COVID-19 and Relationships: For Better or Worse?
In mid-March, Stockton University
junior Rachel Rowan moved in with Jordan Barrett, her boyfriend of
then almost three months, when her Washington, D.C., internship went
remote. They were planning to live together for the summer, but they
weren’t expecting to take the big step so soon.
With COVID-19 shutting everything down,
including Rowan’s housing arrangements through The Washington
Center internship program, it was the best option for them. Rowan
said that it has tested their relationship in the best way.
“Relationships could be a whole
beautiful thing for, like, a year, two years, however many years, but
as soon as you live with that person, it could totally change the
dynamic of that relationship,” said Rowan. “So, I definitely
think that it helped in a way…relationship-wise.”
Unfortunately, not all relationships in
the age of the coronavirus are sitting as well as Rowan and Barrett.
According to an
article from The New York Post, NYC matrimonial lawyers
received double the number of divorce inquiry calls during the first
week of the social lockdown than they normally do. China’s
uptick in its own divorce rate seemed to be a warning to other
countries as people begin to emerge from lockdown.
Steve Li, a
divorce lawyer at Gentle and Trust Law Firm in Shanghai told
Bloomberg that
he has seen his caseload increase by 25% since lockdowns were lifted
in mid-March. Apparently, this has been a trend in other
pandemic times. A Hong
Kong study found that divorce rates increased a year after the
SARS epidemic in 2002-03, over 20% higher in 2004 than in 2002.
The cause of such distress? Constant
interaction.
“The more time they spent together,
the more they hate each other,” Li told Bloomberg. “People
need space. Not just for couples—this applies to everybody.”
Because everyone has been cooped up at
home with no real escape—work is remote, restaurants are closed,
entertainment has been postponed—many couples have faced the strain
of spending too much time together. Without the ability to get away
for a bit or even spend time with others, people can eventually get
on each other’s nerves, and it can have unfortunate outcomes.
“Whatever was underlying comes to the
surface,” Steamboat Springs couples counselor Colleen Clark Lay
told Summit Daily. Summit
Daily reported that the pandemic could either improve
relationships or cause them to suffer.
In Psychology Today, Dr. Marty
Nemko acknowledged the rising divorce rates. He provided some tips
for troubled relationships to try out before throwing in the hat,
including finding ways to spend less time with each other.
This is what seemed to help Rowan and
her boyfriend, who are both avid gamers. “We’re in the same room,
but it’s not like [we] stand next to each other the entire time,”
Rowan said. “He does his own thing. I do my own thing.” Of
course, it also helps that Barrett works in retail, a job deemed
essential during this pandemic. With him out of the house more often,
they’ve been able to balance their time together and apart.
On the other side of this pandemic
romance equation are the couples who have been forced to remain
separated for so long. When universities closed and classes were
moved online, Iowa college students Zach Hess and Hannah Perry had to
move back to their respective homes, hours away from each other. But
this did not dampen their relationship.
“Hannah and I have been handling the
distance well,” said Hess, who had originally planned to intern in
Los Angeles this summer. Because of COVID-19, the internship did not
go through, but it has allowed him to remain closer to Perry. They
have been visiting every few weekends since April.
As it turns out, Hess/Perry and
Rowan/Barrett could actually be hope for relationships to endure the
pandemic and possibly come out the other side stronger than before. A
recent Monmouth
University poll actually found that 92% of Americans in a
romantic relationship are either extremely satisfied or very
satisfied with their relationship. It also reported that any
“outbreak-related change” in the relationship was more often
positive rather than negative.
Gary Lewandowski, a psychology
professor at Monmouth University who helped conduct the research,
told The
Washington Post that while the pandemic has induced a lot of
stress for many, most people turn to their partners in times of
stress.
“Overall, these results suggest that
the global pandemic may not be as bad for relationships as many have
feared. Instead, it seems similar to what research showed following
9/11,” said Lewandowski in the poll’s press release. “Our
relationships may become stronger and even more important than they
already were.”
For our two couples, that seems to be
the case. Hess and Perry are looking forward to some lifted
restrictions by planning a road trip to the Black Hills in South
Dakota some time in June. And for Rowan and Barrett, coronavirus
seems to have only helped them progress in their relationship.
“If anything, it’s prepared us for
a lot of, I guess, future movements in the relationship. It’s had a
lot of progression,” Rowan said. “It’s helped us to mature and
kind of understand each other.”
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