Tips For Couples In Quarantine Times

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

How to quarantine with your partner without reaching separation or divorce? Dr. Nancy Álvarez spoke with People en Español on this topic, offering her advice on maintaining a healthy marriage or partner relationship in times of stress such as the coronavirus pandemic. Although some will think that living 24 hours with their partner in the same house without arguing -or getting bored- will be an impossible mission, the Dominican sexologist and therapist assures that it can be done.

"When you are with a person that you get along with, it is always good to have time to talk because we are usually working, running. Almost always couples lack time and time to do cha-chaca," she adds, laughing about enjoying sex. "That also relaxes you, it is a tremendous exercise and it does you good, it brings you closer to your partner. Enjoy, get up late, make love and talk about nice things, listen to music."

What is quarantined coexistence like for couples who tend to argue? "If there is conflict it is chaos," she admits, laughing about marriages that are in trouble. "If there are things to talk that can be solved between the two, it seems to me a pleasant situation because there is time, but that is if they know how to communicate. If they are going to fight and insult each other, it is better that they do not touch on that topic until they can go to a therapist to help them before they get crushed, hurt and hurt. If they can speak it marvelous, because they vent and express themselves, but they have to speak with control, without hurting the other."

Álvarez acknowledges that this isolated time at home is positive for healing emotional wounds through writing and reflection. "If you can't speak it, you can write it, you can write a love or forgiveness letter, a very effective process for a person to take out something that is hurting them and they can't speak it. You write it yourself and it's fabulous. You don't you have to send it, but as you write you are healing. If in the end, later you want to give it to that other person, you give it to him, but not at the beginning because there is a lot of anger ".

Álvarez, 69, tells how they go through the quarantine at their home in Miami with her husband, Dr. Álvaro Skupin. "I'm fine, thank God," he says. "I no longer go out for a walk because I live in Brickell and there are too many people walking here. I am high risk because I am hypertensive and I am over 60 years old, and my husband is also asthmatic and we cannot risk someone walking past us very sweating or sneeze. A lot of people don't keep their distance. That's why we're exercising at home on our treadmill. Staying active relaxes and helps you sleep better."

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The doctor also shared her tips to keep good spirits during this crisis. "We have to stay informed but not the whole day watching that," he recommends. "I watch the news and stop counting. I start doing something else, reading, watching a movie, working on the internet inside the house and keeping in touch with our family. The good thing about this is that we have more time to Get closer to the family -even if it is not physically- but to talk to them, connect. Meditating is fabulous because it increases the immune system. That anxiety and anguish if we do not manage it will make us sick. The best medicine is to maintain the body's defenses well. with low stress, sleep well, try to fight depression. Make an effort to control negative thoughts. When they come to your mind, take them out and be distracted by something. We must learn to live in the here and now because we do not know what will happen. We have to stay alive, not walk on the street and stay calm."