5 Lockdown Emotions and how they impact on relationships

Lockdown has been a time where the disrupted world will unleash a whole range of emotions. These are likely to be heightened by the continuing uncertainty and lack of control.

Here are five key emotions, the impact they can have on your relationship and how to deal with them. 

1.    Scared

This is one of the fundamental emotions that is really strong and visceral. 

We may be scared that:

• we or our loved ones will get ill and even die
• we may lose our jobs and not find another one
• we will run out of money and may even become homeless 
• our basic physiological and safety needs are under threat
• life in the future will be very different

This is likely to trigger the primeval fight, flight or freeze response.  Our body will become flooded with adrenaline to get us ready to cope with the threat. Longer term this can create significant physical and mental side effects.

How could this impact on relationships?

We may go within ourselves, freeze in our internal comfort zone and be unwilling to be vulnerable, to share feelings or be intimate.  This could have a knock on effect and cause your partner to feel excluded and rejected and create a downward spiral. 

How to manage this?

Share your feelings and get support from your partner. Physical contact and hugs are hugely important. Together you will be stronger.

2.    Helpless

This is where we feel impotent and out of control; being taken by the tide with no escape.  We can either focus on what we can change or feel that we are a victim of the circumstances.  We may catastrophise and focus on the negatives.  The glass may not even be half full; it may have disappeared

How will this impact on our relationship?

If your partner has similar emotions, you can end up dragging each other under. If they are being positive, you may find the mis-matching irritating and it could drive a wedge between you.

How to manage this?

Ask for help and get support and encouragement.  Having the sense that as a couple you can support each other through this and have something positive to look forward to and enjoy will be very powerful.

3.    Anxious

We may be worrying about the unknown future, finding it hard to sleep and worrying about what will happen next.

How will this impact on our relationship?

If you are both aligned, you could be helping each other to make mountains out of molehills.  If you are differentiated, then one may be frustrated that the other is seeing the world very differently. This could cause the relationship to start to drift apart

How to manage this?

Be open and honest about what you are both feeling and ensure that the anxiety is being listened to.  Work together to see what can be done to lessen that anxiety and bring more certainty into your lives.

4.    Overwhelmed

Our world has suddenly changed and become much more unpredictable. We may now be fulfilling the role of partner, parent, teacher, worker all in our home space. This can be really hard to cope with and makes us less resilient.  The feeling of overwhelm is very likely as we no longer know what the priorities are.

How will this impact on our relationship?

Your partner is likely to have different pressures and be responding in very different ways which could be immensely irritating!  

How to manage this?

Accept that your partner is different and will be coping as best they can.

Be clear on the activities and decisions that you are jointly responsible for and agree who is doing what and what the priorities are.

Talk to each other about your own overwhelm list and see how you can support each other. 

5.    Irritated

Being locked in with your partner 24/7 without escape is a great opportunity to develop your relationship, free of distractions.  It may also be a living hell.

How will this impact on our relationship?

Your focus may start to be on all those things that they do that annoy you; the messy sink, shoes across the floor, inequality of effort on housework.  Little things can build to become profoundly irritating and you may take this out on each other with arguments, shouting and huffs.

How to manage this?

Raise these minor irritations before they fester.  Talk about them in the format of ‘When you leave your shoes across the floor, I feel annoyed and worried that I will trip up in the dark’ rather than ‘You are so messy and inconsiderate, clear up those shoes now.’

Within every challenge there is an opportunity and NLP can be a valuable way to bring greater understanding to these situations.