The End is Near. . .

The End is Near…

…with all the dread and fear that goes with it. You hear yourself or your spouse spouting: I’m out of here. I don’t like you anymore. I want a divorce. Perhaps you haven’t said a thing, but you’re plotting your exit. There are all sorts of factors that go into discerning the rightness of dissolving a marriage or partnership. Without a doubt living with the misery that sets in between two people experiencing life on such intimate terms can become unbearable.

In my clinical practice, as well as in my own marriage, the word intimacy becomes the operative one. We tend to know more easily what sexually intimacy is all about, but that’s wrapped up in intellectual, spiritual, and emotional intimacy as well. Intimate relationships are confounding and finding ourselves lost in the complications of that reality can be scary. If you are considering leaving your committed relationship, think further. Maybe instead of moving out, and ostensibly away from all of the distress , consider your current crisis as an invitation to grow inward together toward greater understanding.

A mere 37,000,000 hits appear when you Google the words marriage healing; books and workshops abound. Poke around out there. With a little learning, you may find out, yeah, relationships are maddening, but it’s only the end of the world as you know it. As Michael Stipe wrote: …it starts with an earthquake [[and]. . . it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.