marriage . . .are we close enough? What to expect.

All couples manage distance and pace.  That means couples, either explicitly or not, answer questions of how close is comfortably close and at what speed do we get there. 

Questions like: How close do we want to be, both physically and emotionally? Do you want more physical closeness than I do?  Do I like you physically near but not as emotionally close as you’d like? What does that even mean?! It can seem complicated and unsettling to confront these, especially since relationships initially don’t seem to need this sort of negotiation, in the early stage. 

So what is “a healthy distance and pace?”

In the field of relationship therapy, experts lean in slightly different directions.  Stan Tatkin’s PACT leans towards couples tending to each other, maintaining a physical and emotional closeness, a couple bubble, that sometimes seeks to heal each other’s relational, childhood wounding.  The Gottman Institute offers a framework for maintaining closeness that keeps partners from straying too far from one another but allows the couple themselves to discern their distance within that basic framework.  Terry Real's Relational Life Therapy suggests that cherishing each other is foundational and essential, but we are tasked individually to tend to our own emotional childhood wounding. 

Still, these therapies all build upon the notion that relationships require each person to individually grow.  Our unique psyches may have chosen our own special teacher for a curriculum tailored to our individual areas of growth and healing, and/or it may simply be that the basic inherent lessons of coupling are in front of us, begging us to consider questions about closeness and pace, while stretching to learn the answers.