This article is extracted from “This is NOT a Second Honeymoon: Helping Couples Survive Spending A Lot of Time Together”, a book that was written by Christopher L. Smith to help couples during the COVID-19 pandemic. In his clinical work, he realized that couples being quarantined together have particular challenges. The book goes into a lot of these challenges along with strategies to survive these types of times and even to have their relationship thrive. We will be sharing a series of these extracts over several weeks to help you. If you would like to look at all of them together and get the book right away, it can be found on Amazon (Book).

You are facing the challenge of staying home together, but there are many other challenges that you are also facing. Many of these challenges can leave you worrying about what is going on. You might be concerned about how you are being financially impacted by what is going on in the world. You could be worried about your employment status or about being unemployed. You could be worried about the health and safety of others. You could be concerned about the things you have had to give up. These and other worries can weigh heavily on you as a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. A danger is that you simply allow these to build up inside of you, and all of that worry and other emotions get bottled up. This is a problem because, at some point, everything that is bottled up comes out otherwise. In these times, it is most likely to come out on your partner and others with whom you are confined. When it comes out on them, it is unfair and can be hurtful. This does not have to be a massive outburst. In this type of situation, it can even be in smaller changes in what you say, what you do, or even shifts in your personality.

Assuming you do not want everything to come out on those you care about, it is important to find a way not to have the pressure build up. Some people are able not to allow it to build up by not bottling it up inside, but this is very challenging to do. For most people, it is easier to use a release valve and to let some of the pressure out in a more controlled way. Some of these ways are hard to do in the present situation. However, one way that can be very effective is to talk about your worries. These don’t have to be long conversations, but just normalizing how you are feeling and talking through

it can help. A simple starting place for these conversations could be taking one point of the day (such as over breakfast or before bed) to highlight a worry for the day, another worry, something you are grateful for, and something you are looking forward to. Here’s the Book.