Part 4 - “When you get genuinely scared, you drop behaving nicely.”

I spoke with Bethany on March 28 from her rented home near the beach in North County San Diego. She answered the phone in the middle of a belly laugh with her partner and commented on how appropriate it was that I was calling at that moment. They had been watching a humorous sex-related video. She’s in her late 30s and her partner is in her late 40s.

Dr. Jenn: What is your current dating/sex situation?

Bethany: We’ve been dating only five months at this point, and it’s been amazing and really great. The quarantine pushed us into a lesbian troupe [laughter], so we’re quarantining together, which is apparently a new relationship step! We’ve been doing that for two weeks. My partner was going into work initially, but then she transitioned to teleworking from home. And my son is here too, and we have him full time now.

My ex-husband and his girlfriend, who he lives with, were traveling when this all started so, they’ve been quarantining for a while. He’s not feeling well, and she’s been working outside the home, so I’m concerned if my son goes over there about whether he’ll be safe. It’s hard to know how to negotiate these conversations and do it well, but also not tell people how to live their lives.

We live in a townhouse, and we share a backyard with another family, so we’re two families quarantining together. There’s a boy next door the same age as my son so with a shared backyard, they play pretty much all day, every day. That’s made things so much easier while he’s on spring break. I will be homeschooling soon, and we just got all the info for that and the upcoming schedules, so I’ll have to figure out how to help my son.

All my work assignments have been canceled. If people are hurting financially moving forward, they won’t see my services as essential and hire me. So that’s terrifying.

How is the coronavirus impacting sex and dating in San Diego? (Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.) — How is the coronavirus impacting sex and dating in San Diego? (Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.)

Dr. Jenn: Has there been any change in your sex life?

Bethany: Not really. We’re really evenly matched desire-wise so far. Although, having my son at home full time might change that. But so far, I don’t think so.

Dr. Jenn: What are you most concerned about regarding coronavirus?

Bethany: Primarily financial, because that’s an immediate concern. I feel like I have control over self-isolation, and when we have to go out, we can wash hands, etc. So, I’m not as worried about that part. I’m an introvert, so I’m handling that part well, and I also have folks around me. I’ve been making a point of checking in with my extroverted friends who live alone. My partner’s job stability is good, and her work has been totally uninterrupted.

But my financial part -- it’s the part of my brain that kicks in with any trauma. My attention is drawn to what I fundamentally need for survival.

Dr. Jenn: What’s been hardest for you recently?

Bethany: It’s hard to watch our president fuck up our whole country. The bad guy isn’t supposed to win, and people are not standing up to him. I get angry in a way that only comes up with that abuser type of man.

Dr. Jenn: Has this crisis impacted your emotional relationship with your partner?

Bethany: I guess really positively. We’ve really enjoyed spending all of this time together. We seem to get scared at different moments, so one of us has been good when one of us is not. The biggest thing that’s come up -- because her mom and siblings are older -- she gets scared about how devasting that could be [if one of them got sick] and they are far away, so she feels helpless.

And my reactions are practical and immediate with my freak outs. When you get genuinely scared, you drop behaving nicely – this is just me – and so far that has gone really well. It’s brought us closer.

Dr. Jenn: What are you most grateful for in the current difficult circumstances?

Bethany: The slowing down. I had already been feeling pressured in too many areas for too long, so I really wanted a month where I didn’t have to do anything. But I didn’t quite mean this! Definitely not what I was intending.

But I just moved to this new place. It’s an amazing space near the beach with an office and yard.

There are things I wanted to do in my new home outdoors, and I like the slower pace to be able to do those things. There’s a calm to it. It’s forced everyone to slow down and has a calming effect on me.

It gives me space to do different things and create fertile space for creative ideas. But I’ve been hard on myself for not being creative enough.

The biggest thing I’m starting to see is that we have all of these defenses that we live with, and it’s really easy to not pay attention to them, and look past certain things in a relationship. But when you’re together ALL the time, you start to see the other person closer up and as an individual. We’re processing the same info in different ways, and that’s interesting to look at, and you have to do it in real-time right next to each other.

Hang in there folks,

Dr. Jenn Gunsaullus, San Diego Keynote Speaker, Intimacy Coach, & Sociologist