A shared routine should leave each person with some part of the day that feels like their own.

Shared life can be so well coordinated that nobody has any unclaimed hours left. Every slot belongs to a joint activity or an obligation, and the result is a household that runs smoothly while both people feel faintly absent from their own lives. A portion of the day that answers to one person is not a withdrawal from the partnership. It is part of what keeps someone recognizable inside it.

Work out which stretch of the day each of you would choose if it were free, and protect those two stretches. They can be short, and they need to be genuinely undirected.