COVID-19 & Relationships

How COVID-19 Exacerbates Relationship Issues

Close, supportive relationships are a vital element of total health and well-being, as well as a source of strength in times of hardship; however, COVID-19, with its extreme stressors and ongoing uncertainty, is potentially damaging to relationship health.^1,2 Poor relationship health can negatively impact people’s mental health. Studies have shown that people experiencing relationship problems are at higher risk for mood and anxiety disorders.³

To determine how COVID-19 is impacting relationships and to identify protective factors (actions and perspectives that enhance relationship quality), a team of researchers in the U.S., Canada, and Amsterdam initiated the Love in the Time of COVIDproject, an ongoing study that gathers data through structured online surveys and follow-up questionnaires.^1,2,4,5,6

Another study of 654 individuals in the U.S. involved in a romantic relationship examined changes in relationships in order to better understand the effect of the pandemic on couples.⁷ In addition to studies such as these, relationship experts and couples therapists observed ways in which COVID-19 is exacerbating relationship issues. Distinct challenges have emerged from these formal studies, professional observations, and reported experiences from couples during this pandemic .

These unique relationship challenges include:

Stress Spillover

Stress spillover is a concept that captures the impact of outside stressors on relationships. Studies have repeatedly shown that outside challenges negatively affect relationships and the way people function in them; for instance, when faced with stressful situations, people tend to have fewer positive interactions in their relationships and engage in more negative and divisive behaviors.¹ The continued pandemic is a chronic and intense stressor that is interfering in the way people perceive and interact in their relationships.¹

Simultaneous Stress

Often in relationships, there is a balance; commonly, one partner may be under unusual stress while the other is not.⁸ This means that one partner is in a position to nurture and support the person who is experiencing more strife. The coronavirus-induced crisis, though, has disrupted this balance so that both partners are likely experiencing significant stress simultaneously. Compounding this challenge is the fact that this isn’t a short-lived situation. Couples are experiencing simultaneous stress on an ongoing basis with an end point that remains elusive and uncertain.⁹

Social Isolation

Widespread and long-lasting isolation orders have decreased opportunities for meaningful connection and interaction, and a sense of loneliness has permeated lives. Research indicates that a sense of disconnection from outside sources is reducing relationship satisfaction and commitment.¹ One reason for this may be the forced and artificially imposed nature of our current social isolation.⁷ Often after a crisis, loved ones choose to seek each other and band together for comfort and mutual help; however, the COVID crisis is unique in that people are ordered to remain as family units, staying in place together, and it isn’t short-lived but is ongoing with no known endpoint.⁷

Social isolation is also creating an unwelcomed sense of monotony for many couples.¹⁰ People no longer have outside, separate interactions. Individuals in a relationship only have each other for daily physical interaction and thus lack variety. There are no interesting, unique stories or sharing of different daily experiences to bring home and share with each other. Further, couples are struggling even to get out to do their ordinary activities together, such as working out together at a gym or eating out at a restaurant.⁸ This monotony is taxing on relationships and souring the notion of shared lives.

Financial Strain

According to the American Psychological Association, financial issues are one of the top sources of relationship conflict.¹¹ Job loss or reduced hours and financial struggles have increased because of COVID-19.^6,7,8 The World Trade Organization has stated that the pandemic has caused massive economic upheaval across the globe.¹ Money issues, already a common source of discord for couples, have increased significantly because of the coronavirus situation, adding an additional layer of stress and strife onto relationships.

Health Anxiety

At its core, COVID-19 is a health crisis. A new, highly infectious strain of SARS coronavirus is threatening health, livelihoods, and life itself. Medical concerns have become a part of many couples’ discussions and decisions, as worries about their own health and the health of loved ones are keeping couples on edge.^7,8 Caring for sick loved ones, too, can become a source of relationship stress, especially when one partner must break isolation orders to do so, possibly exposing the other to the virus.

