We are going to be going in depth about how Covid-19 imapcted our relationship and how we worked out the issues that Covid-19 caused. We will also be going in depth about how our relationship was pre-Covid-19 to how it is currently and how the pandemic actually made us stronger.
What was our relationship like pre-Covid-19?
Before Covid-19, we were both working 9-5 jobs. We were both working at least 40 hours a week. Stephen was working concrete and that is a hard job. It would make him tired, crabby, and not wanting to do anything. I (Kayla) was working at Amazon and shortly after Covid-19 arrived, I tore my lateral meniscus which made everything 'harder' on the relationship. We only had quality time together on the weekends at most.
Quality time in a relationship is key. As of now, we do prioritize quality time (no phones or distractions) and that alone has changed the strength of our relationship.
As Covid-19 arrose and the shut down happened in Minnesota, we both ended up at home with me injured and Stephen unemployed. We were scared of the virus and everyone around us was losing their jobs which caused more stress upon us. With us being home 24/7, the stress was high, money was tight and we bickered! To improve the bickering we decided it wasn't worth our energy to talk about money or any issues that Covid-19 did bring upon us.
Pros of Covid-19 for our realtionship
After being home 24/7, stressed and bickering about money quite often, we opened a gerneal services business in the early summer of 2020. Within our relationship, we have always focused on having similar goals. One of those goals was to start this business at "some point in our lives". We took the chance and the risk of starting during a pandemic and it actually made us stronger.
How going for our #goals together improved our relationship as a whole;
We got to spend more quality time togther. Which includes learning how to seperate work life and home life better.
It improved our communication with eachother because we were constantly talking about what was on our minds and how to improve the task we were trying to create, within our new business, but this could also work for you and your relationship in any task you're tackling.
We gained more respect than we already had of each other.
Cons of Covid-19 for our realtionship
The bad things that Covid-19 caused on our relationship would have to be how much stress we each had with eachother due to environmental changes. We were all scared at the begining of the pandemic which also imposed a lot of stress onto our relationship. We weren't able to do "date nights", we were't able to leave the house as much as we used to and we love being out of the house doing new things. We lost patience with each other quite often, which also induced more birckering. With us both being out of work, like a lot of people in the US were at the time, and some still are, money also caused a lot of stress/arguments and we worked through that by trying to avoid the topic at all costs. If we did have to talk about it we would focus on just listening to the other person before putting in our opinion on the matter and that helped enourmously.
Fast forward to 1 year into the pandemic
We moved across country to Florida from Minnesota to expand our business and to test how a different enviornment could improve our relationship more after our mindsets change over the course of the year. Being in a different envornment made our relationship improve for a few reasons being; you get to be outside more and less seasonal depression that the weather causes in Minnesota.
Looking back over the past year we would have to say that the pandemic made our relationship take a 360. We learned very valuable qualities for a relationship that we weren't applying to our relationship pre-Covid-19 and probably never would have and for that, we're very grateful. Our communicaiton improved, our quality time together improved and our patience with each other improved. This was and is a very hard time for everyone and we are going to get through it!
Hopefully you found this blog helpful and it gave you some insight on how to improve qualities within your relationship during this pandemic! Make sure to check out our YouTube video talking about this exact topic, linked here.
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