Social distancing rules in Britain, like around the world, mean all non-essential public travel and gatherings must stop. People can only leave the house to exercise, to buy essential items, to attend medical care or when their work cannot be done at home. Being on top of each other in the house is a real challenge. We are stuck inside our homes, forced to spend more time together than ever. We don’t have to be confined to a small family home, without a garden to escape to, to feel the strain of lockdown.
We may have to deal with children out of school with excess energy. We depend on a partner for almost all of our social support because we can’t be with our friends or family.
The strain of lockdown can already exacerbate difficult relationships. Signs of family disharmony include negative moodiness, emotional outbursts, resentment, and feelings of frustration.
Here are some thoughts on surviving the stress of lockdown.
Handle children with care.
Children and grandchildren can add wonderful moments to our family life. Their spontaneity and sense of fun can brighten the day. But almost out of nowhere, fighting, yelling, or crying can break out and it can be a little painful. They seem to be louder, messier, and more demanding than we expected. What they want may be different from what we want, testing our limits and boundaries.
Tolerance and patience are requested. Count to ten and take a step back before you overreact. Also the ability to say ‘no’ firmly and consistently without fuss or undue blame. It may be necessary to negotiate in advance where to draw the line with the children’s other parent so that the children do not learn to play one parent against the other. To accept authority, children need to be told the reasons why they can’t have what they want. But when he is upset and angry, the child is not ready to reason with him. That has to come later.
We all need rest to restore our inner resources if we want to survive being imprisoned within our own home. Then we will more easily find the concentration and patience necessary to focus our attention on the needs of our children. They are having to adjust to not being with their friends anymore. Complaining about feeling bored, they will need support and encouragement to explore new hobbies.
Tragically, the lockdown will likely reduce the support available to us if we are single parents. For example, from friends and grandparents. Without help, it will be more difficult for the adult to get respite and energy to return to the role of caretaker the next day.
Avoid retaliation
I guess it’s natural for us to feel irritated if a family member yells at us. It’s not so much what they say as how they say it. They can raise their voice when this is not necessary. It would be worse to yell and slam doors. And if there have been several outbursts of anger lately, we would probably cross ourselves, which of course makes things worse. Now we both think about how unfair the other is being. Resentment can fester for a while and increase restlessness. We can end up imagining that we return to each other.
The movie ‘such for which’ with Laurel and Hardy comes to mind. The two heroes open an electrical supply store next to Charlie’s grocery store. The comedy unfolds in the way the characters involved respond to each other. Charlie mistakenly thinks Ollie is hitting on his wife and damages some items in Stan and Ollie’s store. Resentfully, Stan and Ollie respond by damaging more of Charlie’s stuff, causing him to do worse with his property. Relationships intensify; eventually wreaking havoc on both stores. This is taking things to the extreme.
Being aware and the tension of confinement
Escaping a heated situation may be less easy during the stress of lockdown. The police guidance is that people can move to a friend’s address for a cooling-off period “after arguments at home”, as long as this is measured in days, not hours. But this may not be feasible if you have a duty to care for a child or family member who is sick or ill in your home.
One needs to lower the tension somehow. Do not raise it trying to even the score. Don’t make things worse by taking revenge on someone. The challenge is keeping your head. Noticing resentful thoughts but not engaging with them. A part of us wants to blame someone when things aren’t right. But instead of acting on it, we can learn to observe this inner rush to judge. We can be more aware not only of our own natural reactions, but also of those around us. And do this with an awareness of the big picture.
Confinement and affirmation tension
The result could be to remain silent when someone is attacking us. Perhaps wait for a more opportune moment when they are ready to listen. It is possible to resolve a disagreement later. Then calmly state our own point of view.
Those with assertiveness skills can present their point of view showing respect, without interrupting or speaking loudly unnecessarily. Without insisting, one is right and the other person is wrong, no matter how sure one feels. This approach may involve being willing to negotiate some kind of compromise.
Collaboration with the person who has offended us could be a possibility. Each must be willing to explore what had happened between them. Reflect on where things went wrong. How the tension could have been avoided. There may be an underlying issue that can be addressed. A solution to the problem could please both us and them and go beyond what each of us had wanted in the first place.
Tension of confinement and needs of the couple
Closed couples will be together most of the time. A true test of love. To survive this difficult time of lockdown tension, partners need to learn even better than before how to get along.
This includes being willing to consider and even prioritize the needs of others. Our partner may need to talk and be heard. You may need practical help now in what you are doing. You will need equal participation in decision-making. And he will need our forgiveness for any mistakes or wrongdoing.
“Patience gives your spouse permission to be human. Understand that everyone fails. When a mistake is made, choose to give them more time than they deserve to correct it.” (Stephen Kendrick)
be ready to forgive
It is usually easier to let the past be the past when the person who has wronged us is truly sorry. But it is harder to ‘forgive and forget’ if they show less than complete remorse for what they have done. In the same way if we only partially appreciate the damage they have caused us.
To remove our resentment, we might try to remember a time when we did something wrong to them. Nobody is perfect and if they were lenient with us, now it will be easier for us.
Another tip is to consider what worldly or selfish desire is in you that has been frustrated by the other person and reconsider its importance. Has pride been hurt? Well, what’s wrong with a little humility? Lost time for someone? It does not matter, there is a lot of time in life to recover what was lost.
Summary
The current pandemic is a great challenge for many people. But if we can better learn to live well under the pressure of lockdown, then perhaps we will have a better quality of family life afterwards.