If you have just gone through this past year of pandemic stress while in a relationship, or you broke up with someone, ended a marriage, have been waiting to start dating again, or you are starting to give up on meeting someone, let’s start by acknowledging the good, the bad, and the ugly of how our love lives and our own self caring, were affected by quarantine.
We might like to forget about this past year entirely but in order to change anything we have to start acknowledging wherever we are at in our relationships right now. If we do not acknowledge the massive changes we are experiencing, we are making our lives, futures, and relationships much more difficult. For the first time in our lifetime, the entire world changed in ways that we cannot clearly comprehend and from which we are continuously experiencing changes and aftershocks.
We will one day ask ourselves what life was like before 2020, where were you? Who were you with? Did you lose your job? Did you lose someone you love? How much did your life change?
What if being willing to look at some of the changes now, could it give us clarity on what we value most in our lives?
One thing that became starkly obvious to me is that we desire to be together in this wild and wonderful world, and the most difficult part of the pandemic was being separate from our loved ones. I am sorry if that brings up some sadness, but we also need to acknowledge the exquisite heartbreak that is simply part of the deal when you dare to love and be loved.
Whether with friends or lovers, family or co-creators, our bodies and beings thirst to play together. There is no delight on the planet like great friendships that shows up as if by freaking magic. No amount of amazon boxes and netflix shows can fill that space of friendship.
I love seeing my children reconnect with their friends without missing a beat. There is not a moment of hesitation or awkwardness wasted, there is joy, laughter, warm embraces, and that endless chatter that erupts when you just delight in being with someone. They immediately choose to have as much fun as they possibly can. I told them they give me hope for my friendships. I also wonder what it would take to have more friendship in relationships?
Relationships have likely faced every challenge imaginable this last year. Some couples went into lockdown together, suddenly with nowhere else to go. Instead of having a few hours with each other every day and planning vacations and quality time, we are wondering what the fuck it would take to have an hour alone. You may have noticed fewer smiling selfies of couples on your instagram feed as the stress of living together took over. It was hard enough to navigate through the ups and downs of our intimate relationships when we were free to leave the house!
Some couples created more joy and laughter, intimacy and caring for each other, discovering their strengths and having a new sense of gratitude for one another. Facing what at moments feel like the end of the world and the end of the lives we were living, being kind and having each other’s backs become essential, instead of good ideas.
I wonder how much of most what couples bickered or worried about before the pandemic has now changed? Or only gotten more intense? The pandemic is an extreme reason to make changes and how often do we wait for drama to change what we know isn’t working?
I know a few people that started dating at the beginning of the pandemic and fell madly in love. I know others who woke up fast when they faced the harsh reality of isolating with their partners and they chose to end abusive relationships.
We know that many relationships ended or are in severe post traumatic stress. Divorce rates are up 34% from the articles I found. In the New York Times it is reported that most couples are not waiting for official court dates but settling quickly so they can get out of their marriages as soon as possible.
There were also many couples who were forced to stay separated during the quarantine and could not physically be together which can be devastating for relationships but can also be a huge gift of course, depending on the relationship.
Whatever you have been through this past year, and wherever you are at in your love life, acknowledging what is going on for you now is the first step to knowing what you would like to have as your relationship now and into the future. It will also give you valuable information you can begin to look at as you ask if your relationship is over, or just getting started?
At the beginning of the pandemic, my husband was thrilled to have me and the kids home with him every day. It was his dream come true. He was already a stay at home dad and works from home, and his only desire was to have more time with me especially, and the kids too. We sunk right into more playtime and fun, reading, movies, just dance, and trying to decide what to cook for dinner or if we should get take out. Once we knew that our kids were going to be home for school and it was fire season in Los Angeles, we hopped a plane to Alaska for six months. This only made my husband happier.
Now, if you had told me a year ago that we would be home together alone with our kids for thirteen months and counting and we were leaving California to go to my hometown for six months, I may have gone into a very painful anxiety attack. We ended up having an amazing winter in Anchorage and only got closer. I am extremely grateful that I had no idea that things weren’t going back to normal at the beginning because I would have gone into a lot of doubt and worry if my marriage or I could handle that.
Now, that might sound sad at first, or wrong, but what if it’s ok if one partner desires to spend all of their time with their enjoyable other and the enjoyable other enjoys other things? It took me a long time to not make myself wrong for choosing to have a career or activities, or even friends that are just for me when my husband would happily have me hang out all day and listen to his hilarious jokes. And yes, sometimes I wish I was still the nineteen year old girl who only wanted a boyfriend to give her endless attention. I know something different is possible now, and even though I look 19 I’m not 19, just kidding! I also have no need to run away from him to feel like I can be myself. But that was not always the case.
Is this an area where you struggle in your relationships? Even before quarantine, did you spend a lot of time proving you were a good girlfriend or wife, instead of doing whatever you desired? Most of us operate with the assumption that we need to prove how much we love each other. That might be our definition of relationships. It’s a bit exhausting! My new favorite movie is Sophia Coppola’s ‘On the Rocks’. Bill Murray explains to his daughter that “we all just want to be loved,” and she explains that loving him enough is exhausting.
Another note on relationships you never read in grade school! Love is exhausting and people are hard work! So if you are going to choose a relationship, why not make it a good one? Like a cocktail! I love a well mixed, delightfully delicious and refreshing beverage, but when all I taste is alcohol or water, it is not worth sipping on. What if your relationship is just getting started because every day you are willing to whip up something fresh and delicious?
How many of us keep choosing the same relationship cocktail over and over again when it doesn’t even taste good? Or one of the ingredients makes us sick? And we never even consider writing down our own recipe. Now comes the fun part. What would your recipe to a fantastic relationship include?
Here’s my ol college try:
Maria’s Fantastic Love Life Sparkle Fizz
List of Ingredients
Laughter
Pleasure
Play
Joy
Questions
Gratitude
*Secret ingredient: tequila
How to make:
Choose each other every day.
Never make you or your lover wrong or right.
Follow the pleasure!
Ask questions without conclusions or judgments.
Be grateful for everything! Even the tough times.
Conspire to plan adventures now and into the future.
What do you actually desire? Do you know? If you have listened to me talk about relationships before you will not be surprised to hear me bringing this up again, because you cannot have an incredible relationship if you are not honest with yourself about what a great relationship for you would be like! What would it taste like? What would it sound like? We tend to mimic other people’s relationships and operate from our culture’s or Hollywood’s projections of love in the movies. It is a cruel trick by whoever taught us that we have no choices and are the same as everyone else.
What if movies, television, books, and even the relationships you see growing up or around you now are just stories? They can be fascinating, romantic, thrilling, scary, interesting, insane… but stories that are based on someone else’s points of view? We can fantasize all day long about John Cusack in Say Anything, outside our window holding his stereo in the air looking all dreamy, but if we decide that is what a guy does if he is really into you, we are going to expect grand romantic gestures from boys who haven’t watched the same romantic movies. We also miss out on having lots of fun and great playmates because they do not fit whatever we have bought is true about relationships.
For example, if your point of view is that men make the first move and you would never think to ask a man out on a first date because that is obviously desperate, you might miss out on lots of fun first dates, and second dates, and relationships with men who are waiting for you to talk to them or even touch them first! Why does it have to be so dang confusing?
