Most Couples Think THIS Is Bad For Their Relationship. They're Wrong

Becoming a witness begins with a gap. In order to see yourself in someone else's eyes and to see the other person, there has to be a space between you—something I like to call a "mindful gap," taking that idea from the British subway system in which a recorded voice shouts to passengers stepping onto the train, "Mind the gap!" Between you and your beloved, you must learn to mind the gap. This means taking a step back and remembering that you do not know or see or feel exactly or precisely what is going on with your partner or even what is going on with yourself.

In order for the gap to invite intimacy and contact, however, its size has to be "just right," like the bed for Goldilocks in "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"—not too small and not too large. If the gap is too big between you and your beloved, it can become a chasm. For example, if one of you has been away for a long intensive spiritual retreat or a trip abroad, or has been seriously ill, or has had some other deeply transformative experience alone, then the gap can feel like a chasm.

When my handsome and endearing husband, Ed, was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer's disease at the age of 59, the gap between us had already become an impossible chasm. Ed had lost all of his neural functioning in the cortices of his frontal lobe, his right hemisphere, and much of the left hemisphere by that time. We still kissed, hugged, and held hands—and he was affectionate and wanted to caress me—but there was no way for me to be in real contact with him across the gap. He could not be a witness to me, although I could still be a witness to him. This is how and when I began to discover how precious our witnessing had been, after it was gone. He could not even picture me as I was driving home, did not know if I had a birthday, and could not ask a personal question. Even though he still adored me, he ignored me. Although we continued to be very close emotionally and to feel the bond that connected us, we were no longer following the path of true love. The gap was too great. Mutuality of witnessing was no longer possible. When one partner is dying and the other is well, the same kind of gap begins to occur. You cannot follow your beloved into death.

What happened between Ed and me, as he lost his ability to recall or remember anything about me, reminded me of what people experience in being relentlessly misunderstood by a well partner. He would reach out tenderly and want to caress me—and others around us would say, "Oh, Ed just adores you!"—but I would feel myself inwardly recoiling from his advances because he could no longer picture anything about me or hold me in mind from moment to moment. I have seen many people in couples therapy who felt the partner would give lip service to loving them, or "pretend" to be affectionate, but showed no ability to be a witness. How does this happen?

Perhaps surprising, it is typically because the gap is too narrow between the partners or seems not to exist. If you think you know your beloved "like the back of my hand," then think again. You have eliminated the subtlety, the uncertainty, and the impermanence in your knowledge of your partner. Because you have heard your partner tell that same story many times does not mean you know why your partner is telling it now. If you think you already know without asking—why your partner, for example, winced with self-consciousness—then the gap is too small. Most of the suffering in partnership that is not due to betrayal or violence comes from not feeling witnessed, in a situation where one or both partners do not experience differentiation, or a mindful gap, between them. Sometimes this situation arises in an unconscious attempt to manage the feelings of the other person because those feelings seem intolerable to oneself.

Occasionally, I am asked about the differences I have noticed in relationships between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples in regard to differentiation and witnessing. Often, I say that my experience as a therapist with same-sex couples (which is considerable, but much more with lesbians than other kinds of same-sex pairs) is that there typically is a natural rapport and a greater sense of friendship, at least at the beginning of the relationship. There is a celebration: "Finally, I have found my best friend!" Friendship is an important aspect of true love; friendship means equanimity and relaxation. But there can be a flip side to this ease if it is rooted primarily in a mutually idealizing projective identification, which often produces a sense of merging with another. When it becomes clear that the beloved is not the same as oneself in important ways, then there may arise a kind of hatred or feelings of betrayal. The ease can shift sharply into dis-ease because one or both people feel they have been tricked or "sold a bill of goods" in having felt they were deeply befriended by the other. If instead couples know that idealization will always turn into disillusionment, at some point, then the side effects can be very much mediated or lessened.

When a partner cannot allow a difference to be expressed, especially something that is significant (emotionally, spiritually, politically) to the speaker, that partner has closed the gap and merged emotionally and psychologically. However, as we have seen, the pain that is caused by the difference is the discomfort that listeners have with their own feelings. The tolerance of difference between you and your beloved can only come from your equanimity with or acceptance of your own feelings. When you can hold that equanimity, you do not have to push and pull on your experience with your partner; you see the gap and you can let it be.

The "right size" gap is one in which you recognize that you and your beloved are truly and finally different people, each with your own worldview and meanings, and that you do not have to reflect each other like a mirror in which you look like the same person! In fact, it is impossible for you to have the same values, desires, styles, health, politics, and ideas—even if you have close approximations on some of these. We may all long for a twin, someone who is just like us but in a different body. That longing is one of the motivators for true love. We want to be embraced as an individual, but we make the mistake of believing that that would come from someone who is just like us. Even if your beloved is a close approximation of you on a number of levels, you will eventually come across some uncomfortable differences that illustrate how different you truly are. It is these differences, ironically, that allow you to truly miss your partner when your partner is absent. Whatever your partner brings to your life that is truly different from you is absent entirely when that person is gone. Seeing and accepting differences supports the mystery of true love. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke says in Letters to a Young Poet:

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest

people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-

side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the

expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always

seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.

Differences enhance the mystery of being together as long as the gap between you is big enough so that your partner doesn't seem to be a mirror reflection of you and small enough so that your partner doesn't feel like a stranger. When the gap is the right size, you can engage in dialogue—a two-way conversation—even during painful conflicts and differences. You are able to speak, with respect, to your equal and different partner, even about your most difficult or intimate emotional needs and feelings. And you are able to listen with respect and equanimity, even when your partner says things that deeply upset you.