Written By Bilal G. Morris
, Senior Editor
Source: skynesher / Getty
It’s been over two years since the pandemic changed many aspects of how we live our lives. The workplace is no longer the same, social life looks a lot different and what it means to date or be in a relationship has completely shifted.
Whether you were single and dating, building on a new relationship or have been married 40 years, your relationship is different now, because reality is different now. Some relationships endured, and some ended even before they could get started. But regardless, it left us with the opportunity to reflect on black love and to try to understand how the pandemic has changed what it means to be in a relationship.
MORE: 10 Black Couples We Love!
Relationships are not a monolith and understanding them means understanding multiple perspectives. To achieve this, we asked a single man, a newly married couple and a woman married for 40 years to talk about how the pandemic affected their relationships.
The Single Guy
When the lockdown first happened how did it immediately affect your relationship?
Lockdown forced me and my then-girlfriend to spend much more time in the same space. However, there’s only so much you can do “together.” It immediately created a need for healthy boundaries.
Did the lockdown change anything about your relationship?
COVID/pandemic changed the way we functioned as individuals. As a young couple (as far as time together), we didn’t have much time to ourselves which may have stifled individual growth.
Did you learn anything new about your relationship during the pandemic?
Someone else can’t make you happy or change your mind about things. That’s on the individual. Healthy relationships are about support, understanding and honesty. How each person chooses to approach those ideas each day, is what can make or break its foundation.
If you had to describe your relationship during the pandemic in one word what would it be?
Telling.
Black Couples: The Newly Married Couple
When the lockdown first happened how did it immediately affect your relationship?
It affected our relationship immediately by me having to depend more on my husband, which I wasn’t used to. I was always the one running errands, grocery store, etc. because of his work schedule. So being that it was a lockdown I had to let him take on those roles so that I could stay in and keep the kids safe. Also, I wasn’t used to having my husband home that many hours in a day. So I was happy for the extra help because on a daily I do the majority. After a while, we both realized how important it was for us to have jobs. Our jobs allowed us to have that break from each other to miss each other.
Did the lockdown change anything about your relationship?
COVID changed the way we think. We realized how important it was for us to depend on each other because during lockdown that’s all we had and our kids! I ain’t tell you how many times I heard Ronnie say, we all we got during the lockdown and stressed how important it was for us to be there for each other a little more because you never know how important it is until you’re in that situation like the lockdown. The pandemic also made us think more about money management. We realized that our spending habits had to change.
Did you learn anything new about your relationship during the pandemic?
I felt like we grew during COVID. Grew with more knowledge. We loved our kids more, we talked more, we enjoyed the long-distance family calls with everyone checking in, our family FaceTime calls or the game nights when we snuck out to visit my mother-in-law.
If you had to describe your relationship during the pandemic in one word what would it be?
Development.
Black Couples: Woman Married For 40 Years
When the lockdown first happened how did it immediately affect your relationship?
In the past, my husband and I were very busy, so we had to schedule a time to be together. Once the pandemic hit we were around each other all the time. That took away the time we were used to having just for ourselves. We lost what I called our “own space.”
Did the lockdown change anything about your relationship?
Yes, we talked about our feelings more. After more than 40 years, that was refreshing.
Did you learn anything new about your relationship during the pandemic?
Yes! I learned to say no and became more assertive about the things I didn’t want to say. Communication was something that had to take a big step up during the pandemic.
If you had to describe your relationship during the pandemic in one word what would it be?
Eye-opening.
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