Expert Advice If Your Relationship Is Feeling Some Quarantine-Related Strain

At this point quarantine is defined less by things like days and weeks than by situations: you’ve killed your sourdough starter twice, your boss still can’t figure out Zoom, your dog has way too much energy, your parents won’t stop going to the grocery store every day...and your partner just left a wet towel on the bed again. You’re ready to scream at them, but then you remember how stressed they are about their immunocompromised father, or how their company might furlough them, or the weird headache they’ve had for three weeks straight. So you tamp down your frustration, only to blow up later when they’re playing Animal Crossing and you’re doing the dishes.

Being cooped up inside with your significant other for weeks on end can leave even the most rock-solid couples straining the limits of their love. One couples therapist I talked to, Mary Kay Cocharo, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, confirmed as much. "Frankly, the last month has been very, very difficult to be a marriage counselor," she told me. "More couples are struggling, and for couples who had little cracks, the cracks are widening because of the stress."

Regardless of what lingering issues you two had going on before, the pandemic has almost assuredly uprooted your usual routines. Change is hard. Change while things are both more repetitive and more anxiety-inducing than ever can short-circuit feelings of love and generosity—let alone fiery I-need-you-right-now passion—that can bring a couple back to a good place. If right now you and your boo fighting more, or keeping resentments simmering for longer, know that you’re not alone. And know that there are a few ways you can strengthen your relationship during lockdown.

Find space...however you can

I spoke with Liz Colizza, Head of Research and Therapy at the couples therapy app Lasting, and she highlighted the need for couples to make space for one another. "Space is so important in intimate relationships," she says. "Healthy relationships thrive on the dual dynamic of emotional dependency and individuality." Distance always plays an important function in relationships, not just during the pandemic.

Obviously right now distance is hard. It’s impossible to long for someone when they’re constantly 4 feet away from you. But you can create a version of space, even in a Manhattan 1-bedroom. Headphones are space. Watching separate TV shows is space. Cooking a meal solo while your partner finishes up their workday is space. Taking a longer shower than usual; going for a drive alone before grocery shopping; hell, jerking off—these are all forms of space. As Colizza reminds, it’s not just about doing fun things on your own; a little distance lets you process some of the stress around what’s going on: "Giving yourself space to pay attention to your emotions will reduce the likelihood that you will blow up or flip your lid at your partner, because instead of reacting to what you are feeling and letting emotions build up, you will be responding in the moment."

You also have to give that space to your partner, even on occasions when you’d rather complain about your work day or have hot sex. Lower expectations (slightly, in places that work for you) and crank up your patience. Colizza suggests cutting right to the chase when communicating about space, "At the beginning of each day or week you and your partner can talk through when you want time to yourself and when you want time apart."

But stay connected

Colizza suggested that every couple intentionally carve out time for just the two of them. "Set aside time that is somehow different than all the other time you spend around each other." Cocharo echoed this sentiment, saying that this is especially important right now because all our normal roles are smashed into one space. "We have to parent from the kitchen table, we have to work from the kitchen table, we have to be a partner from the kitchen table." The fact that there’s no shift in our physical environments is confusing to the brain. Colizza recommended creating a new ritual to help create structure around your relationship, which in turn can help with general stress. Creating new routines of any kind right now, especially with your old ones in shambles, can help make things feel a bit more normal. One couple she knows started doing a daily happy hour (without their kids around) that couldn’t be broken. It doesn’t have to be that frequent—just pick something doable that appeals to both of you and stick to it.

Skip the usual small talk

According to Cocharo, one problem many couples are facing now, with so few new activities going on, is that they’re running out of things to say to each other. In our normal lives, there’s enough to stimulate a full conversation when you ask how your partner’s day went—but now, you were there for it! This is a workable issue. "If you’re running out of things to say, you’re not going deep enough," says Cocharo. And no, you don’t need to spend three hours racking your brain for insightful, thought-provoking questions—you can find plenty online, like the New York Times’s "36 Questions That Lead to Love" or John Gottman’s 8 Dates. Small talk will run out, but as Cocharo says, "there’s always more to learn about your partner."

I also tested out (with my boyfriend) an app called Lasting, which guides you through exercises designed by therapists but isn’t therapy, exactly. At $15 a month, it’s less expensive than either app-based or in person counseling. If traditional relationship therapy is like working out one-on-one with a trainer, Lasting is a really well-done fitness app.

Despite not having glaring relationship issues at the moment, I convinced my boyfriend to try Lasting with me because regular relationship check-ins are basically my dream anyway, and now I could disguise it as an assignment for work. After taking an initial assessment, the app highlights which areas—trust, communication, sex life, conflict, or money—you two could most use work in. Then you complete the sections independently before you come back together to compare. You’re instructed to both select options from drop-down lists and fill out longer answers—"recall a time that your partner was there for you and say why it was meaningful," or "what’s one thing you’re hoping to change about your sex life with your partner."

We found the app both occasionally corny—at one point it offered to "nudge you to prioritize your partner's emotional calls"—and a helpful way to kickstart harder conversations, particularly when it came revealing some of our more vulnerable fears and motivations. As Colizza told me, identifying personal issues or behaviors is often easier to do from a list of options than opening up out of nowhere to your partner.

Don't keep it to yourself

If you have a sense that you and your partner have issues that need more help than solo walks around the block or pre-planned happy hours, it might be time to give couples therapy a shot. Now might seem like the worst possible time to begin looking for a therapist, but the strife that’ll come with putting your relationship issues on hold is not worth the slight inconvenience of missing out on a traditional office therapy setting, and there are plenty of things you can try now.

Regain and BetterHelp offer traditional couples therapy appointments at home, and many therapists are offering Zoom and Skype sessions while everyone is sheltering-in-place. Finding the right fit, never an easy task, might take extra patience given the circumstances. "You should expect that it will take a little longer to build a good, friendly rapport with your therapist," Cocharo says. "Much of the information we get comes from having a ‘felt sense’ of one another. It’s challenging not to be able to feel the energy in the room."

If you’re doing therapy from the space that you now have to go live in, it’s not quite as easy to "leave it all behind" in the therapist’s office. Cocharo suggests that you should plan to spend a few minutes at the end of each session to debrief with your therapist. She does urge couples to try to be in the same place on the same screen if at all possible.

In all likelihood you’re going to be stuck inside with this person for a while longer—it’s totally normal to feel some strain, but getting through it is going to take some effort. Activities like the ones on Lasting certainly make for a nice date night every once in a while, even if you and your boo are doing just fine. And it seems like there’s a broader lesson here: Don’t be afraid right now to try something that, at first glance, seems cheesy or cliché. A conversation app? A special "happy hour" in the same kitchen where you’ve eaten all your meals for the last seven weeks? It might feel a little dorky or stilted at first, but I guarantee that cultivating any kind of interaction that exists just for you two, outside of day-to-day household logistics, will go a long way.

Relationships

It’s tempting to post up on the couch all day together, but it’s not healthy.

Originally Appeared on GQ