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Taking care of emotional ties and cultivating personal growth to relate from love and not from dependency are keys to constructively carrying out the relationship at a distance
It may be 20 minutes by car, or 600 kilometers by train or even 3.000 by plane … Whatever distance separates during confinement a couple who do not share the same home, the answer is the same: they have been in it for more than a month without being together and they still don’t know when they will be together again.
It is likely that for some it is being harder, longer or more difficult than for others, but what seems clear is that this type of situation so unknown can be a good time to discover the Dark Side or light side that predominates in the relationship. The psychologist and expert in couples therapy Carmen Benítez, who is also the founder and co-director of El Olivo Psicoterapia Humanista, reveals the keys to discovering if that couple who have been temporarily separated by confinement is prepared to live constructively or destructive this context.
What are the main challenges faced by couples living apart during confinement?
For some couples it may happen that this situation is a kind of “litmus test” that reveals or brings to light some aspects that were hidden. These situations can come to highlight some issues in the relationship that were “in the background” and that perhaps went unnoticed on a day-to-day basis. In some cases they may have to do with Shadows of that couple and with all that it will inexorably distance them and in others, with a light side that perhaps they had not yet discovered and that may lead them to further strengthen their union.
What signs identify people who do not live with the couple constructively in this context?
They would be those that are related to the fear and that can lead the person to a situation of acute stress and behaviors such as irascibility, aggressiveness or continuous complaints, not only related to his partner but also to neighbors, politicians, or even the family … These signs would show that he lives in a permanent state of stress related to confinement but also as a consequence of the frustrated expectations that your partner was by your side at that time.
However, I would like to stress that it is possible to live this situation in a constructive way as it can also contribute to personal growth. Learning to accept this separation can also help that person build “emotional muscle” and that helps them to sustain and overcome their fears and insecurities. This kind of “crisis” can make you grow and the consequence of that growth is that once all this happens and, in some way, you return to “normality”, perhaps you can conceive the couple relationship more from the beginning. love that from the necesidad and more from the desire to share than from the field of emotional dependence.
Would it be something like rebuilding yourself to build a healthier relationship?
Yes, something like that … Sometimes the “romantic love” and this idea of ”without you I cannot live” with true love, but if we analyze the phrase “without you I cannot live because I need you” we would realize that this phrase is what a child would say to his mother and not an adult to your partner. Looking for someone in your partner to solve everything, give you security or calm your fears is something that could be related more to our “inner child” than to our adult part.
What we see from the field of psychology is that crises are great opportunities not only for change in society, but also in people. In general, change usually occurs when something goes wrong, not when it goes well. And a crisis is, in addition to being a moment of pain, an opportunity to grow.
One has to stop to reflect and….
It is true that it is important to stop and think, but it is also important that during that pause we do not stay in the answers that have to do with fear, with flight, with blocking or attacking, because all this produces irascibility and also hatred or anger towards the other.
A person who is living in solitary confinement, without his partner, has the opportunity to grow, to achieve more autonomy and work that emotional dependence that we have and that many times we do not realize. That dependent side is the one that leads us to idealize the partner and to mark everything that we think that person has to give us. But the couple is not a mother who has to give us everything we need, nor is it the person who must meet all our expectations and desires.
And while reflecting on these ideas, how should you care for the relationship from a distance?
Whether or not at a distance there are no parentheses in a relation unless its continuity is in doubt. That is why I always say that if the couple were an organ of the body, it would be the heart. That organ that is always working, that muscle that is always pumping blood, that organ that is always giving and receiving. All the time. Non-stop. It happens to a relationship like a plant or like a child. You cannot say “now in these months I stop watering you” or “now I’m going to spend a while without feeding you.” You have to take care of it every day, also in the distance.
The only difference is that in this exceptional situation we have to cultivate those links daily with the formulas that we have at our disposal, such as calls, messages, video calls, shared moments … Actually, if you stop to think about it, the crisis generated by the threat of coronavirus has to do with the restriction of individual freedoms for the care of others. And that also has a certain parallel with the couple. One leaves the “I” to create a “we” and that can happen by “living together” or by “living separately.” But what is important is that the feeling of “we” accompanies a person even if his partner is not physically with him. It is convenient to feed that feeling of belonging to a “we” on a daily basis because if what we feed is an “I” plus a “you” that relationship is fragile and its stability is in danger, especially in a context like this.
And when there is no certainty about when it will return to normal, how is the anxiety that uncertainty can generate in the couple managed?
Many people are working both from the field of science and health to provide the necessary answers, but we still do not know when a drug or a vaccine will be found to help normalize the situation. What we must do is take the information with a dropper and be guided by the deadlines that the health authorities are dictating. Those deadlines are, say, the reality. The rest of the terms that we venture or that we imagine would lead us to be guided by fantasy.
And in addition to basing ourselves on reality and not on conjectures, we must be aware that the restriction of individual freedoms is due to the need to avoid contagion and take care of something much greater, which is the health of the most vulnerable and our own health. .
And this need to self-protection It also has a parallel with the couple because when one loves himself he is taking care of the other. From within the couple, to deal with this uncertain time it is important that both look in the same direction and think about their shared dreamWell, that dream will return. But at the same time they will have to live the relationship in the present moment, even if their partner is not physically with them. It is not always necessary to physically see someone to feel that we have them close.