SAMPLE RELATIONSHIP TIP

Weekly Relationship Tips
An E Mail service from
Tim Connor, CSP
Speaker Trainer Author

Tip No 50: Closeness vs. distance.

You can be a million miles apart in the same bed and as close as the next heartbeat even though you are separated by miles or time. Have you ever had the experience of feeling really separated or far apart from your partner even though you were within touching distance? Have you ever felt really close to someone that you see infrequently? How can you explain this paradox? I have had both experiences in my life on more than one occasion and I have tried to determine the root of this closeness and distance. I don't have a definitive answer, but I think I am getting closer to the heart of the issue.

There are several types of closeness or distance. There is: physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and psychological. I have felt really close emotionally to someone yet a million miles apart sexually. I have felt a great valley of distance between a spouse spiritually yet a closeness in family or financial agendas. If you are in a relationship and do not feel close to your significant other in any of the above ways I suggest you consider its value to you on the path of life.

The real problem here is to be close in some ways and distant in others. For example if you have a greater need for more affection, emotional closeness or romance and your significant other has a greater need for more sex or physical closeness, you will never bridge this gap focusing on a totally unrelated common area in your relationship such as money, career or children. You will tend to bring the unresolved resentments, baggage, expectations, guilt etc. etc. into the other areas of your relationship. You may not do this consciously, but you will certainly do it unconsciously.

There are a number of causes to these feelings of distance and or closeness. They can be summarized in just 3.

1. Expectations. You want or expect a certain type of attitude, response, action, word, feedback from your spouse and it doesn't (hardly ever or never) comes. You have an expectation and are constantly disappointed. These unfulfilled expectations can lead to a variety of resentments, then anger and finally apathy.
2. Your needs and/or desires. Your significant other has no interest in knowing, understanding or satisfying some or any of your basic needs or wants.
3. Your needs, wants or expectations are unrealistic, and you therefore set yourself up for disappointment wherever you go and whomever you are with. Your responses to anything are not the responsibility of another person, just as their reactions are not your responsibility.

I overheard a woman recently in one of the breaks in my seminar say to her friend, "the passion is gone in our relationship." It gave me a thought. Passion is not in a relationship any more than fun is in a job. If there is no more passion in the relationship it is because there is no more passion in the two people in the relationship. A relationship doesn't have feelings or emotions, people in them have these things. So if there is distance or closeness in your relationship it is not because these are in the relationship but because they are in you.