Jake Thiessen, PhD
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Services
    • Individual Therapy
    • Couple Therapy
    • Weekend Couples Intensive
    • Couple Sex Therapy
    • Choosing A Path
    • Love Re-Imagined
    • Healing After An Affair
    • Pre-Marital Counseling
  • Contact
  • Dark Truths of Successful Marriage
  • Blog
  • Men's Group
  • Divorce Mediation
  • Reviews
  • Fees & Insurance
  • Online Help

Every couple is always just one sentence away from intimacy

Relationship Rhythm: Merging & Separating

11/12/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Speaking to his girlfriend, Annie Hall, Alvie Singer says, "A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know?  It has to constantly move forward or it dies.  I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark."

                                           Annie Hall (1977) Woody Allen

The notion that relationships require movement is familiar to anyone who has been in one for more than a few months.  Naively, many of us believe the movement will be essentially linear and in a positive direction.  Oh sure, we say, there will be difficult times, disagreements and disappointments.  But, we expect that over the long haul we will be in a better place when all is said and done than we were when we began.  Often this is pretty much what happens in one of the several dimensions that make up an intimate relationship.

In another dimension there is also constant movement but it isn't linear.  It's circular.  In this dimension, we move in a repeating pattern of merging and separating, merging and separating--over and over again.  Imagine two circles, side by side, with one moving in a clockwise direction and the other in a counter-clockwise direction.  In a healthy relationship this is the pattern of movement that prevails.  We connect, enjoying our time together and move apart enjoying our separateness.  For example, we have a nice evening together but when it's over we eventually fall asleep and move into our individual worlds.  When we wake we may cuddle and discuss the day ahead before getting out of bed.  But, eventually we go to work and move into our individual interests and obligations.  This is the pattern--merging and separating.

Alvie Singer's "dead shark" can show up in a couple of places.  The most obvious is when a couple needs or demands constant connection--constant merging.  It doesn't take long for this to produce an environment in which there is so little fresh air that the inhabitants eventually asphyxiate.   Jealousy and the fear of loss are usually behind the inability to move toward appropriate separation.  In much the same way, being afraid to give up separateness creates the kind immobility that eventually eliminates the fresh and new experiences necessary for life.

Good and fulfilling connection comes when we are moving toward or away from the experience of separateness.  Likewise, healthy separateness usually comes in anticipation of or after a clear sense of connection.  The constant merging and separating movement keeps the "shark" alive and well. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Jake Thiessen, PhD

    I've been working with couples for a very long time.  And, I love it!  This blog is my attempt to communicate some of the things I've learned over the past 40 years.  

    Picture

    Archives

    October 2020
    June 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    September 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    August 2016
    July 2016
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Making Change Possibleossible


Hours

By Appointment

Telephone

717-743-4223

Email

ADDRESS
jake@couplesatcrossroads.com
Couples at Crossroads
525 North 12th Street,  Suite 100, Lemoyne, PA 17043
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Services
    • Individual Therapy
    • Couple Therapy
    • Weekend Couples Intensive
    • Couple Sex Therapy
    • Choosing A Path
    • Love Re-Imagined
    • Healing After An Affair
    • Pre-Marital Counseling
  • Contact
  • Dark Truths of Successful Marriage
  • Blog
  • Men's Group
  • Divorce Mediation
  • Reviews
  • Fees & Insurance
  • Online Help