Simple Strategies for Handling COVID Togetherness Issues with Your Spouse

We are all  trying to find our way in the disorienting, strange new reality of the pandemic. In addition to having lost our own familiar pattern of daily life, getting along with our spouse or partner during “COVID togetherness” is  more complicated and challenging. When feeling — or being — constrained, it’s easier to get into struggles to defend our right to freedom and space. With risk in the equation, what used to be considered a basic personal choice has now become our spouse’s concern and a potential area of conflict.  People differ in their judgment and tolerance of risk. Some even seek out risk for the sensation of stimulation, to regulate mood, escape, or act out self-destructive impulses and rescue fantasies. Typically, normal differences in judgment and tolerance of risk in couples come into play less often and more indirectly, for example, when we’re affected by the fallout of what happens to our spouse as a result of a decision they made. Or if a decision impacts feelings of trust and security in the relationship. But when it comes to decisions that directly risk the safety and life of our partner, as with COVID-19, one spouse’s greater risk tolerance forces the other to assume that same level of risk, requiring consciousness of personal responsibility when making decisions. Though the health stakes are higher with COVID-19, a comparable situation is when an affair or sexual acting out risks  transmitting a sexually transmitted disea...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Marriage and Divorce Relationships Conflict Resolution coronavirus COVID-19 quarantine Source Type: blogs