Doing these nine things saved my relationship during life in close confinement
I live in a van. It’s big enough to stand up in. Just. My bedroom is also my living room, kitchen and toilet. A random assortment of shelves and cabinets contains all my belongings. I share this tiny space with a man and a dog.
It’s true that I brought this on myself. For years, seriously about ten years, I fantasised about living the #vanlife dream. I yearned for waking up every morning in a new exciting location, by rivers and forests and mountains. I dreamt of impossibly healthy breakfasts and comfortably surviving on a shoestring while finally finishing all the many creative projects I could never persuade myself to prioritise. Most of all I craved the feeling of being utterly carefree that living in a metal box on wheels would offer me. But as always, reality was pretty different.
Our van is mostly parked in the same place, a field that belongs to some lovely people we are lucky to know, because looking for a new, suitable, spot every evening when you’re knackered from work is a massive pain. We still have bills, direct debits and essential outgoings. We still have to do lots of boring stuff like food shopping and laundry, only now we have to work out how to make do without a fridge or washing machine.
Moving in together was always on the cards for us but the way it all happened in the end was rushed, with no time to plan the transition. I jumped from city life, my own flat and never-ending public transport to living in an impossibly beautiful paddock in the middle of nowhere, with no driving license (that’s right, I moved into a vehicle which I can’t drive) and an extremely infrequent bus service. My partner suddenly found his quiet life interrupted by this fast talking, fast moving city girl with a huge amount of stuff who quite clearly didn’t have a clue how to navigate the countryside (luckily I’m a fast learner).
To make our 4m x 2.5m life work without killing each other, we had to adapt really fast. This is how we manage to live on top of each other in a space smaller than many bathrooms:
Get really good at saying sorry quickly. When you can basically touch the sides of your entire universe while sat in your bed, his morning fart under the duvet can feel like a catastrophe. Often, there’s no option to go for a walk to cool off or call a friend for a coffee because your house won’t be there when you get back (or you will make the other person late for work) so getting over ourselves and admitting that we’d been a bit of a twat, quickly, became essential. No one wants to stew in an enclosed space. So, if lockdown leads to some verbal explosions and you know, deep down, that you were being a little bit unreasonable, try to remember that you’re going to make up anyway, and accelerate the process with a genuine apology. Less time feeling angry equals more time to enjoy each other.
Enable spontaneous chats. We achieve this by avoiding routine (easier now we don’t work set times). We always function at our best when we have lots of catch ups about what we’ve been thinking about/working on. In my opinion, relationships suffer tremendously when the bulk of your communication is about taking the bins out and what to have for dinner. I regularly make a mental note to not start those conversations the minute we’ve finished work. What it comes down to is that having an excited exchange of your latest ideas is always more important than the mundane stuff.
Figure out a way to tell the other one when they’re stressing you out. This was a big one for us. For a long time, we both thought that we had to be infinitely patient with each other. We thought that we had to take on the other one’s stresses and deal with them for both of us. This was a big mistake. Eventually both of us exploded under the pressure. And it was a long, ugly process, which took a while to process. The thing is, if he’s talking about something that triggers my anxiety, I can’t even go to a different room, so we have to let each other know gently but firmly, and the other one has to respect it (if they don’t, and they get a kick out of emotionally abusing you, you need to start looking for other places to spend isolation. 24-hr National Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0808 2000 247).
Let each other do your thing aka know when to give space. This is absolutely crucial. Living in a little space that is bedroom, living room, kitchen AND toilet means there is no privacy. At least not the “shut the door” type. This makes respecting each other’s need to focus on our projects/be with our thoughts/watch crap on Netlfix even more important. If he has his sketch pad out, I know not to interrupt. If I am furiously typing away, he won’t ask me anything but the most important of questions (this does not include sock location).
Plan your food. With only ourselves to feed, both of us could afford to not bother thinking too far ahead and allow a bit of impulse and pressing hunger to dictate our grocery shop. When we became two humans and a dog with no shops within walking distance, this didn’t work anymore. Planning a week’s worth of recipes means we have enough of a variety of food in the cupboards to not get bored, even if we end up cooking something different than originally intended. Having a long shopping lists also stops us from buying too many treats and keeps our food shopping costs reasonable.
Share chores. Especially the crap ones, like taking the dog for her bedtime wee when it’s pissing down with rain. I like tidying. Or rather, I like getting stuff in order and knowing where stuff is, and the only way to achieve this in our household is to be in charge of tidying. In return, he does all of the driving (I’m so close to getting my license, although who knows when I’ll be able to have my next lesson in the current climate). The rest is shared. When he gets fed up of feeding the dog every day, I take over and he becomes in charge of making the bed. And so on. We naturally rotate. That way no one becomes too bored with the boring stuff.
Put things back in their designated place. I thought that living in a small space would mean the end of spending hours looking for my nail clippers. I was wrong. So very, very wrong. It turned out that the van was very full of nooks and crannies that things could get mindlessly shoved into and immediately forgotten about. And while we could happily live in our respective chaoses alone, it became infuriating when I couldn’t find my toothbrush for the tenth day in a row. With effort, and a fair amount of trial and error, almost everything now has its place, and things that don’t all live happily in one cupboard. As long as we observe this, the time we waste trying to find something is minimised to the bare minimum (most of the time. I still want to know where all my socks went…).
Don’t blame each other for stuff unnecessarily. Does it really matter if he didn’t wash up properly or I brought mud in on my shoes? In the grand scheme of things, not only is this pretty insignificant, but it will probably never change (we’re both incredibly stubborn). Tolerance and forgiveness of the small stuff makes life in tiny quarters a lot more enjoyable.
Most importantly, remember to have a laugh. Above everything else, he’s my best friend (whom I fancy like crazy) and I love him. I know that he wants to support me (emotionally, creatively) and that time spent getting annoyed at each other can be better spent laughing together. Laughter underpins everything we do. We laugh at (and with) each other and ourselves constantly — it’s what keeps us from exploding in a cloud of stress and overwhelm. We’re in this together, and we’re going to get through this together. Good luck guys!
