010\/04\/caregiver-coaching-keeping-love-alive.html","title":{"rendered":"Caregiver Coaching:  Keeping Love Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As your Caregiver Coach here at Beliefnet.com, it is my&nbsp;passionate mission to reach out and help you and other&nbsp;volunteer family caregivers. Each Thursday, I&#8217;ll identify a major challenge caregivers face, and offer&nbsp;research, tips, and motivation to coach you through it.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>This week I want to start with addressing an issue I&#8217;ve been reading a lot about lately, and seeing a lot of lately among my own friends:&nbsp; the effect of caregiving on a relationship.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Caregiving has such an impact on so many parts of our lives.&nbsp; Research continues to show that the strain of caregiving is posing very real threats to even the strongest of relationships.<\/p>\n<p>A study by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.caring.com\/\">Caring.com <\/a>shows that when it comes to caregiving and relationships:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>80% reported strains<\/li>\n<li>46% reported damage to romance<\/li>\n<li>25% of divorced caregivers said caregiving played a major role in the reasons for their divorce<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What kinds of things can you do to minimize the negative effects of caregiving on a marriage?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Communicate<\/strong>-talk with each other about what is happening; and about what is changing in your lives.&nbsp; Acknowlege that it&#8217;s going to mean new roles and responsibilities.&nbsp; Discuss how you will work together to adapt to your new caregiver&nbsp;responsiblities. <\/li>\n<li><strong>Involve the family<\/strong>-although it takes some time, it&#8217;s important to create a circle of care.&nbsp; Each family member will have a different level of skill and tolerance as a caregiver.&nbsp; Try not to judge each other.&nbsp; Try to accpet those differences, and allow people to become involved in the way they feel most comfortable.&nbsp; I have learned that it does far more harm than good to try to push people into roles you think they should be in.&nbsp; Ultimately, if everyone&#8217;s comfortable with the care they provide, the family is happier, and the experience&nbsp;as a whole is healthier and happier. &nbsp;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Spend some time apart<\/strong>-to deal with the pressures of caregiving, it&#8217;s extremely important to set aside time for just you.&nbsp; It&#8217;s very easy to lose yourself in a caregiver role&#8211;to be consumed by it.&nbsp; To be a good partner, you have to be a strong individual.&nbsp; Take care of yourself first.&nbsp; Make some time to pamper yourself a little, read a book, take an exercise &nbsp;class, work on a hobby, laugh with friends, or whatever makes you feel good-happy-special.&nbsp;You will be able to create or maintain a stronger relationship as a result. <\/li>\n<li><strong>Spend some time together (intimacy)<\/strong>&#8211; it&#8217;s not easy to feel sexy when you are tired, cranky, and overwhelmed.&nbsp; Being romantic and close with your spouse is needed and provides important feelings of security and love.&nbsp; Don&#8217;t worry if you feel that you have to force the feeling at first. Create a little time to shut all the worries out and just be a couple.&nbsp; Hold hands and take a walk.&nbsp;&nbsp;Cuddle on the couch and watch a sweet movie.&nbsp;Have a nice dinner where you can actually look at each other and talk.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>As always, I feel we have a lot to learn from each other, so I hope that these Thursday posts inspire conversations where we share experiences. In that spirit, I encourage you to leave your thoughts, and ask questions in the comments area below.<\/p>\n<p>j.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As your Caregiver Coach here at Beliefnet.com, it is my&nbsp;passionate mission to reach out and help you and other&nbsp;volunteer family caregivers. Each Thursday, I&#8217;ll identify a major challenge caregivers face, and offer&nbsp;research, tips, and motivation to coach you through it.&nbsp; This week I want to start with addressing an issue I&#8217;ve been reading a lot&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-caregiver-coaching"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Caregiver Coaching: Keeping Love Alive - Jennifer Cares<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jennifercares\/2010\/04\/caregiver-coaching-keeping-love-alive.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Caregiver Coaching: Keeping Love Alive - Jennifer Cares\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As your Caregiver Coach here at Beliefnet.com, it is my&nbsp;passionate mission to reach out and help you and other&nbsp;volunteer family caregivers. Each Thursday, I&#8217;ll identify a major challenge caregivers face, and offer&nbsp;research, tips, and motivation to coach you through it.&nbsp; This week I want to start with addressing an issue I&#8217;ve been reading a lot&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jennifercares\/2010\/04\/caregiver-coaching-keeping-love-alive.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jennifer Cares\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-14T10:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jennifer Antkowiak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Caregiver Coaching: Keeping Love Alive - Jennifer Cares","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jennifercares\/2010\/04\/caregiver-coaching-keeping-love-alive.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Caregiver Coaching: Keeping Love Alive - Jennifer Cares","og_description":"As your Caregiver Coach here at Beliefnet.com, it is my&nbsp;passionate mission to reach out and help you and other&nbsp;volunteer family caregivers. 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She is a busy mother of five, wife, award-winning TV news anchor and talk show host, author, and speaker. Jennifer knows how long-term illness affects a family. Her mother had post-partum depression and died of a heart attack at age 50. Jennifer feels blessed to have been a caregiver for her mother-in-law who died of cancer, and most recently, for her live-in father-in-law who died of cancer. Her real life experiences fuel her passionate mission to help the world's caregivers. Through her work, she connects with caregivers to deliver help and hope. 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