Relationship satisfaction in the time of COVID-19: The role of shared reality in perceiving partner support for frontline health-care workers

Abstract

People often rely on partner support and shared reality during stressful and uncertain times. As such, the current research explored how these may relate to relationship satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, 155 frontline health-care workers and their significant others completed measures of shared reality and relationship satisfaction, while also indicating their levels of perceived or provided support, respectively. We proposed that shared reality would foster partners providing and health-care workers perceiving support which would, in turn, promote greater relationship satisfaction. Overall, both shared reality and partner support were positively associated with relationship satisfaction for health-care workers and their significant others. Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model with Mediation (APIMeM), we found shared reality to be associated with greater relationship satisfaction through health-care workers perceiving greater support from their partner. Our research demonstrates that shared reality may be a way for people under stress to perceive greater partner support, providing relational benefits for the couple as a whole.