I’ve Been Dealing With Long COVID For 400+ Days. Here’s How It's Affected My Marriage.

"One of the worst effects of this strange illness has been the way it separates my husband and me not only from our peers but also from each other."

My husband, Andrew, once told me that he had more fun with me than with anyone else. 

He wasn’t my husband yet, but we had been a couple for five years at that point — 2½ in a long-distance relationship and then almost a year living together abroad — so his claim of still enjoying my company (indeed, of preferring my company to anyone else’s) felt significant. I sensed his remark wasn’t just a throwaway compliment; he was looking at me with unusual intensity. My intuition wasn’t wrong, and a few months later he asked me to marry him.

We’ve been together 18 years now and have faced challenges and crises common to many long-term relationships. Hospital emergencies. Job-search stress. Pregnancy, miscarriage, the loss of loved ones. After over a decade of marriage and the arrival of two children, we no longer harbor the illusion that our shared life should be all fun, all the time, but we’ve managed to keep joy and humor as good-sized parts of the equation — at least until recently.