Lifestyle

Keeping your Relationship Fresh As COVID-19 Lingers On

Published

4 years ago

March 26, 2021

If you’ve been living with your significant other during the COVID-19 pandemic, it probably hasn’t been easy. It has nothing to do with your love for one another, it’s been tough for everyone. When you are both seeing friends and family less, cooped up in the house, it changes the dynamic of the relationship.

To keep everything right between the two people in the relationship, it is imperative to keep it fresh. It can be difficult when date nights are kept indoors and the atmosphere is confined to your home. Still there are ways to keep long-term relationships fresh and make sure that your love stays alive during this difficult time.

Plan Activities

One of the most important things to do for your relationship is to plan activities together. While you might have a lot of free time, you should utilize it and make plans to do things in the evenings and on the weekends. Of course there are less things to do, but if you take a hike, have a picnic, play a game, or do something else, you’ll have new things to talk about. Not only does planning activities spark conversation, it will keep the flame alive.

Spend Some Time Apart

Spending time doing activities is crucial, but so is spending time apart. Create your own space where you can go to be alone if your partner is home, but you should also plan to go out alone. All the activities you can do together you can do apart as well. You can take walks alone. You can see friends for physically distanced visits. You can take a drive. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you’re doing but that you’re doing it. Stay appreciative of each other by spending some much-needed time apart.

Make Staying Home Special

Even when you’re simply staying home together, you should do your best to make it special. Have a movie night. Dress up for dinner. Splurge and order take out that you love. Share a bottle of wine. There are so many ways to make each night special, even if you’re staying in. It may seem silly to get dressed up to stay home, but if you create a mood with nice clothes, candles, and special meals, you’ll feel like you did something different. Take up baking! Teach each other something! It isn’t hard if you try to make every day and night a little different.

Shake it Up in the Bedroom

Of course another way to keep your relationship new is to keep the bedroom fresh. Talk about trying new things and giving them a shot. Try role playing if you don’t feel too silly. Get intimate at new times and in new ways. You can even take a look at sex toys and accessories. When you take the time to buy a vibrator sex toy or something else, you will shake up your sex life and keep the relationship vibrant.

Talk About the Future

Finally, another way to keep the relationship new is to talk about the future. Life has felt like it’s on hold since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but that’s not true. Life will go on no matter what until we die. Not only can you make COVID-safe plans for the near-future, you can talk about the future after the virus is under control. Of course the “when this is over” mindset isn’t a good way to go about this, talking about ideas for your future together will give you some hope and will brighten up the relationship.

It hasn’t been easy over the last year. Living with a partner can be difficult when you can’t do things in public and don’t see as many people as you used to. Still, you’d probably be with the person you love the most than alone during this anxious and stressful time. Dedicate yourself to keeping your relationship alive and injecting it with passion and romance. These are just a few ideas to do that, but you can also come up with your own. Putting in the effort is the key. If both of you are trying to make sure that you are happy and in love, you will be okay. You will get through this together.

Lifestyle

Derik Fay: The Quiet Architect of Impact-First Entrepreneurship

Published

14 hours ago

May 8, 2025

Michelle Langton

In an era where noise often overshadows results, Derik Fay is quietly shaping a different kind of legacy — one built not on showmanship, but on undeniable substance. For more than two decades, Fay has engineered the rise of over 30 companies across industries as diverse as real estate, technology, healthcare, and entertainment. Yet his name rarely leads headlines — not because he hasn’t earned it, but because he never needed it to validate his success.

Growing up in Rhode Island, Fay learned early that the world rarely hands out opportunity; it must be seized, created, and multiplied. While many of his peers pursued traditional paths, he took a risk that would define the rest of his life: at just 22, he founded 3F Management, a venture firm with an entirely different mission — to build companies that would outlast trends, outperform markets, and, most importantly, out-impact their competition.

Instead of obsessing over short-term wins, Fay approached entrepreneurship like a craftsman. Much like Henry Ford, who famously said, “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business,” Fay built companies that weren’t just profitable — they were purposeful. Every venture was designed to create real, sustainable value, both for shareholders and for the communities they served.

Through his relentless focus on structure and leadership, Fay’s ecosystem of businesses now touches thousands of lives daily — from employees finding new opportunities to entrepreneurs gaining the mentorship they never had before. But unlike typical moguls who boast about headcounts, Fay views every job created as a ripple in a larger mission: empowering individuals to write better futures for themselves.

Where others have scaled fast and crashed harder, Fay’s model thrives on foundations few are patient enough to build anymore. His method is slower, smarter, and almost surgical: find what others overlook, fix what others fear, and grow what others abandoned too early. It’s this principle that led him to not just build companies — but to resurrect them, reimagine them, and sometimes even walk away if the mission no longer aligned with the impact he envisioned.

Fay’s philosophy extends far beyond boardrooms. Philanthropy isn’t a checkbox at the end of his success story — it’s embedded into the way he scales. His ventures are built with giving back written into their DNA, from local community initiatives to broader mentorship platforms that help emerging entrepreneurs get their first real shot at success. His life’s work is proof that wealth and generosity are not mutually exclusive — they are, in fact, essential partners.

Today, while newer generations of entrepreneurs hustle for likes and magazine covers, Fay’s name is whispered in rooms where real power moves. His reputation — built quietly but relentlessly — is that of a man who delivers, builds, and elevates without the need for public validation.

In a business world increasingly built on spectacle, Derik Fay reminds us that the most lasting legacies are forged not in the glare of the spotlight, but in the thousands of lives changed quietly along the way.

For more insights into Derik Fay’s ventures and philanthropic efforts, visit www.derikfay.com and follow him on Instagram @derikfay