Togetherness - What It Means For A Couple

In the first bloom of love most couples want to spend as much time together as they possibly can. Grace and Adam were no exception. They would call each other numerous times throughout the day, would sneak away from work for a quick lunch as often as they could and were counting the hours until evening when they could again be in each other’s company.

Once married Grace and Adam spent every available moment together. They shared their innermost thoughts, feelings, attitudes, hopes, dreams and enjoyed getting to know each other.

In time Grace and Adam got to know each other so well that it wasn’t at all unusual for one to finish the other’s sentence. As the years went by, however, they found that they had less and less time for each other. After all, their lives were terribly busy dealing with work, children and the thousands of other issues that tend to come along with family life. And so they did what many couples do - without really noticing they allowed other things to become priorities in their lives. They now rarely talked about anything other than their family concern, which more often than not turned into heated arguments that caused Adam to feel uncomfortable and guilty and left Grace with a sick and shaky feeling in the pit of her stomach. 

Life went on this way until the day after Adam had spent yet another night working till the wee hours of the morning and Grace had spent yet another night in tears, feeling angry, abandoned and wondering what Adam had really been up to during all those work-filled nights. She had come to the end of her tether and just knew that if nothing changed in their relationship it wouldn’t be long before it would be over. It was this recognition that brought Grace, and soon after also 
Adam, to my practice. 

It wasn’t difficult to establish the real issue in this couple’s relationship. The problem was neither another woman nor was it any other shameful secret. Their problems was simply that over time they’d lost that special feeling of togetherness that had so delighted them in the beginning of their relationship. Together with that feeling they’d also lost their intimate connection and eventually the love they’d had for each other. Thankfully, it wasn’t too late for this beautiful couple to regain their losses and once they began the rebuilding process, things very quickly turned around for them. 

TOGETHERNESS is achieved through discovering the inner world of one’s partner. For Grace and Adam this meant re-discovering each other by openly and honestly allowing the other to see the person they had become over the years. They needed to share with one another their thoughts - painful though this was at times - their feelings which had received quite a battering, their hopes and dreams which had all but died. To rekindle their love, they first needed to accept their partner in their current state without passing judgment or apportioning blame. They needed to re-evaluate their priorities and be willing to make the necessary time commitment to reconnect on a variety of different levels. They had to discover that actions speak louder than words and that the greatest message we can give another person is: “I love you enough to give you something really precious, something I will never be able to regain – MY TIME!” Grace and Adam needed to 
take time for the following: 

1. TIME FOR COMMUNICATION: 

The ‘ins and outs’ of effective communication are discussed in other articles that can be found on this site, so I won’t go into that topic again in this one, but would like to remind you that the discussion of all things - whether good or bad, joyful or painful - is essential to building and maintaining a healthy couple’s relationship. I would also like to remind you that good communication skills can be learnt. 

In order to re-open their communication channels Grace and Adam decided on a 20 minute time-slot after work to take a relaxation break and have a chat about their day before tackling the usual dinner-time chaos. They also made the commitment to escape their home one night a week for the specific purpose of reconnecting. 

2. TIME FOR DREAMING, VISIONING and GOAL SETTING: 

Together-times provide wonderful opportunities for sharing one’s personal hopes, dreams and visions. For Adam and Grace it was important to re-establish some of their old and create some new dreams as well as setting new relationship goals. 

Questions that could be explored during this time are: 
• “How would we like our relationship to be in 2 years time?” 
• “What would we like to see happen with our family relationships by the end of the year?” 
• “What can we do towards making these dreams and visions a reality?” 

3. TIME FOR PLAYING: 

It’s so important to make special time together that is simply used for playing. Whether the play-time is spent playing a sport together, going to fun places, enjoying board or card games, going to concerts, the circus or the movies really doesn’t matter. All that matters it that it adds a sense of wellbeing, relaxation and fun to the relationship. Adam and Grace decided that they could make best use of their playtime by combining it with their exercise needs and chose to use it for learning to play golf. Last I heard, they were having great fun in the process.