25/05/2021
We all know how devastating and stressful it has been since the Pandemic broke out and almost everybody is still trying to cope up from the damage this Pandemic brought us. Here are some Ideas for Strengthening a Pandemic-Stressed Marriage by Alysse ElHage
1. IT'S BEEN A HARD YEAR, SO GIVE YOURSELF AND YOUR SPOUSE A BREAK
“The response to COVID-19 has stripped away many of our regular coping mechanisms,” Dr. Steven Harris, Professor of Family Social Science and Director of the Couple and Family Therapy program at the University of Minnesota, told me. “This includes things we didn't even know were coping mechanisms—the drive to work alone in the car, going out to the theater, sitting in a restaurant and seeing other people (not just ordering food). All of these things contributed to our sense of ‘normal’ and they are gone for many people.”
Dr. Harris, who also serves as associate director of the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project, said the most important thing for couples to do right now is to:
Be realistic about the stressors you are feeling and the impact it may be having on the marriage. If your marriage is suffering, it may be related to a time-limited but omnipresent stressful situation that 2020 thrust upon us. Now may not be the best time to be making huge relationship decisions, like divorce, that have long term effects.
2. “DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF” BUT MAKE AN EFFORT TO APPRECIATE THE LITTLE THINGS.
Those of us who have been married more than a few months know how irritating our spouse’s bad habits can be, whether it is him leaving his underwear all over the floor (even though the hamper is right there), or her habitually putting everything away so that he has a hard time finding his stuff, the little things really do add up. The pandemic has aggravated these little irritations with all of us stuck at home together. But as Dr. Harris puts it, “there is more than one way to load a dishwasher.”
"We tend to fight over so many trivial things in marriage just because we each have personal preferences on things that largely don't matter," he noted. "When we get too wedded to our personal preferences and don't see the legitimacy of our partner's preferences, we can easily become disaffected with our spouse."
Instead, Harris advised, “If we can take a more relaxed stance toward things that are actually subjective, we become freer to appreciate the differences between us and ultimately don't need to divide us.”
3. BE INTENTIONAL AND CREATIVE ABOUT SPENDING TIME WITH EACH OTHER.
One positive change from the pandemic lockdowns is that we have enjoyed more family time, and this was certainly a plus for our family. We found new and fun things to do together, including a “staycation,” where we did a different outdoor activity each day, like going to the beach, canoeing down a local river, seeing a movie at an outdoor theater, and having a backyard campout.
But as Dr. Jason Whiting, professor of family therapy at Brigham Young University, pointed out, couple time can get crowded out by family time.
“It can be fun to have more family time during a pandemic, but if couples aren’t careful, they can neglect each other,” he told me. “It is easy to get in a rut of Netflix until collapse every evening, but it is better to block out some evenings for conversations or fun, even if that involves simply laying together and sharing updates and dreams.”
4. STAY CONNECTED TO OTHER MARRIED COUPLES.
During one of the first Marriage Encounter retreats my husband and I attended, the wife of one of the older married couples in our small group reached over and patted me on the knee, “Whatever you do, stay in community,” she advised, “don’t get disconnected.”
Indeed, support from wiser, older couples can be a lifeline for struggling marriages. But staying connected is difficult in a world of social distancing. Our marriage group that typically meets in person once a month went virtual back in April of last year, and although a virtual meeting is better than nothing at all, screen time just cannot compete with in-person communication.
“It's time to acknowledge that Zoom, virtual, and/or telehealth/televideo/tele-education has a place, but it cannot, nor should it, replace all of marriage education, marriage support, or marriage therapy,” Roberts said. “I think it’s time to go on a video-break, just like we prescribe for our children, and recall what’s worked throughout history for couples.”
As an alternative to only Zoom meetings, she recommends writing letters to married couples who can offer wisdom and support.
5. REACH OUT FOR HELLO WHEN YOUNEED IT.
We have vast amount of research on healthy marriage and relationships compared to generations before us. Couples today also have a variety of marriage education programming and resources available at their fingertips. None of us have to go it alone.
One of the best, and perhaps untapped, resources for building healthy families is the faith community. We’ve covered this point time and again on this blog, but the powerful link between religious practice and marital health is worth repeating. In a post last year, BYU professors David Dollahite and Loren Marks highlighted their research on the benefits of healthy religious practice in the home, pointing to the “large and growing body of empirical evidence demonstrates that faith in God and meaningful engagement in a faith community both provide tangible, measurable benefits to mental, relational, and physical health—including longevity.”
Church-based marriage programs have successfully helped reduce divorce rates in some communities, and research shows that highly religious couples, or those who attend church frequently, are more likely to enjoy higher-quality unions. Furthermore, shared religious practices like prayer are linked to healthier family relationships. For example, one BYU study found that shared prayer “enabled family members to address problems or stresses they were facing, as well as reduced tensions in their relationships.”
LINK: "Five Ideas for Strengthening a Pandemic-Stressed Marriage | Institute for Family Studies" https://ifstudies.org/blog/five-ideas-for-strengthening-a-pandemic-stressed-marriage
