It's Not Us, It's COVID: Individual and Relational Stress Among Latine Couples Early in the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly altered life in the United States, especially for ethnic and racial minority communities who are disproportionately affected by the virus. In this descriptive study, we sought to understand how mixed-gender Latine couples in the U.S. are functioning both dyadically and individually, in addition to identifying aspects of their unique experience during the early stages of the pandemic. We administered an online survey to 146 participants (67 mixed-sex dyads and 12 individual partners), already enrolled in a longitudinal study on marital functioning, in which at least one partner self-identified as Latine. Results from the study revealed couples overwhelmingly reported positive relationship functioning, although individual stress and negative affect were both elevated, suggesting that individual-but not relational-distress is prevalent among Latine couples during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend that clinicians working with Latine couples focus on helping them adapt to COVID-related stressors rather than addressing novel relationship problems and to approach their relationships as fundamentally protective. This study lays important groundwork for how Latine couples are experiencing the pandemic and demonstrates profound resilience against the potentially negative impacts of stress on relationships.