With the arrival of the pandemic, the increase in disagreements among individuals who were confined to their homes, an increase of 47% in divorce rates was observed during the pandemic. The pandemic has exposed couples to being together for longer than usual, forcing them to stay in constant contact. So, if we come to the answer to the question of why divorces have increased…
In order for a marriage to be perfect, as psychologists we review the three main themes of marriage. These; intimacy, passion and commitment. When the concept of intimacy is examined from the perspective of relationships; It aims to have a healthy communication with individuals simply telling each other about the events they experience during the day and missing each other during the time spent separately. During the pandemic, couples could not find anything to share as their working life from home and online was not a separate comfort. As the time spent together increased, efficient communication could not be established as the excitement decreased. The reason for this is that there is no space to miss each other.
Passion, which is another concept, is interpreted as wanting, desiring and sexual satisfaction between individuals in a relationship. In a study conducted during the pandemic, an increase in porn viewing rates was observed, which is an interesting result. With the increase in the use of social media, the habit of sexual activity (masturbation) alone has been gained. This reduced the desire and sexual satisfaction in the relationship and caused the passion to disappear. Everyone knows that one of the building blocks of marriage is an active sexual life.
Commitment, on the other hand, means loyalty in the relationship and long-term relationship satisfaction. Most of the time, it is the feeling of not being able to share and wondering about our partner that keeps relationships alive. With the monotonous life in the pandemic, couples had a hard time finding space to be jealous and curious about each other. This reduced the sense of curiosity among the couples and caused the couples to move away. The impressive phrase I heard from another client was ‘I don’t even worry about the messages that come to his phone anymore, that phone that I once burned to poke around doesn’t mean anything right now.’ As we can understand from here, private areas should always be left in a relationship…
Specialist Psychologist Elif Silav
President of TÜSİAV Mental Health
