5 Tips To Protect Your Relationship During The Coronavirus Crisis

Hey, there we are. Vanessa and Xander Marin. We are married, and we've been together since 2007. And our mission is to equip you with the tools that you need to create an extraordinary relationship inside the bedroom and out.

So, because of the coronavirus, your relationship is probably under more stress than ever. So we're here to help your relationship not just survive, but thrive during these challenging times.

So, in this video, we are going to be giving you our top five tips for protecting your relationship during the current coronavirus crisis. We want you to walk away with five simple, practical tools to support your partner, nurture your relationship, and to really help you start seeing this current crisis as an opportunity to grow closer than ever, rather than being driven apart. So, just to quickly introduce ourselves, I am a licensed psychotherapist specializing in sex and relationship therapy. I've spent the last years working with thousands of couples, and I've served as a featured expert for magazines and websites like the New York Times. Oh, the Oprah Magazine, Real simple, and many more.

Wow. That's cool. I wish I could say that I'm just a regular guy. I used to work in the corporate world, but then I started seeing how much of an impact Vanessa was making with her work, and I decided that I wanted to join her so that we could reach even more people. So, you know, being married to a sex therapist, I've actually picked up some pretty good insight into what does and doesn't make relationships work. And I really just love sharing real stories from our own life that can help all of you take your relationships from ordinary to extraordinary.

Okay, so let's get to it, and let's acknowledge the reality that we are all facing right now.

Yep.

The world is feeling crazy. You are feeling it. We are feeling it. We are all feeling it. And our relationships are really feeling it, too. Not only do we have to deal with all of the stress from the coronavirus crisis itself, but you're probably spending more time together in close quarters than ever before. Maybe you're both working from home for the first time ever, or having the kids at home. You're having to rely on each other more than ever before because we're not allowed to have our usual social outlets. You're probably handling stress in different ways. You're probably not feeling at all sexy or romantic. Or maybe one partner is feeling interested in having sex in order to blow off some steam, and the other partner just could not be interested at all. So this whole crisis can feel incredibly scary because there are so many unknowns, and so Many things that we can't do right now. But instead of focusing on what you can't do, we'd like to invite you to think about what you can do right now. There are things that you can do to relieve some of the strain on your relationship and actually increase your intimacy. And close. This is actually a completely unique opportunity to work on your relationship. And we really strongly believe that you can emerge from this crisis stronger than ever.

Oh, yeah.

So that's what this video is all about. So let's get into our top five tips for helping your relationship thrive.

All right, let's do it. So tip one is take care of yourself. And I know this is a video for couples, but we're starting with instructions for how to take care of you. Because the truth is, is that self care is totally crucial to a healthy relationship. And I know this is a funny analogy because, like, the last thing you're thinking about is flying right now. But it's just like what they tell you when you get on an airplane in case of an emergency, put your own oxygen mask on before you have to help others with theirs. Because we need you to feel strong and grounded on your own in order to bring that energy into your relationship. Because if you're relying on your relationship or your partner for all of your care and comfort, that's just putting a ton of pressure on yourself and a ton of pressure on your partner.

Way too much pressure. So there are obviously a million things that you can do for self care right now, and what feels good for you is probably going to change from day to day since things are changing so much. So it's important to stay in tune with yourself, try out different things and see what's feeling relaxing to you. But we want to give one particular recommendation, which is to give yourself permission to feel everything, all of it. So you're probably feeling a million different feelings on any given day. You might actually be feeling a million different things in any given minute. I know we have definitely had moments like that. And it can feel really confusing and scary to have so much emotion and so many different kinds of emotions coming up. But we really want you to know this. Every single thing that you are feeling is okay. So see if you can take a deep breath and just allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you're feeling.

All right, I took a deep breath. All right, tip two. Be strategic with your media consumption. So most of us, myself included, have been refreshing our news feeds, like, constantly over and over, rereading the same types of articles over and Over. Our brains are still totally reeling from all these recent changes, unexpected changes. And it's totally natural that you would want to seek out as much information as possible. But when you over consume media, you keep reading that same stuff over and over. It just makes you feel more anxious over and over. And really what it does is it puts your body into fight or flight mode. And your body's not meant to sustain that for very long. Okay, so here's our advice. Find two news sources that you trust and allow yourself to check them no more than twice a day. You're in control of when you check them, you're in control of what those news sources are, but you're in control of when you're doing it. What we'd also recommend is don't check it like first thing when you wake up, and don't check it last thing before you go to bed. Probably either gonna set your day up for not having a great day or set yourself up for not sleeping very well.

