A person with a backup plan experiences the same pressure differently.

A backup plan does not change what is happening. It changes what the situation can do to you, and therefore how you experience it. The pressure becomes a difficulty rather than a threat, and people think more clearly and behave better when the ground beneath them is not in question.

Work out what you would do if the current arrangement ended. Make it concrete enough to be believable. You may never use it, and having it will change how the next hard week feels.