EMOTIONALLY DISTANT MARRIAGES ARE NOT BAD AFTER ALL

 Some time ago I met a woman on the beach whose husband had died a couple of months earlier. Since she was originally from the same country where I was born, it was not difficult for both of us to start an intimate conversation about our lives. Because she was still in the bereavement period for the loss of her husband, I let her talk about him and her marriage without interrupting. Besides, being a psychotherapist by profession, the lives of others are my main point of interest. It was then that she told me that she had had a wonderful marriage, and that when her husband came home from work, he always invited her to go out. If that did not happen, they spent several hours having a drink, talking and dining in the superb backyard of their home. In other words, life with this man had been splendid, and she now deeply longed for his presence. Since my psychotherapy orientation is systemic, after she stopped talking, I asked her if she had any children. It took her a while to tell me that she had three children: the eldest had a severe anxiety disorder, the second had died of an overdose, and the youngest was the only one who was living a normal life. Many times in the past, I had reached the conclusion that enmeshed partners are not the best parents on earth; at some point in their lives they stop being a refuge for their children to become a refuge for each other. Unfortunately, their children get lost in the process and many of them face difficult lives. In other words, some emotional distance from our partner is not bad after all; it allows us to concentrate on those who need us most and who are our main responsibility in life.

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4Liliana Spillman, Daniel R Mesch and 2 others