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As a relationship therapist, I can tell you firsthand that what you suspect—or perhaps experienced yourself—is true: The pandemic has upended every aspect of most couples’ lives. Many are forced to coexist 24/7 in small spaces and with children constantly underfoot. Add to that ongoing climate change, political turmoil, and reckonings with systemic racism, and the result is a mountain of stressors that drastically tested the limits of even the most devoted couples’ ability to navigate “for better or for worse.”
But you don’t have to take it from me. Here, 15 couples divulge how 2020 has transformed their relationships—from the couple who willed one another to survive when both were infected with COVID-19 to the interracial couple whose participation in protest marches led to increasingly candid dialogues about racism to the queer couple who impulsively decided to quarantine together. Keep reading for their hard-fought lessons learned.