Boundaries

Healthy boundaries are important in all relationships. They allow each person to have a sense of themselves as individuals so they can function well in relationships. Relationships are shared lives rather than one single life lived by two people, but COVID-19 has changed this.

Couples are facing challenges to healthy boundaries in several ways:

• Because outside support systems are less accessible due to pandemic restrictions, couples must rely on each other as their primary and prolonged source of support. Combined with the simultaneous stress and stress spillover discussed above, this can be taxing and an increased source of relationship conflict.⁷
• When both individuals are home together constantly, there is a lack of personal space and privacy.^8,9 Many couples face a sense of increased quantity of time spent together but decreased quality.
• Working from home makes the mental and physical separation of “work” and “home” disappear.⁷ The lack of boundaries between different facets of life makes it difficult to maintain normal routines and intentionally distinct “work time” and “couple time.”

Distribution of Household Responsibilities & Childcare

While living together and maintaining a relationship, people also must balance new responsibilities and ways of living. Zoom meetings and work projects coincide with household responsibilities and, in the case of parenthood, caring for children and helping kids juggle their responsibilities in this new way of living, working, and attending school. When both couples face work responsibilities, deciding who is going to keep the kids focused in their online classes, who will help with homework, who will prepare meals, who will clean and do laundry—and when they’re going to work it in—adds an unprecedented layer of stress on relationships.¹⁰

Communication

Maintaining open, positive communication can be difficult in relationships strained by COVID-related problems.^9,12 Stress, anxiety, and tensions are high, resulting in emotional reactions and arguments. Further, because of this ongoing survival mode, couples trying to survive may find the idea of intimate communication and showing vulnerability to be difficult. Consequently, many couples are finding that they’re withdrawing from each other emotionally as they just try to juggle all of the pandemic-related challenges. Deep, intimate conversations are often replaced with short, often tense, conversations about practical matters of living through a pandemic.

Trust Issues Around the Pandemic

COVID-19 and its related regulations have become a source of tension and disagreement among some couples. Not everyone is in agreement about the nature of COVID and the forced regulations. Some people fear the worst and avoid exposure at all costs, attempting complete isolation and expecting their partners to do the same, while others don’t believe that the risks are as bad as people are led to believe and thus are more active and less likely to follow regulations such as social distancing and mask wearing. When these opposite views exist in a relationship, resentment, trust issues, and fighting are likely to occur.^12,13

Relationships are indeed frequently challenged by COVID-19. It’s important to note, however, that the situation isn’t entirely doom-and-gloom. Relationship discord during the pandemic is prevalent, but not a given. In the ongoing Love in the Time of COVID study, some couples are reporting increased relationship stress, whereas others are indicating feeling increased connection and a sense of togetherness.⁴ The study of 654 individuals involved in a romantic partnership found that some couples have experienced positive changes, including feeling more forgiving of their partner’s transgressions and imperfections, and more willing to attribute their partner’s negative behaviors to the stressful pandemic situation rather than on personal character flaws.⁷

10 Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Relationship at Home During the Pandemic

Research has shown that close, supportive relationships are valuable resources for health and well-being.² A study into the connection between mental health and relationship quality during COVID-19 revealed that the quality of someone’s relationship with their partner (not just simply being in a relationship) is directly tied to their mental health.³

Use these 10 tips to foster closeness with your partner and maintain a healthy relationship while you’re at home together as the pandemic continues:

1. Discover Ways to Support Each Other

Support involves awareness of each other’s reactions, thoughts, and feelings as well as recognizing and understanding words and behaviors are often affected by the ongoing stress of the pandemic.⁸ Instead of taking your partner’s words or actions personally and reacting to irritability or criticism in kind, pause and take a deep breath to reset so you can approach them with openness, flexibility, and empathy. Mention to them that they seem stressed or upset and ask what would be helpful in this moment. When you both agree to approach each other in this way, you foster support and connection rather than disapproval and dissent.

