Love life in corona times: that's how we feel

Couples therapist Oskar Holzberg
Love life in corona times: How the virus affects our relationships

What is Covid-19 doing to us as a couple? It chases our relationships through an amplifier.

Ulrike calls the therapist. She is not doing well, Corona scares her, she says. But as it soon turns out, the real problem isn't their fear of the virus – it's their relationship. Even before the pandemic, Ulrike's role was to take care of everyone, to organize the household and family. She is responsible for what is called the "mental load": husband and children work with us, but Ulrike is the one who ultimately takes care that someone tidies up the living room and someone leaves because there is no more rice in the house. It's a job she never wanted.

Corona ensures confrontation with the relationship state

And now that everyone is in the apartment much more often, she is even more busy keeping everything going. It annoys her, makes her angry, but basically it makes her sad. Many of her other activities are restricted, she is more thrown back on herself. And in contact with her now permanently present husband, she clearly notices that she has still not forgiven him for his affair. It's been three years, but she can't push back her hurt feelings as usual. Instead, unresolved hurts rise in her like bubbles. But now there seems to be no space for arguments, always four people on 95 square meters.

For months, the threatening virus that restricts our lives has robbed us of much of what we otherwise use to stabilize ourselves. Travel, fitness studios, movie nights, the choir and the double-headed group. Now that we have less contact with friends and acquaintances, we are confronted with the state of our relationship. Either we are close and enjoy having more time together. Or everything that has not yet been settled in our relationship flies around our ears and every disagreement escalates into an argument because we are dissatisfied with each other anyway.

We have to deal with the fear and dissatisfaction that the pandemic is forcing us. Can we support and comfort one another? Mourn what we are losing together and rejoice in what we have – especially that we have each other? Or do we get into a vicious circle of anger and insecurity? With masks we can protect ourselves from aerosols, but not from the air in the relationship that is becoming thicker. Covid-19 acts like a booster for relationships. The good flourishes. But also the unresolved.

Solution instead of displacement

Couples who have learned to move emotionally towards each other again and again, who can listen to each other and who have learned that there are always two realities in a relationship, will also be able to cope with the pandemic together. Couples who haven't learned how to do it are like castaways who have to build their lifeboat while their ship is already sinking.

That is hard. Because what can no longer be suppressed must be resolved. But that is also an opportunity. We need to sort out our relationship, and the pandemic should give us additional motivation. Because everyone can feel that nothing is harder than being alone in times of crisis.

"Couple adox" is the new podcast with Oskar Holzberg and his wife Claudia. You speak openly about topics that keep challenging relationships. Funny, exciting and insightful! I.a. on Audio Now.

Would you like to read more about the topic and exchange ideas with other women? Then have a look at the "Relationship in Everyday Life Forum" BRIGITTE community past!

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BRIGITTE 01/2021