Will your marriage survive the pandemic?

Let it go, and other tips for couples working from home

I’m scrambling an egg for the dog. The coffee is percolating, and my husband’s laptop is pinging. Do you want some juice, he asks as he pours his own.

I say, No, thanks, but I am not surprised when he pulls out a second glass, pours a short orange juice and places it near my coffee cup on the breakfast table.

It’s actually nice that he served up a morning OJ for me. But he isn’t listening.

One night a few years ago, one sister-in-law, observing my husband and I bump blindly, though pleasantly, into each other in the kitchen before serving dinner, asked me, without context or explanation, “What’s the secret?”

I had no idea what kind of weight was straining her relationship with my brother. With their children present, that moment was not the time to discuss such issues. But I glanced at my brother’s sweet, perennially grinning, countenance before I responded. “Sometimes you just have to let things go,” I said.

I figured that’d cover just about anything that might be taxing them, and if they accepted that advice, I selfishly would not have to worry so much about the state of their marriage, and we could have a nice pleasant dinner.