Coping with COVID-19 - Part 4: Staying Connected with Your Partner and Friends

Attachment theory[1] says that our very survival as infants is dependent on our connection with a caregiver. A huge body of research has shown that our need for emotional connections with others doesn’t end in childhood but continues to the end of our lives. It affects our mental health, our physical health and even our lifespan with social connection leading to a 50% reduced risk of early death.[2]

The fact that the COVID-19 pandemic increases social isolation precisely when we are most in need of interpersonal connection suggests that it is an important contributor to negative health outcomes even for those individuals who never have the virus. Therefore, it is essential to find ways to stay connected with those who are most important to us as well as to others with whom we are less acquainted but who may still need our support.

Living with one’s partner in the days of COVID-19 means spending more time together but also no longer routinely spending time apart – thus, a mixed blessing. While this is particularly problematic for individuals in a highly conflictual relationship, even a happy couple may find this arrangement challenging. Staying emotionally connected means needing time together but also needing time alone. Finding this right mix may mean deciding very explicitly when and where you each need space and time and then respecting those boundaries. For example, two partners working at home may need to use separate rooms with the doors closed between them.

On the other hand, it will also be important to be deliberate and planful in finding times to be together – sometimes apart from your kids. Taking walks together, cooking together, watching Netflix together, arranging virtual cocktail FaceTime gatherings with joint friends, and coming up with creative date nights are all especially important right now. The book Hold Me Tight [3] is especially useful for couples during COVID-19 with its suggestions for “keeping one’s love alive.” It describes how Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy has proven useful for 86% of couples who have sought couple therapy – these days quite feasibly online.

It is also important to look for opportunities to connect with friends and other family members who are not living in your household. One unexpected gift that COVID-19 has given us is encouraging us to visit virtually (and seeing someone’s face online is even better than the phone) with friends and family whom we perhaps don’t routinely see. Keep up with your book club on Zoom. Read a play or poetry out loud with a friend over Skype. Elderly family members or friends who are in nursing homes desperately need those kinds of connections now. And others who are socially isolated may need practical help from us such as drop-offs of groceries and prescriptions in addition to phone calls and Skype sessions.

Finally, kindness and tokens of appreciation shouldn’t be limited only to people we know. The many essential workers – ranging from healthcare providers to first responders to grocery store clerks to bus drivers to restaurant workers, who are all in essence risking their lives to serve us, need to know that they matter. Even kind words from us to a stranger contribute to a sense of well-being. Activities such as nightly or weekly applause for these essential employees in New York City and other communities or songs from balconies in Italy or Dunkin Donuts gift cards for first responders are all examples that can be emulated in our own towns or neighborhoods.

[1] Bowlby, J. (1969/1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. New York: Basic Books. [2] Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7, e1000316. [3] Johnson, S. (2008). Hold me tight: Seven conversations for a lifetime of love. New York: Little, Brown and Company.