This post explores how the global pandemic may be impacting three types of couples in particular; engaged couples facing uncertain wedding plans, couples with health anxieties, and couples who are feeling “burnt out” as parents. This post will also describe ways to promote secure functioning amidst this seemingly chaotic and uncertain time.
For Those with Weddings on Wait:
Many once soon-to-be-married couples had their wedding plans altered due to the COVID-19 pandemic. You’ve booked your venues, hotels, caterers, and entertainment and likely spent copious amounts of money in the process. Now you’re faced with a decision with unfavorable options: do we cancel or postpone the wedding, or do we potentially risk the health of our beloved guests?
Many couples have been forced to reschedule or cancel ceremonies and receptions that they’ve spent countless hours and dollars on. Travel for out-of-town guests and honeymoons have turned into a distant fantasy. The closing of court houses has been it seem virtually impossible to legally tie the knot.
It’s only natural to feel disappointed or cheated that the celebration of your union has been indefinitely pushed back on an uncertain timeline. According to Dr. Gabor Maté, “three factors that universally lead to stress are uncertainty, lack of Information, and the loss of control”. Couples stuck in limbo in regard to their wedding plans are facing that triple threat of stressors.
Photo by Phillip Goldsberry via Unsplash
If you’re stuck in quarantine during a time you thought you’d be on your honeymoon, consider how you can practice secure functioning and serve as supports to one another. According to Dr. Stan Tatkin, “Secure functioning refers to an interpersonal system based on principles of true mutuality, collaboration, justice, fairness, and sensitivity. It means that you and your partner are in a foxhole together, protecting each other from the outside world.” Nowhere in that definition does it state that things need to be perfect and idyllic for secure functioning to occur. Think of this quarantine as a way to gain extra time as couple before your marriage.
For Couples with Health Anxieties:
If either you or your partner experience health anxiety or hypochondria, this pandemic has likely generated relentless fear. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “Although some refuse to be examined by their primary care doctor out of fear of discovering the worst, seeking reassurance from doctors, insisting on repeated medical tests, and visits to the ER and urgent care, are more common in those who experience health anxiety”. Unfortunately, the presence of COVID-19 has either removed the ability to visit doctors offices for the foreseeable future, or has made those check-ups increasingly risky due to the chance of contracting COVID-19. Additionally, the shortage of COVID-19 tests has made it virtually impossible to be tested. This uncertainty likely only feeds health-related anxieties.
Photo by Daniel Tajford via Unsplash
As a couple, you may be faced with difficult decisions, such as how to cohabitate if one of you has either a compromised immune system and/or persistent health anxieties. You may be struggling with how to meet both your needs for physical and emotional connection, while maintaining your health by limiting exposure to the virus. This conundrum is compounded if one or both partners are not able to participate in self-quarantine due to demands related to work, family, or other essential obligations.
Transparent communication is essential in not only generating mutual understanding of each other’s fears and anxieties, but also in establishing new norms for the couple. Remember, the threat of the virus may be uncertain, but it is temporary. Having clear boundaries and communication around your needs for protection from the virus itself, and also ways to create reassurance for the couple, will undoubtedly make the next few months more stable, until you can reestablish your norms.
For Burnt Out Parents managing Kids at Home:
Parenthood is difficult enough in “normal” circumstances, but now you have been forced to rear your children in the midst of the chaos created by the pandemic and provide some semblance of homeschool, perhaps all while also attempting to work from home.
Strengthening your partner dyad will help your family to function better overall. According to Dr. Stan Tatkin, couples can move towards secure functioning by brining awareness to the systems and behaviors of the couple first, before addressing individual needs or the needs of thirds (A third, as defined from the PACT perspective, is “anyone or anything that intrudes on the couple bubble, or makes it difficult to form one”) such as work, your kids, cell phones, etc.
Photo by Alberto Casetta via Unsplash
It is essential to make each other a priority as co-parents. Even during this difficult period, it is important to continue to make decisions together about your shared children and maintain your status as each other’s go-to-person for concerns related to your shared children. This principal can be applied to coupled and separated parents alike.
You can serve as teammates, even though you both may be feeling the need to take some time on the bench. Take an inventory of each other’s strengths, vulnerabilities, as well as availability, throughout the week in order to establish a schedule of shared and individual duties as both parents and partners. Allow your partner to provide strength in your growth areas and vice versa.
Taking Proactive Steps in the Midst of Chaos:
If you and your partner can identify with any of the categories listed and described above, or are handling related stressors, it is important to take proactive steps to promote and maintain secure functioning and the overall health of your coupleship.
One way to encourage secure functioning and to reduce your stress levels as a couple is by practicing co-regulation. Co-regulation occurs when two nervous systems attune with one another. This allows partners to experience psychological soothing and will encourage the experience of safety, love, and connection. Some ways that you and your partner can co-regulate are:
Practice eye gazing – take a few moments, without speaking, to gaze into each other’s eyes. You may have the desire to look away or laugh. Try to hold the silent moment with your partner. This practice helps to build vagal tone, a state where you are both alert but relaxed at the same time.
Partner Dancing – Dancing, especially partner dances like ballroom or salsa, may help you improve your attunement. Take turns leading and following.
Engaging in Rewarding Conversations – What’s something you both love to talk about? Start there. Take turns listening and speaking.
Skin-to-Skin Contact: Hold hands, hug, kiss, cuddle. It will supply a much needed oxytocin boost.
Another way to promote secure functioning, if you are quarantine with your partner, is to establish a home isolation agreement. It’s a good idea to set some boundaries now, to prevent unnecessary future stress and conflict. If you have these discussions upfront, during a period when you are within your window of tolerance (think: feeling calm, cool + collected), it will make navigating this extended and uninterrupted time together easier. Things that might be included on your agreement include, but certainly are not limited to:
Limiting arguments to 5-minutes or less
Being fully authentic and transparent with one another
Schedule alone time
Schedule parenting breaks (take turns watching the kids solo and together)
Boundaries around physical contact
Negotiate Win/Win Scenarios
Rather than feeding into the chaos and fear of the present, explore unique ways that you can serve as a support system for one another. Although stress and anxiety may be higher than normal, by establishing clear communication, developing mutual agreements, and assisting each other in regulation, you can continue to develop or maintain a secure functioning relationship with your partner.
If you and your partner are still struggling to securely function during this pandemic, couples therapy might help. Click the link below to learn more about our team of couples therapists: