I just wonder at how many relationships - family, friends, or otherwise - have been damaged by the pandemic. Just more casualties of this horrid disease. I thought I would start a support thread for people dealing with family or friendship issues.
I don’t think my husband’s relationship with his father will ever be the same again. Prior to our son’s birth he had committed to helping with childcare two days a week (I work part-time.) We asked him repeatedly if he was sure he wanted to make this commitment because otherwise we had to find alternate child care arrangements. He said he was sure.
Our state shut down almost exactly when our son was born. And his Dad refused to change his behavior at all for the sake of the baby. Meeting multiple strange women on Tinder, eating out, traveling cross-country on multiple trips, hanging out with his enormous extended family, engaging with people who had been to large events. Our pediatrician said no way this guy should be allowed around an infant.
So we were left scrambling for child care. Before the whole ordeal was over we lost half of the year’s income. We ended up having to hire a nanny we can’t really afford, since daycare is not an option. His Dad had talked up how excited he was for a grandson and yet has refused to quarantine for even a brief period of time so he can even visit, much less provide childcare. He hasn’t seen his grandson in months.
I’m upset, my husband is furious. He says he will never trust his father to be there for him ever again. His Dad has always been a narcissist but we never were in a position for it to affect us so much.
Anyway, I just think it’s sad. This pandemic has exploited so many vulnerabilities in people and relationships. Just another thing it has taken from us.
Domestic violence, which is only one aspect of the stresses placed on relationships, has increased greatly over the past year.
Considering that article is from Australia, which has had a relatively very mild experience in the epidemic, it suggests that a whole range of relationship stresses, relationship failure and domestic violence are making themselves felt, especially in the hardest-hit parts of the world. I’d wonder whether many of the support services such as relationship counselling and social services and womens’ and children’s refuges would even have been able to keep operating in local melt-downs.
I work at an agency supporting survivors of domestic violence and we have certainly seen it become more difficult for victims to reach out for help. They are stuck 24/7 with their abusive partner who keeps them under constant surveillance, and then the added financial strain of COVID increases the danger further. What is sad for some of us has become a nightmare for others.
While I understand how disappointing your FIL’s attitude toward his grandson and responsibility is, I’m not following how it cost you more money than if he’d said no from the get-go. Maybe I’m not reading it right?
My guess is that since everything was arranged from grandpa to be a caregiver , when things didn’t work out the need for care was almost immediate. My daughter went on the waiting list for the daycare center at her job as soon as she found out she was pregnant and there wasn’t a spot until my granddaughter was 3 months old. If I had agreed to provide child-care and she found out it wouldn’t work when she had the baby, she would have had to make other, more expensive arrangements or put off returning to work.
In my experience for a lot of relationship issues COVID is just a trigger for something that would have happened anyway. Not all , but a lot. For example, Spice Weasel’s FIL - I’d bet in the absence of COVID he’d have done something similar. Like taking a non-time sensitive vacation without regard for whether that week would be good for Spice Weasel and her husband. The people I’ve lost respect for because of their COVID behavior didn’t change because of COVID - it’s just that their nature became obvious to me in a way that it hadn’t been before.
doreen pretty much nailed it. Wait lists for daycare are obscenely long. He left us without any means of childcare. My husband had to take extensive time off of work and I nearly had to leave the job that I love in order to make it work. We did manage to find a nanny, and I suppose that will be the arrangement until daycares are a safer environment.
Wait, are you saying that 2-day/week nanny costs more than full time daycare? Otherwise I’m just not following. Because the alternative to FIL watching the baby 2 days a week isn’t going to be a 2-day-a-week childcare center. They’re not going to turn down a full-time baby for a 2-day-a-week slot that they won’t be able to fill the other 3 days for. Your alternatives to FIL always were a full time daycare or a part-time nanny. Sorry if I’m being dense here.
No, I got that. He was only ever going to be on duty 2 days a week. You can’t get daycare at a center for a baby for 2 days a week. You have to have a nanny or nannyshare. Maybe she could have arranged a nannyshare if she’d known earlier?
You can get part-time daycare for a baby in some places - especially if by part-time you mean “fewer than 5 days a week” . My daughter worked* at a hospital . The daycare center has part-time schedules and was subsidized by her employer so daycare would have been cheaper than hiring a 2 day a week nanny - if she could even have found a two day a week nanny as they generally prefer full-time jobs as well. ( a nanny-share might have worked, but that’s not always possible) And 5 days at the center was definitely less than a fulltime nanny. Two days a week tends not to be a nanny, but rather a SAHP who cares for another child or two - which is fine, but not everyone is comfortable with it.
She ended up quitting when they wanted her to come back into the office ( her job did not require her to be in the office and she worked from home betwen March to September) because she didn’t completely trust the other parents not to bring symptomatic or exposed children to the center. She also paid the fees for the six months she worked from home so she didn’t lose the spot.
I won’t say it damaged relationships, but it’s certainly painted a few in a new light. I found that extended family have made a virtue of how seriously they take the pandemic but in fact it’s been kind of a virtue signalling game to them. They say one thing but do quite another. And when they have lied themselves into a corner, they suddenly have to run because, ‘Important thing to do… let’s talk again soon!’
On the bright side, my wife and I have gotten along famously, even though I’ve been WFH since February. We’ve organically developed a mid day break for a cup of tea and a chat in the kitchen after which I retire back to the home office to continue the daily drudgery of Teams meetings and project work.
I’m afraid it’s going to be a while before I’m not pissed at my sister and brother-in-law. They decided it was a good idea to go to a crowded bar with a bunch of their buddies. About 10 days later BIL got sick but blew it off because “COVID is a hoax”. They didn’t take it seriously until my niece got sick. Now Mom has it. BIL and niece are fine and Mom seems to be on the mend but is still sleeping a lot. BIL’s been posting on Facebook about how now no one can make him wear a mask and no one can tell him he can’t do something because he’s had it and “it’s no big deal and everyone needs to stop being sheep”. Christmas oughta be interesting if I even decide to go over there.
Three days a week nanny costs $2,000 a month. That’s more than full - time daycare, yes. At least where I’m from.
There is a very long story here I’m trying to spare you. He strung us along for months. We were drowning with a newborn, a new business and my postpartum depression and FIL was like, “You guys should have more fun. Here’s a photo of me climbing a mountain!” Or “Look at all this money I’m making off of the pandemic!” The bottom line is, we were in trouble. We were hurting. And he was out having fun. That is all he cares about right now.
I don’t think he’s a bad guy. He can be very generous and loving. I do think he’s a narcissist who can be completely oblivious to the suffering of others. I recognize those sound like contradicting things but he’s a complicated person. I’m not mad at him because I don’t really expect much from him. My husband on the other hand is furious.
I went through a breakup this year that was Covid-related - basically, going 5 months without meeting (she’s a thousand miles away) was a big factor in it being ended.
I finally got sick enough of one of my husband’s friends. No change in his (or my) behavior, just years of drip drip drip annoyance. Little actions of misogyny. Selfishness. A lack of respect for anyone’s opinions but his own. And this year was a year where between Covid and the election, I ran out of patience.
I think this is right. FIL probably would have screwed us over anyway, somehow. For a lot of people it just magnifies issues that already existed.
I love having my husband work from home. I see him at lunchtime, he’s available an hour earlier than usual, and he can spend more time with the kid. It would not have been that way if not for COVID. So I am glad for that silver lining at least.
Part of my deal was that my husband’s stress level was increasing with Covid and the election. And we are together all the time. So things that I would vent at him about would add to his stress - and when venting about his friend, it was overwhelming for him. It became less stressful for us for me to stop tolerating it on his behalf and then using him as the outlet when I needed to vent. He still maintains the friendship, I just don’t. I might again next year.
Good for you. Life is too short to deal with other people’s bullshit. My husband maintains contact with some people I want nothing to do with - college friends in particular that are still every bit as immature and misogynistic as they were twenty years ago. I wouldn’t say they’re his close friends, but they text him periodically and very occasionally ask to hang out. I never felt welcome around them as a college student and that hasn’t really changed.
I’m hoping some people have the opportunity, with COVID cutting off many social options, to identify which relationships in their life are causing them unnecessary stress. When you’re thinking, “Hey, my life is less stressful without this person” it may be time to re-evaluate that relationship entirely.
This thread is kind of timely for me. My parents are bog-standard Fox news zombies and now they’re doing the annual Christmas ritual of shaking me down for a time and place to recreate Christmas of 1958 regardless of whatever is going on in the world. They need a smackdown and a reality check, but I can’t give it to them because they’re my parents and they’re old and dumb and it’s like kicking a puppy.