Can our relationships torn apart by COVID ever heal?

She spent her nights treating patients dying from COVID-19 and her days convincing her husband that the virus was real.

In the beginning of the pandemic, Marie, an intensive care nurse in northern B.C., said her husband doubted whether the virus that's now killed more than 37,000 Canadians even existed. Once he accepted it did, he began to question if doctors were treating it right, arguing for the use of widely dispelled treatments such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

That kind of tore our marriage apart, because I would go to work and see how bad COVID was and come home," Marie said in an early-morning conversation with the Star, fresh off a night shift.

Marie" asked the Star not to use her real name, in order to protect her family from backlash.

I don't really know how to forgive," she said. It's still something that I think I hold resentment about."

She has met with a divorce lawyer.

Canadians have seen their relationships tested during the pandemic, as differing views on the virus, the response to it, and vaccines created rifts in families and friendships.

But as COVID-19 cases drop and governments toss out health restrictions, many of the pandemic-era issues that divided us are losing relevance. Once the threat of infection from the virus drops away, does it really matter if your unvaccinated cousin comes to family dinner? Or if your neighbour who always refused to wear a mask now gets to grocery shop without one?

Still, for many Canadians, the bitterness lingers like a bad aftertaste.

And whether the pandemic created rifts or exposed disagreements that were there all along, some people find themselves struggling with how to move forward with loved ones who reacted so differently to cataclysmic health event.

Marie's husband and partner of a decade is a great dad to her young kids. Their differing political views never really mattered before, she said. Now they seem insurmountable.

He just invalidated everything I said. He tried to turn it around on me. Nothing I said mattered. I just felt like it was my job to convince him."

Marie said her husband and his friends get most of their information from far-right sources, such as U.S. conspiracist site Infowars, Rebel News and Canadian anti-vax activist Chris Sky.

Things got progressively worse when the vaccine came out and Marie, as a health worker, was one of the first in her city to get a shot.

All of a sudden, he told me I was only going to live for a couple more years."

Virus-wise, things are better these days. Cases have been dropping steadily in B.C. The province just dropped its indoor mask mandate. At work, Marie isn't seeing the same level of death and suffering that she once did.

She has cut many of her husband's anti-vax friends out of her life, but she doesn't know if her marriage will recover.

Because views on the pandemic have become so closely tied to people's identities, it's much harder to agree to disagree," Steve Joordens said.

The University of Toronto psychologist knows this not just from his work but also from his first-hand experience with a family member.

Joordens has a close relative who is against COVID-19 vaccines and masks. Initially, he tried to talk to the person about it. But after a few difficult and heated conversations, he stopped.

We cannot agree to disagree. So, we don't talk," he said, which is tough."

Further complicating things, this relative has power of attorney over Joordens's mother, and decided that she would not be vaccinated.

I had this real worry that Mom is going to die alone. That's what horrified me," he said. That's a hard thing for me to get over."

Part of the reason why COVID-related disagreements run so deep is because decisions on the virus have come to be associated with a person's morality, says Hilary Bergsieker, a psychologist at the University of Waterloo who studies interpersonal relationships.

From the perspective of some, getting vaccinated and following public health measures are caring and socially conscious things to do, whereas refusing the shot and flouting health rules might be selfish. The more such decisions are moralized, the harder they can be to get over, Bergsieker said.

If people really do feel like they have a new moral insight about someone else's character, like the extent to which they see someone as a good person or no longer a good person, I could see that type of friction or division lasting longer."

A recent survey paints a bleak picture of Canadians' social ties.

More than three-quarters of respondents polled by Angus Reid and CBC said they believe the pandemic has pulled people apart as opposed to bringing them together. About the same number (79 per cent) say this period has brought out the worst in people and more than half (61 per cent) believe Canadians' level of compassion for one another has grown weaker.

Can we make amends?

Joordens says it's unlikely many people will ever say, I was wrong."

Leon Festinger's psychological theory of cognitive dissonance says people will continuously find ways to justify their choices, especially when they may be harmful, Joordens says. Each justification that comes from that initial choice makes it harder and harder for someone to turn back and admit they were wrong.

They will probably never openly say ... wow. Did I ever get sucked down a hole there."

Joordens's best advice? Don't pick the scab.

I think if we just let time go by, especially if we do it quietly and gracefully ... it starts to become a non-issue."

But that's if - and it's a big if - you can forgive and forget. Joordens, for one, isn't sure he can.

Bergsieker has a more optimistic view. People tend to suffer from something called recency bias," she said, which is when we make a big deal over something because it just happened.

People are pretty bad at predicting how a negative event is going to affect them down the road," Bergsieker. As time passes, new challenges will arise that will obscure this one, she said, and there will be new opportunities for co-operation and agreement, too.

In an election year, for example, people might look around and see their neighbours' lawns dotted with lawn signs in a colour they don't agree with. They may think those political differences are paramount.

And then the election comes and goes and there's a flood," she said. New events - both happy and sad - can change the way we look at each other.

All hope is not lost.

Vangy Perfrement has spent much of the pandemic biting her tongue" with her unvaccinated relatives (she's the exception) and residents of the small conservative Ontario town where she lives.

It hasn't always worked.

I've lost it a couple of times over the pandemic," she admitted. I used to pride myself on my patience. There have been a couple of times when the stress got to me, and I just could not keep it together."

One of those times was during the so-called Freedom Convoy's three-week occupation of Ottawa. Perfrement got in an argument with a family member over whether health-care workers should have to be vaccinated. She lost her temper, and she regrets it.

She apologized and they patched things up.

Perfrement said she has noticed tensions have started to dissipate in her community since vaccine passports were dropped at the beginning of March. She said her family's response to the pandemic has been a huge learning experience" for her.

I understand there's a lot of misinformation out there. It's pulling people in different directions," Perfrement said.

Even if she doesn't agree with her family, Perfrement said she now gets where they're coming from. They're closer because of it.

Marie, the nurse, said her experience with her husband helped her be more compassionate toward sick, unvaccinated patients at work.

I kind of adopted the mindset that these people are victims of misinformation, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad people."

Still, she worries that her kids - who are toddlers now and not eligible to be vaccinated - might start to repeat the things their dad says.

And once the pandemic is over, she wonders, what will disinformation producers latch onto next?

It doesn't just end with COVID and the vaccine. It's like a bigger web of things going on," she said.

Joordens says misinformation is a virus that's spread just as widely as the virus itself."

We worry a lot about the biological virus. I think we have to worry more about the psychological virus and try to figure out how to bring ourselves together again."