instead, we tend to become much more critical, and much less forgiving of our partners, compared to times of no stress, neff said.
“again, in many of those cases, people should be blaming the stressor as well. but too often stress affects our thinking without our awareness.”
what makes covid different is that the stress is so salient, so obvious. “covid was the headline of every news story — it was all we discussed. so it made it easier to blame the stressor rather than blaming each other,” though not everyone did.
their sample didn’t necessarily involve the most stressed people. volunteers tended to be fairly well educated with fairly stable employment. the median age was 31. about 20 per cent had children.
as covid dragged on, “we thought that maybe people’s tendency to blame the pandemic would weaken, and you wouldn’t see these beneficial effects,” neff said. but it was just as strong in november as in april.
as more people become vaccinated and more things open up neff said it would be curious to see whether people stop blaming the pandemic as much, “and you see more stress spillover happening in couple’s relationships.”
among the takeaways, when feeling stressed, people should take time to decompress and regroup before interacting with their partner, neff said. “we should also cut our partners some slack when they are undergoing really stressful periods.”