Exactly.

Because. Yeah, and I can tell you guys, this happened to me the first few days that we were supposed to stay at home. I was just hitting refresh on Google News and I was super bummed out. I was really depressed. I couldn't motivate myself to work. I could barely motivate myself to do anything. And as soon as I started doing this, it was like a switch flipped. And all of a sudden it just felt like I had control of my life back, even though things are different.

Okay, so here's another tip that we were actually just talking about today. If you're reading the news and you see something that you want to share with your partner, ask them first before you share that. So we were noticing, you know, we're read the news at separate times, and it's really easy to just find the other person and say, oh, my God, did you see that article? The latest numbers out of Italy? And it ends up just, you know, interrupting the day and making us think about the situation a lot more often during the day. So what you can do instead is just ask your partner, hey, I was just reading something. Can I share it with you? Is this a good time? And that gives your partner the chance to say, actually, maybe let's wait until a little bit later. That way you're just not spending the entire day interrupting each other and putting each other back in the states of stress.

Tip three, Create alone time. So if you're cooped up at home with each other, you're probably spending way more time than ever before. And you Know when you were working eight hours a day, commuting an hour back and forth, this was probably your dream scenario. Here you are, and now you have it. And as much as you love each other, this can lead to issues real, real fast.

So first, we just want to normalize that it is okay to need alone time. We all need alone time in our relationships. The way that our lives looked before, we were naturally getting that alone time a lot easier, and now it's becoming much more of a challenge. So it doesn't mean that something's wrong with your relationship, that you guys aren't a good fit. It's just normal to need alone time. So our recommendation is to talk about the amount of alone time that you'd like to have, ideally on a daily basis, and make a specific plan for it. So you might have to get really creative here. So, for example, maybe one partner can clean the kitchen While you spend 30 minutes watching your favorite trashy reality show. Or maybe your partner can walk the dog or even just sit outside for a little bit so you can have a few minutes to yourself.

All right, tip four. Allow each other to have different reactions. You and your partner, you're going to react to stress of the current situation in different ways, and that's totally normal. So, like, there's some days when I feel scared or I feel depressed or I feel down, and Vanessa's super calm and positive, and then, like, the next day, it's the exact opposite, but that's normal. The thing is, is that when you're feeling that, it's super easy to end up feeling disconnected because you're having different experiences. But what we'd say is, instead, see if you can allow yourself to see this as a strength. Because, honestly, if Vanessa and I were both, like, freaked out at the exact same time, that would be way too much stress. If we both had our head in the clouds and we were both, like.

Just ignoring or trying to be super.

Positive, yeah, we probably wouldn't be very well prepared. So it's okay. Lean on your partner when you're feeling nervous, and then let them lean on you when they're needing support. That's what partnerships are for.

Exactly. And try to remind yourself that we are all doing the best that we can in these incredibly stressful times. So you may not love that your partner is dealing with their stress by sleeping in until noon, but just keep telling yourself we are all doing the best that we can to survive. All right, now, tip number five is to learn something new together. So here is where we want you to really lean into this idea that as terrible as things might feel right now, there is also an opportunity for us to think thrive, not just survive.

Yeah. This crisis. This can be your chance to learn something new. Like it could be something fun, like just listening to that new podcast you've been thinking about, maybe getting artistic, doing some watercolor paintings together, or just like motivating each other to go on a run finally.

Or you can dive deeper and try to work on your relationship so you learn new skills and your relationship comes out of this crisis even stronger than it was going into it. So you could do things like reading a book about relationships, listening to a podcast, taking personality quizzes online, doing a teletherapy session with a couples counselor. Or maybe you could even explore our online courses.

We got some pretty cool ones. Yeah. So that wraps up our top five tips for protecting your relationship during the current coronavirus crisis. So if you like this video, please give it a like or better yet comment down below and let us know which tip resonates with you the most and how are you going to put it into action. Also, please subscribe to our YouTube channel so you can keep getting more free resources like this.

And we even have a gift for you. So click the link in the description box to download our free guide, the simple daily check in every couple needs to be doing right now.

Yeah, we are doing this every single day.

We are. This check in takes just a few minutes, but it can have a massive impact. Impact on the well being of your relationship. All right, wishing you health and happiness during these challenging times and we will see you next time.

All right, see you next time.