19 February 2023
Holding on to love through loss: how communication, intimacy and acts of love have helped one couple to navigate tough times
WRITER: LAUREN JACKSON
PHOTOGRAPHER: FRANCINE BOER
Elise Jaunay and Matt Salle have navigated the darkest of times in their nearly three-year relationship, including multiple miscarriages. We sat down with Elise to talk about how they make time for intimacy and follow their own unique relationship rules.
Elise, who works as a fencer – a physically challenging job primarily done by men – met Matt, who runs an engineering business, at a wedding, but it wasn’t until Aotearoa’s nationwide 2020 lockdown that they started messaging each other. Newly single, Matt couldn’t stop thinking about Elise. “We chatted for three months, then we met again in person and we haven’t been apart since,” smiles Elise.
Elise was raised and home-schooled as the eighth child of eleven in a large, religious family. She has since stepped away from religion and worked hard to reshape her views on sex, which had been a taboo subject growing up – sex was for procreation; there was no talk of pleasure. Elise still battles ingrained guilt about aspects of intimacy. “I did throw myself through some serious crap with boys that could have been avoided if I’d gone to counselling and unravelled it in a healthier way,” she says. “There are always things coming up. I’m constantly changing my thought patterns.”
By the time they met, both Elise, 27, and Matt, 31, had taken lessons from previous relationships. “We knew exactly what we wanted,” says Elise. Authenticity and self-knowledge are important to the couple. “How can you expect your partner to please you, if you don’t know what pleases you?” asks Elise. It helps that Matt, like Elise, is comfortable speaking openly about intimacy. “We talk about what we like and how we like it. We’re both very straight-up people, which is helpful,” she says. They have learned each other’s love languages – the concept of giving each other love in the ways that it is best received – and laid down relationship ground-rules very early on.
In those early days, Elise and Matt quickly discovered that generally they speak quite different love languages. But they persevered. “When times get tough, we need to be speaking the other person’s love language,” says Elise. Elise’s natural instinct is to express love through gifts and acts of service. She makes Matt’s lunch every day, even if they’re having a bad day. She struggles with Matt’s preferred love language – words of affirmation. Nevertheless, she composes long, loving messages to Matt, “even though it feels like a copy and paste job.” Elise confesses that she sometimes needs a nudge – she isn’t naturally one to dish out praise, let alone repeat it. “But it’s nice, and it means the world to him,” she smiles. If she gently hints to Matt that he hasn’t spoken her love language in a while, he’ll clean or do something around the house. “I’m like, ‘Ah, that’s better,’” laughs Elise.
Luckily, Matt and Elise do share one love language – quality time. Cooking dinner together is a time to debrief and catch up. “You feel like you’re sharing the load, as well,” says Elise. Matt enjoys hunting and Elise is happy to go along. “I find it sexy, and he’s stoked that he’s in love with the girlfriend that comes hunting with him!” Elise’s favourite ways to spend time with Matt are taking quiet evening walks and going out for breakfast.
Elise admits there are times when things get rocky, and the couple has created some rules to maintain their close bond. She reveals that they don’t wear pyjamas. “I discovered it was impossible to argue if you’re both sitting there naked looking at each other, because you look ridiculous! Even if we’ve got people in the house, we sleep naked. When we’re staying somewhere, we sleep naked. It’s just what we do, and it’s helped tremendously.”
Another tip the couple is happy to share is the ‘ten-minute cuddle’ rule. Elise and Matt set aside ten minutes at the start and end of each day to cuddle and talk. “And normally, if you’re cuddling naked, things lead on,” laughs Elise. “When you’re busy, the sex fizzles, and without the sex I notice we lose connection pretty fast – if you’re not connecting on that deeper level.” Matt instigates the night-time cuddles, because this is when Elise is at her lowest ebb. “Even when I’m grumpy, we cuddle. Then I have to loosen up.” If the couple argues, Elise says that she tends to fall back into childhood patterns of emotionally shutting down to protect herself. The cuddle rule helps Elise open up to Matt. “It’s been crucial – very fundamental in our relationship. And I think it’d work for a lot of people,” she muses.
Elise believes many couples struggle with the fear of being vulnerable. “But you can’t communicate without vulnerability,” she points out. “If you can’t communicate about your pain, the problem’s going to be unresolved and get bigger and bigger.” It was honest communication that pulled Elise back from the precipice of overwhelming grief last year. “I went into a pretty dark place in the winter,” she says quietly.
Elise and Matt had experienced their third pregnancy loss in two years. “The first one was a year and a bit in,” remembers Elise. The pregnancy was unexpected and ended with a miscarriage at six weeks. “I was driving tractors for maize, and I’d start crying. I didn’t understand why I was randomly emotional, and then I realised I’d lost a part of me that I didn’t realise was a part of me already.” The loss inspired Elise and Matt to start trying for a baby, and Elise quickly conceived again. However, a ten-week scan showed no heartbeat, and Elise suffered another miscarriage two weeks later. “No one knows – they don’t realise – it’s pretty much a mini birth,” says Elise. “It’s very, very painful – without results.” A week later, Elise and Matt went up to Lake Ōhau. “I built a snowman and dedicated a name, Oslo, to that one. I said goodbye.”
What should have been Elise’s March due date with the second baby was approaching. She felt resentful towards friends who were pregnant and worried her feelings might hurt them. One of these friends reassured Elise, saying, “It’s not about me. It’s the anguish of your loss.” When Elise discovered she was pregnant again, she was overjoyed and convinced this baby would help heal her. When she lost her third pregnancy at fourteen weeks, it absolutely broke her, Elise says. “You’re like, ‘Why me?’” She has discovered that the grief of pregnancy loss is a long process. “It just keeps rearing up, and it’s unpredictable.” Elise has named all her babies – Liesl, Oslo and Stevie. She doesn’t know their genders, but has a sense. “I could be wrong, but it doesn’t matter,” she says. “They will always be a part of me, and I want to remember them forever.”
Of course, Matt was also grieving, and he gave Elise time and space to process these losses. Then, six months after the loss of their third child, he gently told Elise it was time to pick herself up and start looking after herself. It was what he said next that was hardest for Elise to hear – her behaviour was unpleasant, and she was making those around her suffer. At first Elise was outraged – she was in pain; Matt couldn’t say that! Then, she realised he was right. Turning to her dogs, cats and art as therapy, she began to pull herself out of the darkness.
Elise hadn’t been in the right headspace for intimacy, and had to remind herself that sex wasn’t just about making babies – it was a way to connect with Matt. “I knew deep down if we started making love again, even if I didn’t feel like it, he’d be more attentive again. There were definitely stages where it was a lot of work to make it happen, but we got through it.”
It’s been a gruelling couple of years both physically and mentally, and Elise plans to cut back on fencing work this year to rest and recover. She’ll also support Matt, helping him run his new business. They’ve experienced both beauty and pain in their relationship, but Elise sees them as flipsides of the same coin. “Without the beauty, I wouldn’t have been able to feel the pain,” she says. “We wouldn’t have been able to cry together. He wouldn’t have been able to sit there and let me express how I’m feeling, and see me in my dark place, and accept me without shutting off. And then this would be a whole different journey.” Elise and Matt are excited about their future together – with all its joys and challenges. “I’m hoping we have the foundation to last a lifetime,” Elise smiles.
This story is part of THREAD, a year-long project by Shepherdess made possible thanks to the Public Interest Journalism Fund through NZ On Air.
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