How to Save Your Relationship During Quarantine
In early January, the rest of the world sat with eyes wide open as a virus swept over China. Within a month, the rest of the world sat in front of their TV, or scrolled through their phones, and watched each country slowly but surely shut their doors and stay inside. At first, toilet roll memes, making banana bread, acknowledging the importance of teachers and working from home were all fairly subtle and sometimes humorous changes. However, for spouses, the constant one on one time, in whatever situation you were in, may have caused some turmoils, battles or even some falling out.
If this is something that has happened to you throughout this world pandemic, you are most certainly not the only one. Being in such an unnatural situation with your partner will inevitably be difficult. Whether you've been together for years, months or weeks, the struggle is real and whatever your feelings were, is completely valid.
On the other hand, it is vital to understand that you're not just dealing with your partner or someone you live with, you are dealing with another human being. Someone who feels, someone who has their own needs and someone who also has their own inner critic. Just like yourself.
Right now, putting things into perspective is a great thing to do. This is a world pandemic. When it feels like the whole world is falling apart, you're losing your freedom, and there is no end in sight, it can feel like your running away from a boulder that won’t stop rolling towards you. On top of this, you must stay focused in order to work, study or take care of kids. It's tough. Incredibly tough. Your mental state was most likely compromised during this, but the mental state of your partner was too. So, technically speaking. You're both in the same boat.
Our inner voice is our survival mechanism. It is apart of our ego and identity that makes us who we are today. Despite it being a necessary force in our lives. One that supports our carefulness and survival. When we sit in a consistent setting with little distraction and fear over our circumstances, that inner voice becomes bigger, louder and can, unfortunately, take over. When we speak about the inner critic, we speak about the negative side of our inner voice which also may have become louder during this time. We can even go as far as to talk about the interpersonalizing our personal dilemma and projecting that onto others. This means that your problem is often within you, and despite how big it seems in your world, it may be non-existent in others. Therefore, when we drag people into our inner conflict, we are creating turmoil that may not be able to be fixed. This is because your spouse may not be able to understand the true scope of your frustrations and likely has their own inner critic they are dealing with themselves.
What can overcome this type of fear-based inner voice? Communication. Being open and honest with one another about your feelings and your internal turmoil. Showing compassion for the other person could be the make or break point in a relationship.
Once again, we need to understand that this is an incredibly unrealistic situation, and this is not who your partner is all the time. Being emotionally generous and expressing compassion for them in this trying time is everything right now. That can create the space for them to have compassion for themselves, calming their inner critic and therefore being able to show compassion for you. Open communication, working together and remembering that this is only temporary could be what keeps your relationship strong and stable during this time. It can be an opportunity to deepen your emotional intimacy and closeness in beautiful ways beyond what you have ever experienced together so far. That means, that this terrible situation, may in the end, be the best opportunity you may ever come across to learn the emotional intimacy, which can create a more fulfilling relationship than you have ever imagined.