Dear Prudence: PArtner and I are arguing over COVID precautions.

[minoanmiss]

My partner works in the medical field and has been vaccinated for COVID. For the past year, he’s been the one driving the COVID caution in our home. I skipped my family’s Thanksgiving, have bowed out of all friend gatherings (outside or otherwise), and stopped going to the gym—and it’s been this way since March, regardless of our state’s fairly strict COVID guidelines, per my partner’s recommendation and pressure. The guidelines are now loosening as COVID cases decrease. My partner continues to guilt me when I mention wanting to meet up with a friend or drive an hour away to see my brother. Things have devolved to the point of weekly fighting over COVID guidelines. I’m resentful that I won’t get the vaccine for at least five more months (I am low-risk, so I’m at the back of the line), which my partner interprets as lack of respect for his front-line health work. I’m sick of fighting over this and resenting my partner for controlling me. It’s caused a real rift in our relationship. How can we reach a compromise that makes both of us happy—or at least able to get through a week without fighting over this?


—Restriction Resentment

This is part of the challenge of using subjective language like “strict” about public health protocols, I fear! You’re not personally to blame for inconsistent or incomplete state regulations, nor do I fault you for wanting to see your friends and relatives nearly a year into the pandemic. However, your question is difficult to answer without more context on the specifics of the situations and what you’ve discussed with your partner. When you tell your partner that you want to meet up with a friend or your brother, what are the conditions of that meeting? Are you proposing an outdoor meeting? Will others be present? Will you both be masked or unmasked? How many people does that friend regularly come into unmasked contact with, and have you two had conversations about your relative risk levels?


These are reasonable questions for you and your partner to discuss, but it’s also reasonable for you to feel frustrated by them, simply because this last year has not been a reasonable one for anybody. One recurring argument among countless couples, roommates, families, and friend groups this past year has been a mismatch of COVID comfort levels and expectations, and as a general rule, the default should be toward the most cautious person. However, if your partner is trying to control your every movement, making you feel guilty for experiencing loneliness, or treating every possible masked outdoor walk with a friend like you’re planning a rave in your basement, that’s cause for concern, too.

If building in an automatic “negotiation conversation” about potential future visits doesn’t help, and you’re feeling punished or ostracized by your partner’s response, I’d encourage you to call in a couples counselor, and maybe ask a few friends for support and guidance, so you don’t feel like you’re alone in trying to navigate this conflict. It’s one thing to honestly disagree about risk management best practices and express frustration, but that doesn’t mean your partner is justified in trying to control or guilt you at every turn. Good luck—I hope you can both be patient with yourselves and each other.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I am not an advice columnist, ahahahahahahahahaha, but if I were able to talk to LW I might point out that, unless their partner has turned COVID safety into an isolation tactic (which they might, abusive behavior can make use of anything), then the two of them are taking the COVID stress out on each other and it might help to reconceptualize things as them united against the problem.

[xenacryst]

I feel like COVID is a big red herring here.

"My partner continues to guilt me..."

"Things have devolved to the point of weekly fighting..."

"I’m resentful..."

"which my partner interprets as lack of respect"

And the kicker:

"I’m sick of fighting over this and resenting my partner for controlling me."

COVID may have exposed the problem, but the problem is deeper than COVID. There's a distinct lack of understanding, communication, and respect in this relationship. I suspect that if we were to peek inside their house we would find more gas lights than the downtown district of San Diego.

[heavenscalyx]

I see the language about resentment and controlling, but I'm also aware of the anti-masker rhetoric about how masks are control, etc etc, and I think we really need a lot more context here. If husband is a front-line healthcare worker, I can absolutely see being frustrated with someone else's covid-fried entitlement and misunderstanding of relative risk, etc. Like, we don't know if vaccinated people can still transmit the disease -- so husband may be aware that he could still bring covid home to spouse. Spouse is at relatively high risk of exposure as a result, and could carry it off to friends or brother or whatever if pre- or asymptomatic. Spouse may not grok that and be like, "Okay you got vaxxed so I'm no longer super high risk like before gonna go socialize byeeeee," and isn't open to hearing any contradictions and is interpreting those contradictions as "controlling."

Or husband could be controlling abusive asshat. Or both? Could be both. We just don't have enough information to know.

[jadelennox]

Yeah. Way too many people are like "my state says I can go to the gym, therefore going to the gym is safe!" And there are a lot of red flags for me in the LW's letter. Skipped going to family thanksgiving? The general national advice was "please, please don't go to family thanksgiving." Gyms, regardless of state law, haven't been safe in any state in the union since September. And social gatherings, outdoors or otherwise? There are not safe otherwise social gatherings, either, and the LW's cavalier mention of the otherwise makes me think they are not taking the virus seriously. And the fact that LW's friends and family are planning these gatherings makes me confident that Partner doesn't (and shouldn't) trust their carefulness levels either.

All of which makes me annoyed that Prudie has skipped what to me is the elephant in the room: Partner works in medicine. Every risk LW takes can be passed on to patients. (Is partner a lab tech in a safe environment, or a nurse on a NICU? This makes a difference, obviously -- but still, if partner's been vaccinated it presumably means they have at least some exposure to and from patients.)

Here's another question: has Partner explained to LW that all of the vaccines allow people to transmit disease, as of current knowledge? Does LW think that vaccinated partner can't transmit disease to patients and colleagues?

Here's another question: has Partner's job meant Partner's seen Covid patients or the side effect: overwhelmed hospitals and doctors? Doctors who are dying of exhaustion or suicide? Patients dying from lack of beds? If so, Partner might have a reason to be way more careful than LW understands. Can LW and Partner talk about this?

I have to say, reading between the lines it reads like Partner's sense of a "lack of respect for his front-line health work" is because LW has lack of respect for his front-line health work. They've clearly had this conversation many times, and yet LW at no point in any way engages with the obvious arguments that Partner is almost certainly making.

[minoanmiss]

ooh, well said, both of you!

[torachan]

Yeah, the LW comes off as a major asshole here and seems like they don't think covid is serious at all and would 100% flout all recommendations if not for their spouse, so I can't be on their side at all.

[green_grrl]

It read like “missing reasons” to me—I wanna see my friends and brother and he won’t let me! I feel like someone who’s careful and wants to complain would have said explicitly, “It doesn’t matter if it’s outdoors with two masks on, he still says I can’t go.”