By Danielle Ollington*
Have you been married or living with a partner for a few years, yet sleep separately, perhaps even in different rooms? Is your relationship lacking affection and sex?
If you answered yes to these questions, your relationship may be heading for ?housemate? territory, if it isn?t already there.
Other signs can include living separate lives, where perhaps one person is focused on individual pursuits, and the other on caring for the children, with little or no time spent together as a couple.
Women can report feeling like a housekeeper, responsible for cooking, cleaning and washing, but not feeling loved, desired, or appreciated.
You and your partner may still feel close and have fun, or enjoy your children, have great family holidays, but there will be something missing in terms of an emotional connection.
There may be a lack of conflict or fighting, which is not necessarily a good thing. Issues can go underground and impact on a couple?s capacity for intimacy.
Things may feel quite flat,?with neither?partner?initiating new activities, nor bringing positive energy into the relationship.
Moving into housemate territory can result from a range of factors, such as a period of upheaval or trauma, for example moving interstate or experiencing a death in the family.
The dynamics?can also change when a couple starts a family, as individual roles become more distinct, particularly when one partner is at home and the other at work.? It?s easy to lose touch with each other?s worlds when life is busy.
At times, the role of parenting is at odds with being a romantic and sexual person: changing nappies and cleaning toilets are not activities that put you in touch with feelings of romance and sexuality.
Sometimes resentments and hurts can be sitting under the surface so either partner or both may emotionally take aspects of themselves out of the relationship.
Couples can develop ways of interacting with each other that counteract romantic and sexual feelings, for example, when a man feels that his partner is in a mothering role to him, this is at odds with desire and sexuality.
Women can also report feeling like their husband or partner is their child ? again this can interfere with feelings of desire and romance.
Sometimes a pattern can begin and both couples adapt without having chosen this path of being more like housemates.
As well as being an issue for couples who are busy rearing children, the ?housemate? scenario comes up for older couples who may be facing other difficulties as well, like surgery or illness that potentially impacts on sexuality, and transitions like menopause.
There are also partners who act primarily as carers for their mate, often at the expense of many of their own needs.
Being ?housemates? does not necessarily mean the end. The future of the relationship depends on the needs of the two individuals and whether they are being met. If there is shared understanding and agreement that the relationship is about the need for companionship, then there is no issue.
It can also be a way of coping with a particularly busy, sad or stressful time in life ? you may be working well as a team and enjoying each other?s company, but put other needs aside.
However, if one or both partners are unhappy with the arrangement, then the situation needs to be discussed and action taken if the couple are to remain happily in the relationship long term.
Ultimately though, an intimate relationship will contain elements above and beyond the status of a housemate.
The good news is there are ways to get the relationship back on a more intimate footing.
Women often report that when their partner shares the workload at home ? think housework and caring for children ? they are less exhausted and can free up some mind space to consider connecting as a couple in a more romantic or sexual way.
Find ways to see yourself and/or your partner as a sexual being again: buy new clothes, go on dates, remember what attracted you to each other when you first met, compliment your partner, reach out and touch them, tell your partner that you love them and why, listen to your partner. Everyone needs to feel important, valued, and interesting.
Find some ways to inject some energy into your relationship: do different things at the? weekend, spend a night in the city, go on holidays, cultivate new social relationships.
Acknowledge the situation and talk about it.? Find a way to express your needs in a way that is non blaming and enhances your relationship. For example, instead of saying ?You don?t care about my needs?.? Say something like ?I love you and would like us to be closer in lots of ways like..?..?
Develop shared interests: art appreciation, watching movies, dining out, walking the dog, have coffee in a different area than usual, enjoy your grandchildren, go shopping together, exercise together, etc.
Have shared dreams, have a shared vision of what your relationship might look like in five or 10 years.
Remember what you used to do that made you both feel close and connected. Create rituals that join you as a couple and highlight a sense of belonging, for example, sharing a wine before dinner as you discuss your day, reading different sections of the paper together, celebrating your anniversary, holidaying at the same place, etc.
Going to counselling might also be useful.
And remember: relationships are like cars ? they require petrol, care, and maintenance to keep going.
* Danielle Ollington is a counsellor at Relationships Australia Victoria.
suh lindsey vonn lindsey vonn josef stalin kourtney and kim take new york anne hathaway nathan hale
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন