Courtesy Meredith Wilshere
My boyfriend of two years and I have lived together for the past six months. The exciting new chapter of our lives means a newness that we haven't experienced before. It also means that we've gotten a better understanding of how we want to spend time together, and has allowed us to be more intentional about it.
For the first few months, we wanted to spend every minute together, excited about this new phase of our relationship. But soon, we also realized we needed to come up with a system for taking time for ourselves in our shared space.
We both work jobs that require us to go into an office at least two times a week, where we need to be present and "on." When we get home, we're usually tired from the commute and the day and need some time to decompress.
Initially, my boyfriend worried that if he asked to take some quiet time to himself in the living room while I was also home, I would think it meant he didn't want to spend time with me. He thought I might take it personally and assume it meant more about his feelings for me than it did about his need to decompress.
So, we discussed the need for alone time and made a resolution. We decided to consciously depersonalize the need to decompress by doing something called "rot time." When we tell each other that we need "rot time," where we can lay around the apartment alone, take time for ourselves, and then come back to the other person when we're ready, it helps us depersonalize taking time away from each other.
During this period, we realized how important it is to be intentional with the time we do spend together, as well as how crucial communication is. We came up with the idea that if we said 'rot time' to each other, like a sort of code word, then we would know exactly what it meant without hurting each other's feelings. We reaffirmed that spending time alone doesn't mean we don't want to spend time without the other person — it just means we need space and time to ourselves so we can show up better in the relationship afterward.
Courtesy Meredith Wilshere
The term "rot time" was popularized on TikTok, and it can take the form of different things for each of us. For my boyfriend, it can mean scrolling on social media or letting off steam by playing video games. I also sometimes spend my rot time scrolling social media or playing video games, though sometimes I go screen-free and will pick up one of the books on my to-read list and read in our bedroom.
But no matter what, it means we both have our own space in the apartment without the expectation that we need to spend every second together. Since we started this system, it's only continued to strengthen our relationship and our communication. After all, who doesn't love a little bit of time to space out and recharge? This way, we don't have to feel guilty about taking what we need, when we need it, without feeling like we're neglecting each other.
Everything in life is about balance, especially when it comes to relationships. Time away from each other, whether it's with friends or just time by ourselves zoning out with our phones, means that we're more excited when we get back together. It also means we have more to talk about — we can talk about how our days went, what we learned, and what we laughed with our friends about.
I show up better in my relationship after I take time to recharge, readjust, and realign. It means we can be more intentional with our time together and continue solidifying our relationship's building blocks. Conversations and communication remain crucial to the health of our relationship, and "rot time" helps us decompress.
