How do you keep a marriage alive while full time work, full time parenting, and anticipating bankruptcy?!?

[Amazonmulu]

How do you keep a marriage alive while each of you is working very long days, plus parenting a 5yo, anticipating partners bankruptcy, living hundreds of miles from family, and in Tier 3 lockdown so can't practically see friends or let baby sitters.

I'm just about staving off a nervous breakdown (thanks Covid) but I never seem to see OH. We've not had a date night since February.

Not helped that the pandemic has driven his business to the brink so that he is doing long long hours to keep it going.

I'm rambling 🙈

Does anyone have ideas or suggestions for what we can do to connect in this crazy world? I'm sure I'm not the only one in this boat! Tell me how are you managing it?

Can you carve out ten-twenty minutes sometime after the kid is in bed just to sit in the kitchen together, no telly, no screens, and a cup of Horlicks or something? If you're too tire to talk just hold hands even.

Next door neighbour with 4 kids swore by something similar.

Text messages. When life is similarly full on i make sure i message my DH at least once a day and tell him i love him/am thinking of him/am grateful for him etc etc. It's not as good as time together but it keeps us connected when we can't do it the old fashioned way.

Why can't you make time for each other? Dh and I both work full-time, dh running a business that is all hours and me in a career that is pretty much every waking hour. We have 2 dc. We have no financial worries, so I acknowledge that's an added pressure. But we spend every weekend together. If you can't do weekend days because he is working every day, then Friday/Saturday/Sunday evenings. I can't tell you the last time we went out at night for a date night (before youngest was born and he's nearly 3!). But we have a nice dinner together at home and talk every Friday and Saturday after dc are in bed. It means that time for friends or nights out for ourselves are not frequent, but we do make time for friends on occasion, but our main priority is our relationship and our family in what little time we have together (we literally work til 10-11pm every other night as soon as dc are in bed).

We also take days off midweek while dc are in school/nursery for lunch and to spend time together. Again, if he is working loads, then this may be more tricky, but if he's already going bankrupt, surely a random Wednesday off to spend the day with you and have a nice lunch together (at home, if you can't go anywhere), is going to make little difference. He can make up the time another day. We do it a few times a year, I take annual leave, dh just closes up for the day.