HAMPTON ROADS, Va.- Is the coronavirus impacting your marriage?
Due to the pandemic, we're cooped up in ours houses, working from home, dealing with our kids---trying to get them to do their homework. On top of that, there could be financial, mental and possibly marital stress.
News 3 Anchor Kurt Williams had a conversation with a local marriage coach, Dr. Christine Bacon, author of The Super Couple. Her strategy? An acronym to keep COVID-19 from infecting your marriage.
"The formula is SACRED. When I wrote the book I was thinking, SACRED or SCARED, but SACRED would probably sell more books," Dr. Bacon says with a laugh.
I ask her to explain the acronym, "The S is the most important of all the elements. The S is selflessness. Am I being selfish or selfless, because whenever you're being selfless, it's very attractive and it makes you appear more loving to your spouse," she said.
"A is attentiveness. What are you paying attention to, because I want to encourage you to focus on the goodness of the person you're with."
She says the C is communication and explains how that is so important and that we must remember that men and women have such different communication styles, needs and habits.
Next she moves on to R, "Respect. I don't think I need to describe much, other than the definition of respect: seeing the greater esteem or worth of a person."
Then she reminds us that sometimes over the years, "We sometimes tend to stop respecting our mates. So kinda really look at that person you live with and see them with eyes of true love and respect." Dr. Bacon adds, don't forget to regularly see the value of your spouse---don't take them for granted.
She adds E is another big one, "E is encouragement and is so, so important during COVID-19. There's so much discouragement...it's very heavy-- so, encouragement.... super couples encourage each other constantly."
And the final letter, "D ties it all together it's deliberateness. How can you deliberately tomorrow, try to selflessly serve your spouse? Selflessly pay attention to his or her strengths. So are we deliberately saying, you know what, Sunday.... nothing but family time.....Friday nothing but date night.....we're gonna pick a movie. So that's the Super Couple formula and it really covers COVID-19."
For more information on Dr. Bacon's book, The Super Couple or her local radio show, click here to see Dr. Christine Bacon's website.