Another practical way of supporting each other is to work together to list the most stressful things about home life during the pandemic and then creating a go-to list of tools and strategies for dealing with these stressors.⁹ Doing this helps you each feel heard and understood. It also gives you actions to take to defuse problematic situations before they escalate out of control. Approaching this pandemic as a team who seeks to help each other get through this together is good for your relationship as well as your individual mental health.

2. Learn to Be Responsive

In surveying nearly 3,600 participants between March 27 and April 24, 2020 as part of their continuing Love in the Time of COVID study, researchers uncovered an important key to strong relationships: perceived partner responsiveness.¹ Perceived partner responsiveness refers to the degree to which people believe their intimate partner is caring and understanding, validating their feelings rather than dismissing or belittling them. It’s a protective factor that serves as a buffer between stress spillover—even the extreme stressors of COVID-19. When both partners perceive each other as responsive and understanding, it’s easier to navigate simultaneous stress in a positive, healthy manner.

In a study examining how couples can more deeply connect during the COVID crisis, a team of researchers found that merely spending time together isn’t enough to foster deep connection.¹⁴ In the study, participants either watched a movie together and participated in a discussion or engaged in an intervention in which they learned awareness, courage, and love (ACL) to be more responsive and loving with each other. The couples who watched a movie together experienced only a two percent increase in their sense of closeness, whereas the ACL group bumped up their connection by 23%.

You can apply the principles of acceptance, courage, and love in your own relationship with your partner to foster responsiveness and deeper connection by implementing some of the ACL techniques used in the study:

• Improve your eye contact: Looking at each other and maintaining eye contact with each other is more responsive than looking elsewhere (especially at a phone or other screen) while you’re talking with each other.
• Open your hearts: Talk about your relationship in its best moments, reminisce about fond memories, and make plans for goals you want to achieve together now and post-pandemic.
• Make responsive listening a priority: Have regular check-ins and conversations in which you each share your concerns. Simply listen and ask how you can be supportive. You don’t have to try to fix problems on the spot.
• Accept each other: Know that stress and anxiety are high right now, and approach each other with understanding. Avoid taking reactions personally, and drop expectations for your partner to behave a certain way. Replace criticism with compassion. (Note: This does not mean tolerating toxic or abusive behavior. If your partner is abusive, take measures to ensure your safety and make plans to leave the toxic relationship. Learn more about abusive relationships here. You can also receive immediate help by calling 9-1-1 or reaching out 24/7 to the National Domestic Violence Hotline (U.S.) online or by calling 1-800-799-7233.)

3. Communicate Mindfully

Being supportive and responsive involves good communication. Attentive listening is crucial.⁵ This means being mindful with each other, fully present as you talk to each other or generally spend intentional time together rather than being distracted or trying to multitask. If your partner is emotional or a situation is heated, call a time-out. Go to separate spaces if possible. Even if you can’t physically separate, pause and take some deep breaths to reset.

Entering a discussion feeling strong emotions can often worsen tensions.¹³ Instead, adopt what in Buddhism is called a beginner’s mind. A beginner has no preconceived notions, no judgments to impose on a new situation. Each conversation with your partner is a new one. Rather than coming to a discussion in order to force an agenda or convince your partner of something, approach your partner and the situation openly and with curiosity, seeing how the conversation unfolds and calmly responding to each other rather than reacting emotionally.

4. Develop a Routine Together

The pandemic and its accompanying restrictions have thrown everyone off balance. Familiar, comfortable routines have been suspended. To reduce stress and return a sense of calm order to your household, work with your partner to create structure and routine. Routines provide structure and a sense of regularity.⁵ Your shared responsibilities and, if you have children in the home, childcare adventures, will become much more organized and less stressful when you develop a workable structure together.

As you develop a COVID-19 routine, be sure to purposefully include daily opportunities for self-care for each of you.¹⁰ Because of the stress and upheaval of the pandemic, self-care is paramount, but it’s also too easy to let that move to the bottom of your enormous to-do list. Building your schedule around regular sleep-wake times and carving out intentional time for breaks during the day will help you maintain positive mental health despite the pandemic.

