What You Can Do if the Stay-At-Home Order is Affecting Your Relationship – The compulsory stay-at-home order by the government of various countries was heralded by empty streets, empty parks, closed ice cream shops, abandoned walk-ways, closed museums, zoo’s e.t.c. Cities slowly looked like a scene from the horror movie “A Quiet Place”, with so many families and lovers holed up inside their homes, scared to come out. There was only but one difference, at least people could talk, however, with a mask over their nose and mouth.
Are you affected by the stay-at-home order?
Horror movies and romance are like water and oil, they do not mix well. We can say the same thing about the effect of COVID-19 and the lockdown order on relationships all over of the world.
There are two categories of couples who are being affected the most because of the lockdown. On one side are couples who are cohabiting, married or got stuck while visiting their partners because of boarder closures and the stay-at-home order. These groups of people in a relationship are now having to stay indoors over months of the lockdown because of the pandemic.
On the other hand, are people that live in different cities, countries or who their partner had to travel to a different geographical location for a job or an event just before the lockdown, and he/she got stuck because of border closure, compulsory quarantine or lockdown.
Couples in the first category may experience frustration, boredom or annoyance due to certain expectations not being met by their partners as they continue to spend more and more time together, see each other often without the usual distraction from work or friends. While the second category of people in a relationship may begin to feel depressed, anxious, lonely and abandoned because of the distance between them and their partners and not being able to share intimate time with them and feel their presence during such a trying time.
First, it is important that couples in both categories understand that things have changed and in other to keep their relationship afloat amidst the pandemic, they would have to employ new techniques to keep the flame of love burning. To fan the flames of a romantic relationship, a lot more effort is needed from both parties as they find alternative ways to stay in love during the Covid-19 crisis.
Couples who live together, should take out time to exercise in other to release inbuilt stress/pressure, they should also endeavor to talk about how they feel, change routines, work on their anxiety, manage grief together (as a result of the death of a loved one) and also find new ways to spice up their sex life and enjoy more intimate small moments together instead of focusing a lot of attention on the big moments.
Binational couples or couples who aren’t living together as a result of the pandemic should keep the communication strong, share pictures of important issues in their life, make out time for video calls and fan the flames of love with occasional romantic messages. Couples who are geographically separated have coping mechanisms for survival, but one downside to being far away is that they can’t rely on each other and they can’t develop a sense of touch like couples who stay together.
We do not know how long the pandemic would last or when we would all return to our normal lives, however, it is important that couples try some methods mentioned above, to keep the flame of love in their relationship from going off.
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