Managing Time as a Married Couple

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Myrtle Alegado: With the many demands on our daily lives, newly married couples struggle in balancing their time between work, daily tasks, and other obligations. When we find ourselves very busy, is it still a reasonable goal to achieve work-life balance?

Today on the show, we’ll chat with a newlywed couple from Burlingame, California, to talk about how they make time for each other despite their busy schedules, while still prioritizing what truly matters in their relationship.

Welcome to Happy Life, a podcast brought to you by INC Media Audio that aims to help newlyweds navigate through the first years of marriage. I’m your host, Myrtle Alegado, and I’ve been married to my husband, Paul, since 1999. Later, we’ll hear some Bible-based advice through Brother Felmar Serreno, a minister of the gospel in the Church Of Christ.

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Inspiration to make your marriage thrive, you’re listening to Happy Life

Myrtle: On Happy Life today, I’d like to welcome Paolo & Rachelle from Burlingame, California, and they’ve been married since August of 2021.

Hey there, Paolo & Rachelle!  Thanks so much for agreeing to chat with us today.

Rachelle de Dios: Hi!

Paolo de Dios: Hello!

Myrtle: How are you both doing?

Rachelle: We’re good. Happy to be here.

Myrtle: Oh, well, we’re so glad you joined us. Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves and how you both met?

Paolo: Sure. Rachelle and I, we first met at a Church activity. It was August 2018, and it was a career fair for the Kadiwa [youth in the Church Of Christ aged 18 and up who are unmarried] members. She had just moved from Detroit about a month before that, and, you know, I’m sure she was still learning a lot about the new areas and things like that. Maybe it was coincidence, but yeah, we met through that activity and just kind of went from it.

Rachelle: Yeah, I was new, moving to California. So I was just kind of nervous about everything. But I remember when we were going through some of the notes for this career fair, I was like, “Oh, Paolo’s kind of cute.” I actually knew what to do with all the instructions of this career fair, but I pretended to not know much. So, I was messaging him like, “What are we supposed to wear? What do you mean for this job thing? What do we do?” I kind of just initiated the chatting.

Myrtle: Look at you being sneaky! Way to go for what you want. [laughs]

Rachelle: Woo!

Myrtle: Did you know that she already knew the answers, Paolo, but messaged you on the side just to have an excuse, I guess, to talk to you? Did you know that?

Paolo: Honestly, no. I think when she was messaging me, I thought, like, “Wow, I can really impress her.” You know, “I can tell her exactly what we need to do here. She needs my help.” You know, “I’m going to be that person to support her in her time of need.” But you know, she’s smart.

Myrtle: But how long were you two talking before things became serious, and then when did you get engaged, and finally married? Rachelle: I want to say talking for about three or four months, and then when we got engaged, a year and a half to two years. That’s when we got engaged.

Myrtle: So today we’re discussing managing time wisely, and for newlywed couples, I’m sure you can very much relate to that because both of you are working. Can you tell us about your careers?

Rachelle: Yeah, so I am the head of strategy. I work in a neurotechnology clinic in Silicon Valley. I work with a lot of different technologies for health, whether it’s brain map scanning, or we’re creating products for speech, or language, or learning, or disabilities, or head trauma. I work on the projects that are involved in that.

Myrtle: It sounds pretty intense.

Rachelle: Yeah, it sounds a lot cooler than I think it is.

Myrtle: Oh [laughs]. And then, Paolo, yourself? Paolo: I’m a marketing manager and business analyst. So you know, I help different companies kind of build their communication and advertising. In a simple way, I spend their money to sell more things. So kind of a simple job.

Myrtle: Well, it definitely sounds like you both have pretty busy schedules. What does your typical workday look like?

Rachelle: So, we both work from home and we have a sweet little rescue dog that is about 10 months old now. Yeah, it’s a lot of meetings. It’s a lot of back to back meetings on Zoom. And it’s a lot of taking care of Ollie (the rescue dog).

Myrtle: You know, that’s your home and that’s your office, so you’re pretty much together all the time. What do you find most challenging about coordinating your schedules, even though you see each other all the time?

Rachelle: I think the most challenging thing about coordinating our schedules is that we don’t really know what’s going to happen throughout the day. So, every week is different, every day is different. Sometimes I’ll have a meeting, and then we’ll have a meeting at the same time, and then we have Ollie who wants to go out. Or sometimes the days are a little bit longer than we expected, and those get kind of tricky. That’s usually what’s challenging about coordinating our schedules.

So, we’ll try to figure it out as we go. Sometimes one of us will work while the other takes Ollie out. Or sometimes, actually most of the time, Paulo takes Ollie out in the morning, which he’s great about because I take a little bit longer to get ready. But we figure it out.

Paolo: Yeah, I think sometimes, especially working from home, the whole day feels like one big blob of time. So you know, like she said, kind of mapping it out and kind of spacing it as much as possible is really helpful. Otherwise, it’s all noise and we won’t get anything done.

Myrtle: And then do you take lunch breaks together?

Paolo: Totally.

Rachelle: Oh, yeah. All the time!

Paolo: She’s like an amateur chef, for sure, and I’m an amateur eater, so she makes a bunch of stuff. It’s awesome.

Rachelle: He’s good at cooking too though.

Paolo: I think, if anything that’s like the number one advantage of working from home is that we can kind of treat ourselves. We can do things in advance, cook things in advance, eat things in advance.

Rachelle: We eat a lot. And then also with our schedules, I’ll even take time sometimes during the work day to practice for the organ. I’m an organist at our Church, and if I know I’m leading that practice that day, I’ll go over a lot of the notes. I’ll go over a lot of the things I’m going to say during practice, and Paulo is usually really great about giving me that time because I tend to stress out a lot, you know, especially if it’s something I really care about. So he’s been really great at giving me that time.

Myrtle: So despite your busy schedules, how do you still make sure that you spend quality time with one another, and are there specific things that have worked out for both of you?

Paolo: Yeah, I think quality time is really important. I think there are certain things that we can control and if we can, you know, we make sure to plan those things ahead. So for instance, we make sure we have lunch and dinner together no matter what, as long as it’s within our schedules, which it usually is. Even on a, you know, a busy workday or a busy evening, we make sure to make that time for each other. And like I mentioned before, you know, we both love to cook just as much as we both love to eat, so I think sharing those commonalities, it’s something that we need to do every day anyway, so we might as well enjoy it.

Rachelle: Yeah, we genuinely enjoy each other’s company. So it’s such a big deal when we’re working from home and we see each other every day. We still get excited though to watch movies in the living room, we get excited to hang out together, we have a lot of hobbies that are similar.

Paulo is actually really into golf now, which is great. You’re good at it now. I feel like you’re really good at golf now. And, ahh, he makes really good steak, so I’m super into steak even more now, because he’s really good at making the perfect medium rare steak. And coffee, which I love, he’s so good at making coffee. You should see the kitchen. I think if anything that we’re going to argue about is kitchen space, because it looks like a coffee shop.

Paolo: That’s true.

Rachelle: But it’s good coffee though, so I still love it. I’m super into basketball, food, being outdoors, and you know he switches those things off, because I know he wasn’t always into basketball too much but now he is. And you weren’t too outdoorsy, but now I feel like you love it unless that’s just for me.

Paolo: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s both. I think I love it, and I love you s