5. Establish Boundaries

As explored above, one of the most difficult challenges of living together—constantly—is the lack of boundaries. Make space and time for each of you to have some alone time each day.¹⁵ Also, limit your workday. When working from home, it’s easy to blur the line between “work” and “home.” If possible, create a distinct work space. Set reasonable time limits for work, too. No matter what your boundaries look like for you and your partner (there isn’t a specific formula because everyone’s situation is unique), make a pact to enforce these boundaries every day.

6. Make Fun a Priority

“Fun” and “pandemic” are not concepts that naturally go together. This is precisely why it’s vital for your well-being and relationship health to be purposeful about incorporating fun into your life together. You may not have access to what you normally do for enjoyment, so come together to brainstorm a variety of new activities and ways to spend your free time: think of new hobbies, new healthy foods to make and eat, and new areas to explore—the key is variety to keep things fresh and fun and to break the sense of monotony that isolation has created.¹⁰ Instead of fixating on what you can’t do, seize this chance to feed your curiosity and discover new interests.¹⁵

7. Get Out & Experience Nature

As you and your partner create a growing list of fun things to do together, consider adding outdoor activities. Spending time in nature, even as little as 15 minutes a day, has been shown to reduce stress as well as enhance positive connections.^5,10 If you don’t have access to the outdoors right now, incorporate nature into your inside routine with photos or artwork involving a peaceful outdoor setting or documentaries or other nature videos to evoke a sense of inner serenity.⁵

8. Stay Connected to Others

Now more than ever, it’s important to have a varied support system.¹⁰ In forced isolation, couples are having to turn to each other as their sole source of encouragement and support. While this can indeed bring you closer together, especially if you are responsive to each other’s needs and feelings and actively seek positive ways to comfort and help each other, the ongoing nature of the pandemic can make this taxing and draining. Maintaining connection with friends, family, and coworkers, even if it is via devices rather than in person, is healthy for your intimate relationship with your partner.¹⁰

9. Initiate Intimacy

Given the persistent and pervasive stress and monotony of the pandemic, it’s easy to let intimacy fall to the bottom of the priority list. Feeling intimate may be difficult, and acting on it may be tough, too, with disrupted schedules and everyone around all the time. Connecting deeply and rekindling desire, though, is an essential part of love.⁷ Make eye contact with each other as you go about your day and as you spend quality time together. Spend time cuddling and kissing to feel close and re-create passion.¹⁵ Sexual health is an important component of overall relationship health, so nurture it intentionally to bring you closer together.

10. Get Some Couples Counseling

Whether you and your partner are struggling to find common ground and keep your relationship going or you just need a minor tune-up to get you past the COVID rut, reaching out for professional help can make a positive difference in the quality of your relationship. Couples therapy is a useful tool for strengthening relationships.¹⁰ It’s still available during the pandemic, often via telehealth appointments. See below for more information about couples counseling.

Relationship Concerns While Living Apart During COVID-19

While living together during this pandemic can strain couples and present unique challenges, living apart during COVID-19 can also be difficult. Maintaining a sense of closeness when you can’t physically spend time with your partner might sometimes feel impossible. If you and your partner haven’t been able to be together during these long months of social isolation and quarantine, know that it’s normal and understandable to question whether maintaining a relationship is feasible or even desirable.

The following concerns are among common challenges couples living apart are facing during COVID-19:

Incomplete Responsiveness

Perceived partner responsiveness is a crucial component to healthy relationships. When someone believes their partner listens fully and expresses empathy and understanding, they tend to feel more closely connected and can better cope with even extreme stressors like COVID-19.¹

One study revealed that an effective way to ensure that your partner feels validated and deeply understood is by practicing awareness, courage, and love: Actively noticing when your partner is stressed or otherwise upset, having conversations in which you each share your difficult thoughts and emotions, and expressing love through such things as maintaining eye contact, hugging and kissing, and doing things for and with each other.¹⁴This is easier said than done, though, when you and your partner are unable to be together physically.

