Distancing

Distancing … Dealing With Anxiety in Relationships

We all do it, don't we?

"When family members (or people in close relationships) use physical distance to solve problems of emotional interdependency, the result is always temporary, or includes a transference of the problem to another relationship system."

"Most family members think of distance as a physical category rather than an emotional one. Accordingly, when they want more separation, they tend to resort to physical solutions. A husband who finds a wife's constant anxiety disturbing may spend more time on the internet; a wife who wants to get away from her perpetually critical husband may start to take half-hour showers, etc…"

"While such efforts often bring relief, generally the require a great deal of energy to maintain the relief, and in many situations, the same intensity just surfaces elsewhere."

"Distancing comes about because there is not enough distance to begin with. Marriage partners may separate because they have grown distant, but most couples probably separate because they are not able to achieve any separation at all."

"Getting distance must go beyond obtaining physical space. The capacity to define self in a relationship, and to control one's own reactive mechanisms, also creates space. The opposite is equally true: the quickest way to destroy distance is to over-function anxiously in another's space. Emotional distance must be measured in terms of resiliency rather than inches."

Have you seen this play out in your relationships?