How Is Your Marriage Holding Up in the Pandemic?

I was telling a friend of mine today that I feel like we all—like, collectively across the world—are stuck in some weird Twilight Zone movie.

This pandemic is no joke. Even if you question how serious it is, few people could say it hasn’t disrupted life.

For some people, the disruption has been severe, whether it be sickness, loss of people they love, financial or job strain, increased anxiety and depression, and/or a myriad of other stressors. For other people, the disruption has been insignificant, more along the lines of minor inconveniences rather than full blown disasters.

Here we are, approaching a year since it arrived on the scene, and there is still a lot of limbo. Still a fair amount of uncertainty and daily updates that, depending on a slew of factors, could be confusing, frightening, repetitive, exhausting or isolating.

It’s hard to take stock of where we have been or where we are headed, individually and as a whole.

And that, my friends, is the backdrop against which we are trying to live, work, play, parent, learn, connect, and do marriage. In some regards, I have become quite numb to it all, no longer antsy about the isolation or the masks or news bytes or potential second toilet paper shortage.

In other regards, though, I am incredibly restless. I feel like going on a road trip, but where?! I feel like baking a lot, but what good is that going to do for my health goals?! I get bored or want to sleep or want to live in denial that my kid’s school is indeed going back to a remote learning model. Again.

As for my marriage, I am grateful we are doing quite well, all things considered. I do think that probably has more to do with no longer being burdened by a huge stressor we endured this year that actually had nothing to do with the pandemic. That stressor decreased significantly for us in mid September. I didn’t realize how debilitating it had been until I recently noticed that he and I have laughed more in the past two months than we did in the previous 10 months. What a pleasant reconnection.

We definitely are still weary from the ongoing pandemic impact, but I feel we are on the same page emotionally and sexually. And that is encouraging.

So what about you?

How is your marriage holding up in the pandemic? Our long pandemic haul isn’t quite over, at least by all leading indicators.

What is drawing you together? What is driving you apart? The more specific you can answer each of those questions, the better clarity you gain, not only on how to maximize joy, but also on how to work through the difficulties.

Not easy. I know. But definitely worth a shot in these weird times in which we are living.

Copyright 2020, Julie Sibert. Intimacy in Marriage Blog. Links may be monetized.

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