Feelings of Resentment

It’s not uncommon for one partner to resent the other because they’re not able to live together.¹⁶ Sometimes, couples differ in their opinion of the severity of the pandemic and consequences of contracting the virus. If one partner is very anxious and desires to quarantine to protect their health but the other does not, feelings of resentment or even anger can develop. The person who is more anxious may feel annoyed that their partner wants to be out and about and believe that they could be together if only the other person would be more cautious. The less anxious partner, on the other hand, may struggle to understand why their partner would rather isolate than live together.

Lack of Physical Intimacy

Sexuality is a key element in romantic relationships. It’s a powerful way to foster closeness and relieve stress.¹⁶ Living apart during COVID-19 means a complete lack of physical contact,  making it harder for couples to feel close on a romantic level. Often, a romantic relationship can come to feel like an ordinary friendship. “Friends without benefits” can be an unwelcome relationship status that causes couples to drift apart.

6 Tips to Maintain a Healthy Relationship While Apart During the Pandemic

Physical distance during the pandemic does make the emotional closeness of a healthy relationship challenging. Nonetheless, you don’t have to resign yourself to a relationship quarantined from love and affection.

Try these six tips to foster a nurturing romantic relationship even while living apart because of COVID-19:

1. Approach Your Situation (& Each Other) With Acceptance

Much of our lives right now is outside of our direct control. It’s okay and realistic to have negative thoughts and feelings about having to live apart. Resisting the situation and ruminating about how hard it is to be apart, though, won’t help. This perspective will keep you both stuck in what’s wrong and make it difficult to focus on each other and your relationship as a whole. Instead, approach this situation as a team and with acceptance. Knowing and accepting that things are temporarily different can allow you both to be more open to each other and the situation so you can find ways to enjoy things together even though you’re apart.¹⁵

2. Build a Strong Foundation

The lack of opportunities for touch and physical intimacy, while one of the biggest challenges presented by living apart during the pandemic, doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll grow apart. In fact, it could be a great opportunity to build your relationship around things that aren’t physical.(F10) Use this time to get to know each other more fully. Use video chats and phone calls as opportunities to share your hopes, dreams, and goals. Discuss options for your future together. Without the distraction of sex interferring, your conversations can be more meaningful. You just might feel even more intimate and closer than ever before, ready to turn your dreams into reality once you’re together again.

3. Be Purposeful About Perceived Responsiveness

While being responsive is indeed more challenging when apart, it isn’t impossible. You and your partner can have an open, honest discussion on the phone or via video chat and intentionally discuss what each of you needs and how you can be supportive and responsive to each other right now. Some couples find that regular check-ins with video are helpful (the frequency depends on your unique schedules and situation, with quality being more impactful than quantity). Via video, you can make intentional eye contact to facilitate better listening and a sense of closeness. Agree to make mutual support a priority, and approach your conversations as opportunities to talk about meaningful things you wouldn’t just text to random friends.

4. Expand Your Focus

Being responsive and sharing your negative thoughts and feelings is indeed important in supporting each other and feeling like a couple dedicated to each other’s wellbeing. The COVID-19 pandemic creates a high degree of uncertainty, stress, anxiety, and other negative experiences.

There’s a lot more to our daily lives and internal experiences than COVID-19. Make sure your conversations are about more than just COVID-19. Get curious about each other as complex individuals and as a couple with multifaceted interests.⁹ Discover what makes your partner feel happy, excited, and alive. Make gratitude a priority, sharing what you appreciate about each other and your talks as well as what makes you grateful in general. This helps you keep a healthy perspective not just about your lives but about each other and your relationship.

5. Foster a Sense of Adventure

You might each be isolated in your own homes, but thanks to technology, you can still experience the world together. Many museums worldwide are offering virtual tours.¹⁷ Plan museum dates in which you both take the tour simultaneously, and afterward talk about your favorite exhibits. You can also enjoy nature together.

