The small pleasure you protect together can become a reliable part of a difficult week.

In hard stretches, the first things dropped are usually the small good ones. The Friday takeaway and the walk after dinner look expendable next to everything urgent, and cutting them leaves a week made entirely of obligation. Keeping one fixed pleasure is a way of keeping the week habitable.

Agree with someone on a single small thing that will happen whatever else is going on. Make it short and easy enough to survive a bad day. When everything else is being rearranged, let this one stay where it is, and notice how much you both come to rely on it.