While the light lasts...

...I shall remember and in the darkness I shall not forget. The pandemic might be on the wane but its shadow has dimmed the joy in many relationships which have had to face unexpected changes and challenges over the past three years.

Satyajit Ray’s Charulata has one of the most iconic opening scenes in Indian cinema — Charulata, a homemaker, rushes from one latticed window to another with her binoculars to catch glimpses of what’s going on in the street below. Listless, lonely, bored and disconnected. You would be forgiven to think Ray crafted this scene in pandemic times.

We are now in the third year of a once-in-a-century pandemic and its impact has been felt on every aspect of life, including marriage. Marriage, in the best of times, needs nurturing but when a pandemic comes along and pulls the rug under people’s feet, it is that many times harder for couples to steady themselves.

Unprecedented transition

Explains relationship coach Priyanka Bharadwaj, “Someone once told me that in a marriage, there are periods of steadiness and periods of transition. Periods of transition would include changing jobs, moving homes or having children, and these have an impact on a couple’s relationship.” She notes that while these are changes most couples are prepared for, a pandemic is an unprecedented transition, which means that couples have had to cope with its impact on the go.

“In my experience, I have seen that the pandemic acted as an amplifier of the pre-pandemic state of a couple’s relationship. Couples whose relationships were already damaged found it harder to reconcile their issues. Living under the same roof became unbearable, and this brought them closer to a separation if that had been considered pre-pandemic,” Priyanka notes. Couples who had a neutral relationship actually began to become better flatmates and shared responsibilities because they were left with no choice. On the other hand, couples who were already close had a chance to enjoy the space and time that the pandemic gave them to strengthen their relationship, she observes.

For working professionals, Suresh* and his wife Priya*, married for nearly 20 years, the pandemic actually helped them turn more grateful for each other. “Bonding as a couple was unexpectedly and wonderfully intensified when Priya’s mother contracted Covid in the first wave (June 2020) and was in intensive care for weeks. We naturally came together as a couple to handle all aspects of the crisis and also had to manage her prolonged convalescence. We came to recognise positive aspects of each other’s complementary abilities and traits during those trying times.”

What do you do the whole day?

Suresh also notes that the pandemic work-from-home schedule meant that both he and his wife actually found out what each of them “really” did in their day jobs. “Hugely revealing was our work personality traits and how different it is from the “domestic” one. We repeatedly caught each other out being patient, polite, willing to listen, negotiate and dialogue with colleagues and clients but at home oftentimes we have been quick to anger, irascible and downright feisty with each other,” he says. Suresh and his wife now try to remind each other to use “workplace attitude traits” to resolve any differences. “This doesn’t mean we are always stiff-upper-lipped with each other,” he adds. “It has been a tough couple of years but also a really nice trial run for our post-retirement lives together,” Suresh says.

For Deepika*, who has been married for four years, the initial period of the pandemic was stressful and did indeed cause a lot of anxiety but she and her partner managed to deal with it. “Me-time meant watching a nice show or just picking up a book,” she adds. Also, the pandemic-induced lockdowns actually helped her and her partner build a better bond because of the time it gave them. “We appreciate each other better,” notes Deepika who only recently had to move to a different city from her partner’s for work.

Not all couples have found it easy to navigate the challenges the pandemic has posed. According to Revathi Rohira, counsellor and advocate, Matrimonial Law Chambers, the pandemic has indeed posed a huge challenge to relationships. She says that the number of couples seeking her help has more than doubled over the past two years. “Not all of them go on to file for a divorce but the numbers seeking out help have definitely risen drastically,” she adds.

Revathi typically sees three categories of couples coming to her. The most common scenario is where the husband has been working from home and the wife is a homemaker and is suddenly saddled with more work, while also ensuring that the husband works without interruptions. She says the pandemic has taken a bad toll on women who have suddenly found that their space has been robbed and there’s zero socialising, apart from the fact that their partners may not have the energy or time to communicate anymore. Work from home has had a huge impact on relationships, she notes, adding that the second scenario is where both the partners are on WFH mode and communication breaks down. Then there’s a third scenario where one of the partners, often the husband, is stuck abroad. Revathi notes that most couples who approach her are married for less than five years.

