I love my husband, but he is driving me mad

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It’s been over a month – or is it two? Three? What is time these days? – since we all began social distancing in earnest. For many of us, that has meant spending an unprecedented amount of time in confined spaces with our loved ones. Even when you really, really like the person or people you live with, there’s no denying it is a Test with a capital T.

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The last Tim Tam! You shouldn't have.Credit: Dionne Gain

Dr Dan Woodman, a sociologist and president of the Australian Sociological Association, says that the current situation has definitely shifted relationship dynamics. “Lots of our relationships of living together work partly because we’re not together all the time, and that possibility of organising your life so you don’t have to be together all the time has been taken away from us in the last little while.”

Dr Woodman explains that it’s not just the lack of escape, there’s also the loss of an independent sense of self that many are feeling, in addition to the general stress of the pandemic. Plus, with fewer external distractions, little annoyances that have always been there can feel disproportionately larger.

“You [can get] a bit of a vicious cycle going on, where there’s all the things that escalate that sense of being in each other’s faces, and some of the things that would allow you to break those patterns are harder to find now.”

Even as restrictions ease and we are able to get back a very small sense of normalcy, we are still a long way off from normal. A lot of people are still going to be working from home – or not working – and stuck with each other for extended periods for the foreseeable future.

For my own part, I’ve been with my husband for 19 years, and this is the longest period of time we’ve ever spent in close quarters with no break, aside from the occasional grocery run. In some ways, it’s reaffirmed our relationship. But like many couples, we’ve had our share of difficulties, most of them extremely petty. For instance, here’s a small sample of things I’ve said to him in the last week or so:

Your mileage may vary on whether I sound like a nightmare, or my husband does. The reality is, it’s both and neither. Living with other people is hard at the best of times, and we are most certainly not in the best of times.

“Even the people we love best, often we don’t love exactly the same things all the time,” Dr Woodman says. “When we’re sharing a space, particularly if it’s a small space [it’s difficult]... People are probably spending extra time in the toilet.”

We don’t know how much longer this whole thing will last. So it's important to remember that a little kindness can make a huge difference.

But also, if your relationship can make it through an epic fight over who ate the last of the Tim Tam stash, it can make it through just about anything.