Love in the Time of COVID: 3 Guidelines to Strengthen Your Partnership
by Lacy Tannous, Associate Marriage and Family Therapist and Associate Professional Clinical Counselor
Being in a loving and intimate partnership will have its ups and downs. But keeping love afloat during a pandemic? Suddenly, you’re navigating the kind of stressful seas that can sink relationships.
In this article, I highlight 3 key guidelines to place at the forefront of your relationship today so that you can stay strong for tomorrow.
As I reveal these 3 guidelines, follow along to see how Alex and Jo, a couple of 10 years and the parents of 2 young children, put these principles into practice.
Forget the who, focus on the what.
When things go wrong, and they inevitably will, it’s natural to search for the responsible party. However, your partner is not your enemy. Regardless of who forgot to pick up dinner supplies or arrange childcare, try to step back from blame. Shift your attention instead to the issue at hand. Placing the problem at the center of your discussion is a step towards connection.
Imagine for a moment that Alex and Jo are taking turns cooking dinner during the week. On Alex’s night, there are no dinner ingredients in the refrigerator. Alex quickly blames Jo for using up the chicken nuggets earlier that week. Jo responds by faulting Alex for not mentioning all the ingredients they would need at the store. For both Jo and Alex, an understandable slip-up creates a big problem: four hungry mouths and no food to fill them!
Before a disagreement escalates into an argument, pivot the focus from “who” to “what”. Trying to decide who’s at fault for the lack of food won’t fill anyone’s stomachs. Alex and Jo may feel like it’s worthwhile to point fingers, but the problem remains. There’s still no dinner on the table! Instead of blame, the couple can focus their energy on the issue at hand with a phrase like, “Let’s figure out the dinner plan now and get to the bottom of what happened later.” Once the problem is identified, it’s much easier to work towards a solution.
Using this pivot from “who” to “what”, Alex and Jo move away from dangerous who-did-it territory and come to a compromise that works for both of them. Alex agrees to make a salad at home while Jo decides to pick up some chicken sandwiches from their family’s favorite spot.
Love is the fire, intimacy is the fuel.
When stress increases, intimacy is often the first aspect of a couple’s relationship to disappear. Yet intimacy is exactly what sets a couple’s relationship apart from the other relationships in life. Without it, love can fizzle into tolerance. Did you know that one of Oxford Language’s definitions for intimacy includes “a private, cozy atmosphere”? Stay-at-home orders don’t make it easy to find privacy, but couples can increase intimacy when they make the effort to create an atmosphere that differs from the everyday.
For Alex and Jo, since the pandemic began, they’ve sorely missed hiring a caregiver and going for dinners out at their favorite restaurant. Their weekly date nights used to mean a special excursion outside of the home. Now, date nights mean watching multiple episodes of the newest Netflix series, from the couch.
It’s important to keep a spark of creativity going in order to maintain a sense of closeness and excitement about the relationship.
Alex and Jo can put intimacy into practice by drawing up a list of local eateries and choosing a new spot for takeout when time and money allows. This practice may require adjusting some boundaries, such as the kids’ bedtime, in order to carve out an extra hour for a “just us” dinner. If putting the kids to bed early isn’t an option, try walking to a coffee spot together in the morning or ordering separate “adult” meals to share with one another.
Struggle now, strength later.
Good news: all of this hard relational work is not for nothing. Going through something as difficult as a pandemic adds resiliency to your relationship. Like building muscle through weight lifting, resiliency is a quality that will continue to reap a harvest of strength over the course of your relationship.
Resiliency in a relationship is a required skill. It requires going through the tough moments in order to know how to survive the struggle with your partnership intact. COVID-19 may not be around forever, but struggles in one form or another certainly will. Set time aside regularly to focus on the wins that are happening right now in your relationship.
What have you learned about each other during this time? How have your needs changed as your way of life has shifted? Reflecting together on the impact of the pandemic can actually help to build your trust in the enduring strength of your relationship.
Knowing the power of resiliency to strengthen their bond, Alex and Jo spend a few minutes each Sunday to check in with each other and share what’s been working in their relationship and what hasn’t. They increase connection by being open with one another and asking for help from support systems like family, friends, and therapy.
Remember: you do not have to walk this road alone. When reflecting on your relationship feels too overwhelming, reach out to a therapist at Sync for support. We’re ready to help your relationship thrive– even in a pandemic.