Category: Relationships

Partners Make People Feel Connected — Not Children, Pets Or Video Calls

Children, pets, video calls with friends and even working outside the house did nothing to increase people’s sense of social connection during the pandemic.

Children, pets, video calls with friends and even working outside the house did nothing to increase people’s sense of social connection during the pandemic.

People’s partners provide the best buffer against social disconnection due to the pandemic, new research finds.

Romantic partners help keep each other’s well-being from taking a knock from social isolation.

In contrast, chatting with friends on Facetime and any number of children and pets have little effect on making people feel socially connected.

In other words, it doesn’t matter how big your household is, it’s all down to the quality of the connection.

The research affirms the importance of romantic partners for mental well-being.

Ms Karynna Okabe-Miyamoto, the study’s first author, said:

“Research prior to the pandemic has long shown that partners are one of the strongest predictors of social connection and well-being.

And our research during the current COVID-19 pandemic has shown the same.

Living with a partner uniquely buffered declines in social connection during the early phases of the pandemic.”

For the study, almost 1,000 people in Canada and the UK answered questions about their feelings of social connectedness both before and during the pandemic.

They rated statements like:

  • “I felt close and connected with other people who are important to me.”
  • “People are around me, but not with me.”

People living with romantic partners gave higher ratings to their levels of social connection after social distancing measures took hold, the results showed.

However, children, pets, video calls with friends and even working outside the house did nothing to increase people’s sense of social connection.

The authors write:

“Living with a partner — but not how many people or who else one lives with — appeared to confer benefit during these uncertain and unprecedented times.”

How to deal with pandemic stress

The four most common strategies people are using to deal with the pandemic are:

  • checking in with loved ones,
  • increased exercise,
  • limiting news exposure,
  • and performing acts of kindness.

→ Read on: the best ways to deal with COVID stress and what social distancing does to brain and body.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Okabe-Miyamoto et al., 2021).

The Answer To Relationship Strain During The COVID Pandemic

Couples who interfere more with each other’s routines experience greater anger and sadness.

Couples who interfere more with each other’s routines experience greater anger and sadness.

Working from home together during the pandemic has put considerable strain on people’s relationships.

One of the major reasons is the disruption of each other’s routines.

Now, a new study has found that couples who interfere more with each other’s routines experience greater anger and sadness.

This leads to perceiving the relationship as more turbulent.

Greater awareness and consideration of your partner’s routines, though, can help reduce relationship strain.

Mr Kevin Knoster, the study’s first author, explained:

“When you are impeding your significant other from accomplishing their goals or are disrupting their daily routines, there will be emotional responses.

Based on our findings, more interference from your spouse leads to sadness and anger, and that’s independent from one another.

This can lead to perceptions of a turbulent relationship.”

The study included 165 couples who were surveyed during the first peak of the pandemic in April 2020.

They were asked how much their spouse disrupted their routine and how they viewed the relationship.

The researchers interpreted the results using ‘relational turbulence theory’.

This is the idea that periods of instability can easily create problems within the relationship.

Partners can feel more uncertain about their commitment to the relationship and its future.

Like many of those in his study and around the world, Mr Knoster found himself experiencing ‘relationship turbulence’:

“Like a lot of people, we, too, had to adapt on the fly all of a sudden to working from home.

Our routines were in a state of a flux.”

Mr Knoster ended up disrupting his wife’s routines from time-to-time:

“I step on her toes every now and then.

I teach classes from home (on the computer) and her office is through a closed door behind me.

If she needs to go to the restroom, she has to walk behind me so she may be thinking, ‘Do I need to coordinate with his schedule just to wash my hands?’

It’s interesting.

It’s changed our professional lives and personal lives in more ways than we think.”

The answer is to be more considerate, says Mr Knoster:

“…when you and your partner support each other’s goals and accommodate routines, that elicits positive emotional reactions.

We need to remember to catch our breaths for a moment and work together.

It’s more important now that we’re sort of sequestered inside at all hours of the day and starting to feel like rats in a cage.”

The study was published in the journal Communication Research Reports (Knoster et al., 2020).

One Simple Phrase Helps People Stay Positive (M)

This way of responding to upsetting emotions improves people’s mood.

This way of responding to upsetting emotions improves people's mood.

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The Mental Benefits Of Sleeping Next To Your Partner (M)

Couples move their limbs more when sleeping together, but their brains are calmer.

Couples move their limbs more when sleeping together, but their brains are calmer.

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