5 Tips to Keep Your Marriage Strong While Quarantined
Spending day after day in the same space can make even the devoted couples a little crazy. Read about my (5) tips to keep your marriage strong in the midst of COVID-19.
July 22, 2020
Spending day after day in the same space can make even the devoted couples a little crazy. Read about my (5) tips to keep your marriage strong in the midst of COVID-19.
I remember always telling my husband while we were dating that if I could get paid to spend time with him all day that I would. I genuinely meant it however, I knew even in making that statement that I would never be paid to spend all day with my husband. And then, the funniest thing happens a pandemic hits the United States, and although I’m not being paid to spend time with my husband necessarily, I am being paid to work from home as we practice social distancing and self- quarantine leaving me within the corridors of our two-level town-home with minimum options to escape. Lol, I love my husband with all that is within me but, I’d be lying if I’d say that it wasn’t something we both had to get adjusted to.
My husband has never gotten on my nerves as it pertains to sharing our space but, being confined to our home about 85% of the time for the past seventeenmillion months started to dampen our moods as well as our engagement with one another. For us, in such a short time span we, like many of you became teachers, employees, and full-time chefs. You have to agree that the tension sometimes can rise, anxiety about work, disrupted routines, child care issues, lack of social connections, and struggles to be productive at home is more than enough reasons to lead many couples to vent their frustrations out on each other.
However, if you’re married, I’d must remind you that we vowed to be together with our spouses “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.” It would be remiss of me if I failed to mention that Rona definitely falls under the “for worse” part. Let me clarify before I go any further. Being at home with my husband is not the worst situation, being at home under these circumstance is the worst. Nonetheless, as believers, God tells us to count it all joy! It maybe hard adjusting to this new way of living our lives but doesn’t mean that our marriage has to suffer because of it. My Pastor always told us that a Marriage will Work if you WORK IT! And that’s what hubby and I are committed to do all the days of our lives, including quarantine season!
Below I’m sharing (5) tips to keeping your marriage strong while being quarantined…
You can’t pour from an empty cup and you can't take care of other people unless you first take care of yourself. Keep some of your routines. For example, our daughter still is in daycare. I drop her off at 10am and I don’t return home until about 10:45 [15 minutes before I have to log on for work]. During that time I may do a store run if we need anything in the house, grab some coffee, ride around, or just park the car and “inhale & exhale” That is designated time that I allocate to myself before putting on responsibility hat. My husband is off on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s he usually runs errands, or goes to his brother’s house to record music. Self-care is Not selfish it important and it keeps you sane.
Make sure that during your designated shifts, you each have enough privacy to concentrate and conduct business .Brandon and I both work from home and have split our two- story house into work-zones. Brandon gets the first floor and I take the second floor. We drop by to flirt with each other throughout the day and even send IM’s to one another like we use to when I was physically going to work.
I’ve been initiating temperature checks in our relationship since we started dating. This usually takes place at the end of the night when the kids are in their rooms and the house has shut down for the night. My favorite part of the day. Even though we’re in the house with one another, we still give each other space to not be distractions to one another during the work day. However, we do ask how each of our days went. We also share any accomplishments or goals we met that day. We also use that time to do mental check ups with one another as well.
If you have a child or children it's important to meet weekly or even daily to discuss how you’ll take care of household responsibilities. That can include what we’re eating for dinner, the kids school work, time with the kids, and even household chores. Making a plan and executing it’ll give you a sense of control and accomplishment in these uncertain times
One of the reasons I love my husband so much is that he’s super simple to please. He will always share with people that he's number (5) out of six kids and he doesn’t need much. Our date nights consist of not cooking on Friday’s, watching some of our favorite movies on Disney Plus (lol), playing UNO, pillow talk, or finding funny videos on Instagram that will have us in tears from laughing so hard.
Your marriage won’t look like ours just like our marriage doesn’t look like yours. However, if you take the time to be intentional about putting in the work required to build your relationship it will definitely grow. Life isn’t always going to be perfect. The value of a relationship is that you stand by one another for better or for worse. This pandemic isn’t permanent but, your marriage should be. Try to stay focused on the good things, pick and choose your battles, be flexible, and most of all Love each other. Because love conquerors all.
XOXO,
