Photo by Miljan Živković - Getty Images
Couple ignoring each other - Getty Images
"I don't love my husband," Mary explained at our first counseling session.
"How long has that been the case?" I asked.
"At least as long as we've been married, and that's over 22 years," she replied.
"That's a long time to fool yourself, and him," I added. “How did you manage to make that work?”
“To pull the wool over my eyes, I kept changing the focus," she replied.
Mary explained that each time she began to realize the unwelcome truth about her marital disconnect, she quickly found some way to divert her attention, to mentally look the other way.
After the Wedding?
"A few months after the wedding, I looked at my husband and thought, 'No, I don't really love him.' The next day I stopped taking my birth control pills. In a couple months, I was pregnant," she told me.
"So having a child was a diversion?" I asked.
"I wanted kids anyway, so I had two, and they kept me focused on something besides the bitter truth about my marriage," she explained.
"How long did that work?"
"Oh, as a diversion kids can work a long time, like years. But when they grew older, that started to wear off, so I went for the next best smoke screen, a new house."
Nagging Disquiet
As her kids grew more independent, Mary's nagging disquiet about living a marital lie escalated. So, she spent many months finding the right lot, designing a new house, haggling with a contractor, fretting over the construction and, finally, moving in and decorating.
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"The dream house ate up at least two more years," she told me. “And when it started to wear off, I invented a succession of smaller distractions; a new car, a health and fitness craze, and then running for the school board."
"And now?" I asked.
"I've run out of decoys, and the old ones don't work well anymore. Even after all these years, what I really need is still there on the other side of my diversions," she replied.
"And what's that?"
"Love, the true kind," she said.
Facing Reality
Obviously, most people who have kids, build a house, or run for public office are not playing sleight of mind with themselves about a busted marriage. There is a difference between a true interest or avocation, and a look-the-other-way deflection.
But some do use such things to avoid looking at a reality they’d rather not face down. Couples who feel that unhappy truth closing in may rush to distract themselves with a new baby or house or another “look there, not here” pivot.
More than a few simply bury themselves in their separate, time-consuming careers. Sometimes there is more than economic necessity behind the "two career household."
Incredibly, some couples even use a wedding as a diversion. They decide to get married just when their initial attraction is ebbing, or when Mr. or Ms. Right begins looking like Mr. or Ms. Sort-Of-Okay or Not-So-Hot.
"I figured if we got married, that would refresh our love life," one woman confessed to me. "I guess the wedding helped me ignore the fact that our relationship was starting to feel a bit off."
But not for long. Eventually, diversions no longer divert, and when the smoke screens clear, these folks are left staring at the truth, whatever it may be. At such a moment, many rush to find another decoy.
But the truth never really goes away.
They do.
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