You might each take a walk simultaneously and video chat along the way, showing each other sites that you see. Feeling really adventurous? Plan a hiking date in which you each hike at a trail close to where you are. Use video chat during the hike or pause at a certain time to call each other and share the natural beauty around you. Keep in mind that spending time together doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing experience. You can share activities and adventures together even while apart.

6. Learn & Grow Together

Use this time to discover shared interests and hobbies or to learn how to do something your partner loves to do. Consider enjoying activities such as:

• A book club for two: Take turns selecting a book you want to share with your significant other. Read it together (perhaps even take turns reading aloud to each other over the phone or video chat) and discuss it.
• Music lessons: Learn to play instruments together. You might learn to play the guitar, recorder, or keyboard. You can purchase inexpensive instruments and find instructional videos online. Learn on your own and come together to share your progress.
• Kitchen capers: Cook or bake together, learning to make new foods and then eating them together as a virtual dinner date. Combine this with your sense of adventure, and have an outdoor picnic together but in separate locations. Take photos of your meals or baked goods and assemble them into your own keepsake COVID-19 cookbook to use for years to come when you are living together.

Whether you’re living together or apart, this is a difficult time even when you are following tips and trying to thrive in spite of the pandemic. If you encounter challenges you can’t seem to work past on your own, consider working with a couples counselor to help with pandemic-related relationship concerns.

Couples Counselors Know How to Deal With Your COVID-19 Relationship Concerns

You don’t have to struggle together alone. Couples therapy has been around for a long time, and therapists specializing in relationship issues understand the unique difficulties couples face, in general and during COVID-19. Therapists use research-based communication-focused and problem-focused interventions to help couples improve their relationship.¹⁸ They can help you communicate and find common ground.¹²

The goal of couples counseling is to identify the heart of issues and solve conflicts in safe and neutral ways.¹⁹ According to the Love in the Time of COVID study, relationships can suffer in these challenging times, and therapy can be helpful for couples to navigate the situation together.⁵

Therapists can help couples living together or apart develop coping skills and tools to get through this tough time. Researchers conducting the study investigating the effects of COVID-19 on relationships found that couples who actively engaged in positive coping activities could better negotiate challenges to avoid intense conflict and strife, thus improving relationship satisfaction.⁷

Counseling isn’t only conducted in person. Online therapy is a rapidly growing platform that is especially useful during the pandemic and accompanying restrictions on in-person meetings and activities.

Online Couples Counseling Can Help

According to the Love in the Time of COVID study, online couples therapy can be incredibly beneficial in helping couples succeed in their relationships during this uniquely stressful time.⁵ In a study appearing in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in 2020, online interventions were found to improve relationship functioning and satisfaction and decrease communication problems in couples experiencing pandemic-related distress.¹⁹

While this study focused on two formal, structured, group therapeutic programs, online therapy sessions between a therapist and a couple in which they discuss concerns unique to the couple have also been found to be effective. For example, a study appearing in January, 2020 in the journal Frontiers in Psychology revealed findings indicating that people who participated in online couples counseling via videoconferencing found their experience to be positive and helpful.²⁰

In some cases (depending on where you reside or whether you and your partner are in the same location), in-person therapy might be inaccessible during COVID-19. Thanks to modern technology and growing research supporting its effectiveness, online couples counseling can help you and your partner nurture your relationship and overcome obstacles in a positive, healthy manner so you can thrive.

Final Thoughts on Relationships During COVID-19

COVID-19 is a disruptive and stressful situation. How it affects you, your partner, and your relationship, is unique and personal. You might be experiencing many of the issues we’ve explored, just some of them, or your own unique challenges not mentioned here. Whatever difficulties and concerns you are facing, know that you are not alone in having them. Talking with a couples therapist can make a positive difference in your mental health and the health of your relationship. The pandemic doesn’t have to mean the end of your relationship. With help and support, it can be the beginning of a relationship stronger than ever.