Are you distancing yourself from your spouse? Or do you feel like your spouse becoming more distant from you?
Ron Deal from Family Life Blended discusses what happens when a couples begin to drift apart.
“Every relationship has a period of time, or maybe a moment in time where I’m the ‘distancer,’ and I’m kind of stepping away from my wife, and she’s pursuing, trying to figure out how do we resolve this, and then we’ll flip-flop and she’ll be the ‘distancer,’ and I’ll be the pursuer.
According to Ron, this phenomenon happens in most marriages. However, when it becomes a consistent pattern it poses a real threat.
“Picture a husband and wife sitting on a tandem bike, you’ve got one person on the back and they’re peddling pretty fast and their objective is to catch the person in front of them, and they are facing the other partner, trying to move toward them, but the spouse on the front, they are moving away from their spouse, they’re looking away from the spouse and they are emotionally disengaged.”
When the pursuer feels like their spouse is distant, a variety of emotions can result.
“Usually those are not good feelings, they might be feeling taken advantage of or taken for granted, not valued, not cherished by the other person.”
It can even manifest itself as anger or frustration, but in reality, the pursuer is dealing with feeling hurt, disconnected, and worried.
“What’s happening to us and our relationship? Do you not care? Am I more committed than you are? There asking lots of questions about this.”
It’s important for couples to be aware of this tendency to distance themselves from their spouse and look into their own hearts to evaluate if they have fallen into that trap.
If you find yourself distancing yourself from or pursuing your spouse, take a leap of faith and ask God to give you the courage to tell them how you feel. It might be the start of a whole new relationship and life together.
