Four ways to strengthen couples’ relationships now

Among the oft-repeated advice for a successful long-term relationship is the warning that couples should retain some personal space. The coronavirus pandemic has made all that much, much harder. Cohabitating couples are together more often, sometimes with children or other relatives, and sometimes by themselves. Even as physical distancing measures relax, rules about mingling between households leave couples as each other's primary source of companionship and support.

For some, that closeness has been a silver lining to the pandemic, an opportunity to spend more time reconnecting. A poll conducted by Monmouth University released in May found that 74% of respondents said their overall relationship satisfaction had not changed since the start of the pandemic, and of those who reported change, more than three times as many said their relationships had improved rather than faltered (Monmouth University Polling Institute, 2020opens in new window).

But for other couples, especially those who find themselves juggling jobs and elder care or child care duties with no relief—or who are in violent relationships—the physical closeness spurred by stay-at-home orders has been a source of tremendous stress.

For those who are working to strengthen their relationships, psychological research suggests that partners do the following.

Regardless of how well a couple gets along or their situation at home, a pandemic is a stressful experience that can undermine the best of relationships, says Thomas Bradbury, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. When not under stress, Bradbury says, partners often cut each other slack for bad moods or irritations. “When life is going smoothly, they can easily say, ‘Oh maybe they had a hard day at work, maybe other things are going on for them,’” he says. But under stress, those same partners “can’t let their partners off the hook a little bit.”

A study by Bradbury and psychologist Guy Bodenmann, PhD, of the University of Zurich, for example, found that when couples were subjected to a stressful public-speaking intervention and math test and then observed in conversation, their stressed-out conversations did not go well compared with conversations between couples who weren’t stressed. Specifically, stressed-out men struggled to be supportive in the face of their female partners’ emotions about the experience ( Psychological Science , Vol. 26, No. 10, 2015 opens in new window).

Partners may also find themselves stressed by different aspects of the pandemic, says Bradbury. One partner, for example, might have to work at an essential job and risk infection, while the other might have to take sole responsibility for domestic duties and managing children’s online learning. These differing experiences of stress may drive a wedge between the couple, making it harder for them to empathize with each other’s struggles.

A study led by Bradbury found that in heterosexual newlywed couples, stress determined the strength of the linkage between couple communication and relationship satisfaction ( Journal of Family Psychology , online before print, 2020 ). When stress is low, communication is unrelated to spouses’ happiness, but when stress increases, happiness goes down as communication deteriorates. “This is speculation, but when we’re under stress our partner is probably also under stress, too,” Bradbury says. “But it doesn’t mean we’re under the same stress or experiencing it in the same way.” Just knowing that stress has these effects can help couples push through irritation and support one another.

Communicating feelings is always important in a relationship, but angry confrontations can be disastrous, says Denver clinical psychologist Susan Heitler, PhD, author of “From Conflict to Resolution: Skills and Strategies for Individuals, Couples, and Family Therapy.” She teaches her patients in couples counseling to see anger as a stop sign.

“First, check your emotional state and the tone of voice that’s going to emerge with it,” she says. “If you’re angry, bring yourself down first, with a drink of water, a few deep breaths, a distraction. Remembering your partner’s good qualities, gratitude, all of those help.”

When couples disagree, they talk quietly to identify each partner’s underlying concerns, Heitler says. Each person then looks for what they themselves could do differently in response to their partner’s concerns. They aim for a plan of action that addresses all of both partners’ concerns. At any sign of escalating anger, both partners take a calming time-out. Dealing with differences, Heitler says, requires friendly voices.

Conflicts are easier to resolve when a couple has a wellspring of loving interactions to draw from. Early findings from research on pandemic isolation suggest that a couple’s baseline happiness predicts how well they’ll handle being together more often, says Richard Slatcher, PhD, a social and personality psychologist at the University of Georgia. Slatcher is leading an online study called Love in the Time of COVIDopens in new window to track people’s experiences in isolation and lockdown. So far, data suggest that people who were in happy relationships in the beginning of stay-at-home orders are doing well, while those who were struggling in their relationships have found their problems magnified, Slatcher says. “Certain couples seem to be spending more time outdoors together and doing things together,” he says, and those couples are likely to be happier.

Pre-COVID research would suggest that couples who can find novelty and fun even during isolation are going to emerge happiest. Arthur Aron, PhD, a research professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, has found that couples who participate in novel and challenging activities together experience self-expansion, a highly rewarding motivational state that can translate to a stronger relationship bond. Isolation is “new and novel, but not exactly fun,” Aron says wryly, but some couples are managing to find fresh activities amidst the lockdown: Zoom cooking classes, long walks at that nearby nature preserve they’d never managed to visit before, videochat “dates” with other couples.

Anecdotally, the couples struggling the most to bond in quarantine are those with young children, says Linda Carter, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the New York University School of Medicine. “All the advice we like to give to couples about finding time together, activities together, ways to enjoy time together and try new things, it’s very difficult,” she says. “There is zero time for each other. The whole day is shuffling the kids back and forth.”

Carter recommends that couples with kids old enough to be left in the house alone for short periods take walks around the neighborhood together; for those with kids who can’t be left alone, she encourages parents to carve out time after the kids’ bedtimes to spend time together.

Even short periods of novel activity can nourish a relationship, Aron says: “If you can find space to be with your partner, then use that space well.”

Couples who are really struggling should seek out virtual couples therapy, Aron says. “And if either of you as an individual is anxious or depressed,” he says, “individual therapy is really important.”