✓ Quarantine, tips to avoid a couple crisis

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Compulsory isolation is a complex process not only logistically but also emotionally. Couples who cannot count on the help of family and friends in caring for their children can reach high levels of stress, which can affect the relationship.

Taking care of your partner is essential in this type of situation, which unfortunately cannot be foreseen. Ana Sanchez Anegon, Spanish therapist, coach and journalist for Serpadres.es, has identified some tips to avoid going into crisis with the partner and to resolve couple conflicts during these days of quarantine. Here's what they are.

Communicate our willingness to resolve the conflict to the partner
Express emotions, doubts and requests with non-violent communication
Offer space for listening and understanding the emotions of the other
Offer positive feedback and words of love to the partner
Find a space to talk about how we feel in isolation
Practical tips to find calm.

Read also: The educational management of children at the time of the coronavirus

1. Communicate our willingness to resolve the conflict to the partner

It is important to find a time of day (it could be at night, at the end of the day) to talk about what happened and what went wrong. During this space, the members of the couple must be willing to calmly confront each other and have the will to resolve small conflicts that have arisen during the day. It might also be useful to give yourself rules such as "don't use your cell phone during these conversations".

2. Express emotions, doubts and requests with non-violent communication

Non-violent communication is the most effective method of speaking when dealing with conflicts. Communicating by explaining emotions (for example "I feel this way when you do it") and avoiding accusations and offenses, expands the capacity for empathy of the other and helps us to "disarm" the dynamic of the "attack-defense" conflict.

3. Offer space for listening and understanding the emotions of the other

It is important to realize that the other person wants to be heard and that they intend to explain to us what hurt them. This can be a way to understand each other better and avoid new conflicts.

4. Offer positive feedback and words of love to the partner

Sometimes we forget that small gestures of affection are essential to improve coexistence and that they make us feel more human. Especially in these days when we can't get them from other people. Showing others that we are grateful for everything they do will help us on a daily basis.

5. Find a space to talk about how we feel in isolation

We seek some time to talk to our partner as if he were our ally, focusing on the more "delicate" consequences that quarantine entails for us.

Quarantine, practical advice to achieve calm and balance

Finally, here are four more tips that can help couples achieve calm at the end of the day and find some rest, physical and mental, from everyday obligations.

TO HAVE DINNER TOGETHER. Sometimes, when you have children, dinners get chaotic and it is difficult to find spaces for communication. In this moment of isolation, the proposal is to find a space for parents after the little ones' dinner. You can sacrifice hours of sleep, but it's important to take advantage of these days to find and share intimate spaces.
DO A PLEASANT ACTIVITY TOGETHER. It can be a family photo album or a video recording. The imagination has no limits.
ARRANGE AN "APPOINTMENT" AT HOME. It is just a couple of drinks and some background music for an hour, but it helps us not to forget the life of a couple at a time when it is easy to get carried away by sadness and anxiety.
RESPECT THE MOMENTS OF SOLITUDE OF THE OTHER. It is important to respect all the moments in which one of the two wants to be alone. In these days of isolation, it is more important than ever to respect the moments of solitude that every member of the couple needs.

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