Digital anxiety

Counsellor and psychotherapist Sindhura Aiyappa says that the number of people who approach her has more than doubled over the course of the pandemic. One of the biggest issues they face is linked to digital anxiety, i.e., the anxiety caused by being away from a screen even for a brief while. She observes that couples seeking therapy have often had screen time going up to 10 or 12 hours, which changes sleep patterns and causes an overwhelming of emotions. When there is a bottling up of heightened emotions, all that a partner needs is a small trigger over a trivial issue to lose their cool. Then there is the issue of avoidance or lack of communication, which has also been because of excessive screen time.

Relationship coach Priyanka points to the fear of missing out or FOMO that couples experienced during the early stage of the pandemic because of social media. “There were so many trends through the pandemic where couples were creating content together, lifting weights, posting throwback travel pictures, making Dalgona coffee or banana bread and recording every moment of their hectic life.” These unreasonable comparisons with the social media lives of other couples also put an unnecessary strain on relationships, she points out.

The Rashomon effect

The early stage of the pandemic meant lockdowns and low case counts, and couples treated the first few months as a break or a vacation of sorts but as the pandemic progressed and the WFH scenario continued with couples not being able to socialise, things began to take a turn for the worse, she adds. Personal well-being is an important aspect of any relationship and if one partner doesn’t take care of themselves, it can impact the relationship.

Priyanka observes that the pandemic meant that there were some big issues such as grieving the loss of a loved one or supporting each other through the grief. “It is not something anyone is ever prepared for and so a lot of couples had to learn to deal with it.” Then there was the question of job losses for many, apart from the absence of support systems at home, particularly during the lockdown. Couples with children had to juggle work with childcare responsibilities, she observes, and even facilitate learning on behalf of schools. This meant that prioritising oneself or even each other took a backseat, and the relationship suffered.

No two relationships are the same and the pandemic has served as a torchlight for many couples, therapists and relationship experts to examine the multitudes contained in a marriage. To end with a cinematic analogy, we may have just experienced a ‘Rashomon’ effect with respect to how marriage has fared in the time of a pandemic. The eponymous Kurasawa film centres around different perspectives and stories emerging out of the same event. One pandemic, many stories.

(*Some names have been changed to protect identities.)

The calling-it-quits celeb rush

The pandemic years have not been easy for many couples, celebrities included.

Towards the end of 2021, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates announced his divorce from Melinda Gates, after a 27-year marriage. In a year-ender blog post, the billionaire said that 2021 has “been a year of great personal sadness.” The 66-year-old wrote in his post: “It’s been a strange and disorienting experience. My personal world has never felt smaller than it did over the last twelve months.”

Closer home, actor Dhanush and his wife Aishwaryaa Rajinikanth parted ways after 18 years of marriage. This follows a spate of divorces, including that of actors Naga Chaitanya and Samantha in October 2021, when the couple’s announcement took social media by storm. In July 2021, actor Aamir Khan and wife Kiran Rao also announced a divorce after 15 years of married life. Not all of these divorces may have any direct connection with the pandemic; the pressures of their profession and lifestyles, the lack of time and communication, or simply growing apart may be the reasons, relationship experts say. However, the pandemic may have served as the last straw in some cases, while in others, actually given the couples a chance to examine their relationship, leading to a divorce.

Sustaining a relationship in a crisis

* Listen: In the Indian cultural context, we spend a lot of time socialising with friends and family in general. Social isolation, on the upside, gave couples a lot of time with each other. This was an opportunity to listen, and understand each other better, especially without the noise of their interaction with others; a chance to build healthy boundaries as individuals as well as couples.

Talk: Whether it is due to the pandemic or simply a phase in your relationship, if you are feeling a sense of disconnection or marital loneliness, then you have to talk to your partner about it. Whether you choose to talk it out or write to each other (so you can be heard without being interrupted), it’s up to you. You can even choose to get away on a vacation to give yourselves a new environment to tune into each other a bit more.

Seek professional help: If you find it difficult to communicate with each other, you can take the help of a couples’ counsellor as they are unbiased and experienced in handling such matters professionally. In fact, the pandemic has normalised seeking professional help to take care of one’s mental health and relationships.

(Inputs from relationship coach Priyanka Bharadwaj)