CNN recently disclose few ways married people could survive this period of social distancing. While speaking with several Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, clinical psychologists and married people about how to make sure marriage isn’t a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.
Communication
The secret to any healthy relationship is communication.
It’s true under normal circumstances, and in the time of coronavirus. For some, this might mean periodic huddles to deliver updates on what’s coming next. For others, it could be a daily check-in that rates how each partner feels physically and internally.
Michele Weiner-Davis, a marriage and family therapist in Boulder, Colorado, said it doesn’t matter as much how couples communicate during a coronavirus shelter-in-place, but simply that they try to do so.
“The biggest challenges I’ve faced so far are the cases in which both spouses are looking at what’s going on with different lenses—one person thinks the sky is falling and the other thinks people are making a big deal about it,” said Weiner-Davis, who also has a busy teletherapy practice.
“When people have different perspectives, they have different ideas of what needs to be done, and the only way to work around that is to communicate.”
Embrace space
Most spouses spend the bulk of every day apart, at least one partner leaves the house to go to work. Now, however, due to companies ordering employees to work from home and government-mandated lockdowns, both partners are required to spend almost all their time under the same roof.
Particularly for couples who live in smaller homes, this scenario can make it feel like neither partner has much (or any) personal space.
For this reason, many experts suggest acknowledging the importance of alone time. Alev Ates-Barlas, an LMFT in upstate New York, said she tries to teach members of a couple to identify whether they are individuals who need a partner to engage them in order to regulate their own emotions, or individuals who find comfort in regulating on their own.
“It is important that couples know where you fall in these two categories so that you don’t end up assuming your need for regulation is actually your partner’s need,” she said.
Establish routines
Nobody is quite familiar with the “new normal” of social distancing yet, and with news about the pandemic changing rapidly, every day brings with it a new reality.
Amid this constant tumult, Lee Miller, a marriage and family therapist in West Los Angeles, said it’s wise to create new routines to give life meaning and purpose beyond the mundane. Specifically, Miller said to assign roles for each day: who cooks, who cleans, who answers the phone, and so on.
“This is not even close to a typical situation, which means there are a number of different roles both partners are going to have to play while they’re working through the current reality,” she said. “It’s critically important to schedule time to sit down and talk about what your expectations are of each other during this time.”
Get therapy
All this advice is a good start. For more comprehensive assistance in dealing with difficult and potentially sensitive situations, it’s always a good idea to seek a new relationship with a trained therapist.
Holly Daniels, managing director of clinical affairs for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, said regular therapy can help people work through even the most intense anxiety.
“Just having someone to talk to, someone who can help you work through some of these difficult issues, is invaluable,” said Daniels, a therapist with a private practice in Los Angeles. “Now more than ever, therapists are becoming indispensable for giving people the tools they need to get through any situation.”
Thankfully, today it’s easier than ever to connect with a therapist.
As of March 17, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, which enforces the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), said it would not impose penalties against covered providers for noncompliance with the HIPAA rules that relate to provision of telehealth services during this time.
That means that a provider who needs to provide telehealth services to their patients during this time may use platforms that would otherwise not be HIPAA-compliant, such as Zoom, FaceTime or Skype. Many state governments made similar decrees.
Don’t push for sex
No, having sex with your partner isn’t going to increase your odds of getting coronavirus.
Still, according to Britney Blair, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist in Northern California, you may find that sexual desire in the time of coronavirus falls short of what it usually is, since stress hampers libido for about 85 percent of us.
Blair, added that the only way around this obstacle is to create a safe and comforting environment with no strings attached.
Specifically, Blair noted that nagging or shaming your partner into sex will leave both parties feeling low.
Focus on the little things
It’s easy to become overwhelmed with existential dread in the face of this pandemic, which changes daily.
This panicked state only further complicates your relationship with your partner. Instead of allowing yourself to be triggered, take a deep breath and focus on the little things especially those you can appreciate with your spouse.
Rob Bhatt, a writer in Seattle, says he and his wife, a mental health counselor, have done just this, embracing the extra time they get to spend together by living in a region that issued shelter-in-place orders earlier this month.
Culled from CNN
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