If you’re married, then might have experienced a challenging time over the last few months with the advancement of COVID-19. For many people, the COVID-19 experience has become a traumatic event triggering heightened emotional stress responses, i.e., flight & flight. Whenever couples are experiencing fight & flight stress responses in a relationship, it can feel emotionally unsafe and wildly conflictual.
A fellow therapist friend, Kerry McCoy, LMFT, and I did a 45-minute podcast on how the worldwide collective traumatic experience of COVID-19 is impacting marriages and what we can do to stay connected to our spouse during this challenging time. We talked about the different responses people have to trauma and how this might show up in marriage.
Kerry and I both practice a type of therapy called Emotionally Focused Therapy with couples and its main focus is to increase the security and sense of safety in relationships; something that is needed more than ever now.
At the end of the podcast, we leave you with 5 Connecting Questions During COVID-19 you can use to engage your spouse in a conversation around how this collective trauma may be impacting them, and how you can get re-connected and find your emotional footing.