how quarantine saved my marriage

Ok, maybe saved is a strong word, but I’m gonna go with it. 2020 was a dumpster fire, there’s no denying that. It was hard for everyone. In some ways though, we came out better because of it.

I want to start by recognizing my privilege. My family is blessed because we had a safe and warm home, we didn’t lose our jobs, we had a strong bubble of family nearby (my sister lives only 900 feet away!), and we had childcare for our kids. Without this, I know we would not have made it through the year as strong as we did.

Back to our marriage, as anyone with kids knows, it can be tough to balance your relationship with your spouse once kids come along. Their needs are loud and exhausting and relentless. Paul and I were a well-oiled machine of caring for our kids, but we never turned off the machine long enough to just be ourselves together. 

Then, as we all know, the pandemic hit. Paul and I found ourselves both working from home. The kids were at preschool and we finally had time to talk without interruption. Of course, we had some awkward adjusting at first figuring out internet connection, zoom schedules and working in various parts of the house without a home office, but once we figured those out, we actually started to have fun. We took lunch dates together. We talked more than we had in years. We talked about things not directly related to the kids. We even pulled out some Nerf guns one day for an epic battle before picking the kids up. 

We also started to pay attention to each other more. We had an up-close look at the daily life of the other person. We saw their workload and struggles. We saw all the things the other person does to keep our house running. We both give 100% and we saw that the other does too. It helped us soften to each other. We could see that we were both doing our best and we appreciated each other more.  We have always called ourselves a team and we became an even stronger team through this.

2020 was hard. I would never wish it to happen again, and I think we will be picking up the pieces from it for a long time, but I would also never change how it allowed for my marriage to blossom again and how it allowed us to be Paul and Kelly for a bit and not just mom and dad. And so, 2020 saved our marriage. What was your bright light in the darkness of 2020?